One Year Away

Joseph

I guess traveling overland in slow buses gave me a bit too much time to think.  But recently I’ve been wondering why people in one region seem friendlier than those of another.  We’ve met friendly people in every country we’ve visited on this trip but there are definitely some places where people are more open, inviting, hospitable and willing to help strangers.  More than that these “friendly” people seem genuinely happy to meet visitors and communicate in whatever way they can, even if that’s just a smile or handshake.

Take the Indonesians we’ve met in Kalimantan on the island of Borneo; they are probably the friendliest people we’ve met on our trip so far.  From the moment we leave our hotel room we are made to feel like honoured guests wherever we go.  There’s hardly a person we walk by on the street who doesn’t make eye contact and smile while saying, “Hello Mister” to me or “Hello Misses” to Penny.  You’d think we were celebrities the way that people go out of their way to greet us and talk to us, occasionally strangers come up to shake our hand.  Coming from a city where people passing each other do their best to avoid eye contact this can be disconcerting.  Here, even people whizzing by on motorcycles yell out a, “Hello Mister” when they see us.

The friendliness of people we meet is often just their natural curiosity at seeing a rare Orang Asing (foreigner) in their town.  But many times it is a genuine desire to be helpful and make sure that we have a good stay in their part of the world.

Yesterday we went for lunch at a local restaurant where we ordered some nasi goreng (fried rice) and mie kuwah (noodle soup).  As we sat down to wait a woman who was eating with her husband and young son leaned over and greeted us.  We had a short conversation limited by the few Indonesian words we know and her beginner English; Where are you from? Canada.  How long are you in Indonesia?  Almost 4 weeks.  Are you on business or vacation?  Honeymoon and we show our fake rings.  Then we asked her a few questions about the food and we each returned to our meals.  As the family left they all waved at us and walked around down the street.  Then the waiter excitedly pointed after them and smiled broadly; they had paid for our meal!

We were in the town of Bangarmasin on the east coast of Kalimantan where there are no bars or nightlife to speak of.  So in the evening, Penny and I saw a video rental store and went in to see if we could get a movie to play on our laptop.  The clerk was nothing like the bored clerks you see at Blockbuster.  She looked happy to see us and did her best to communicate with us in a mixture of Indonesian and English.  Having rented a movie once before in Indonesia we knew it was possible for foreigners to do if we provided a large cash deposit.  But in a typical example of local hospitality she insisted that we would rent the movies on her personal membership card and would take no deposit.  The only thing she knew about us was that we were Canadian and were staying at a nearby hotel.

The towns of east Kalimantan are nothing to write home about, but the friendly people who live in them are.  All the friendly faces and kind acts can make even dull places like this enjoyable.  So I haven’t figured out what makes people in one region friendlier than others but if you want to see for yourself or just want to see what it must feel like to be a celebrity then Kalimantan is a great place to visit.