“Meeting the Boy”: Solo Trip to Thailand and Indonesia
October 2018
Normally these posts are written in the third person. This one isn’t. It’s personal, and I’m going to write it that way.
After a lovely summer in Vancouver, Kathy flew back to Oro Valley, Arizona, leaving me to finish out the tourism season in Vancouver and then head off on a “once in a lifetime” trip.
We’ve had a number of “once in a lifetime” trips. This one was different because I got to meet, in person, the foster child I’d sponsored back in the late 1990s.
Hasrianto ChenKo Blessley
Hasrianto, “Anto,” turned 30 in September 2018.
I’d contributed to his welfare, and his family’s, from about the time he was six until he was fourteen. At that point the sponsoring organization announced they were moving on. Whether Anto had “aged out,” whether their work was done, or whether they were simply leaving his island behind, we never really knew.
Foster Parents Plan (now Plan International) sent me a letter (Internet? What Internet?) saying they were done with “little” Anto and asking whether I’d like to sponsor another child.
No, actually.
I’d spent years caring about this one specific kid. I wasn’t looking for a replacement. Also, “sponsor another child” reads a bit like “would you like fries with that?”
That was that. Or so I thought.
About ten years later, a message request popped up on Google+. The name looked familiar, but I had to squint at it: “Hasrianto… who is that?”
Then it clicked. And my last name is uncommon enough that I’m not hard to find.
It was Anto.
Over a decade after the sponsorship ended, he’d reached out and found me.
At first the relationship was simple, like pen pals starting over. Where I lived. What my life looked like. What his life looked like. Over time we got to know each other far better than we ever could have through two letters a year.
Eventually the idea of meeting in real life came up.
I was around 58 at the time, so we floated the idea of meeting for my 60th birthday. The timing didn’t work out (I don’t remember why), so the target shifted to his 30th.
Planning the route (and cutting it down)
My first draft itinerary was the kind of ambitious I used to do on business travel: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Laos, and more.
Reality intervened: flight costs, limited availability, and a trip that was already complicated enough. Kathy was instrumental in getting the flights nailed down, and we tried multiple variants: Taipei, Singapore, skipping Chiang Mai (both Bangkok and Chiang Mai are old haunts for me).
What I ended up with was simpler: Bangkok, Bali, and Sulawesi. Selayar Island is just south of South Sulawesi, where Anto is from.
I wasn’t especially interested in Bali. Kathy and I had already been there several times. But Bali has a first-class airport and it sits in the right place geographically between Thailand and Sulawesi.
So after more than a year of planning and date negotiation, I boarded an EVA Air flight from Vancouver to Taipei in the wee hours of October 4, connecting onward to Bangkok.
Bangkok
I love Bangkok. It’s big, it’s chaotic, it’s foreign… and it still feels familiar.
Back when I worked for Ascend Communications as a telecom consultant, I was in Singapore often, sometimes eight times a year. If a trip spanned a weekend, I’d hop up to Bangkok. It was cheaper than Singapore and far less sterile, and my company was perfectly happy as long as the math worked.
I figure I’ve been to Bangkok about fifty times. Fifty-one now.
This time I tried to push myself slightly outside my routine. I still revisited old favorites, but I stayed in a different part of town, Chinatown, and signed up for a food tour and a bike tour.
Biking in Bangkok sounds like a suicide mission. This tour was a “backroads” route run out of the suburbs, and it was great fun.
The week went quickly. Vancouver and Bangkok are about 14 time zones apart, so jet lag took a couple of days. Then I was off to Bali.
Tulamben
Tulamben sits on the northeast side of Bali, about a 2.5-hour drive from Denpasar.
There isn’t much “there” there. The big draw is the World War II-era shipwreck, the USS Liberty.
I stayed at Tulamben Dive Resort, which I’d recommend. But unless you’re truly eating and breathing scuba, it’s easy to get bored. I ate almost every meal at their café because there wasn’t much else within walking distance. You can get a massage, of course. This is Bali. There’s always a massage.
I shortened my stay by a day and moved to Seminyak.
Seminyak
Seminyak is Bali’s upscale destination. At least, that’s the marketing.
In practice it was overrun with Australians. I have nothing against Australians. I was just less delighted with the behavior of some of the younger ones.
I found a few good meals and some decent beach time. I was still happy to move on.
Makassar
Why would anyone go to Makassar, Indonesia?
It’s a port city and shipping center. It’s not ugly, but it isn’t charming either. The real reason to go is that it’s a transit hub for Sulawesi and nearby islands, including Anto’s.
Because a lot of flights in and out run only once a day, Anto and I ended up passing through Makassar multiple times. It was fine. I wouldn’t plan a vacation around it.
Tana Toraja
My true intent in flying to eastern Indonesia was to meet Anto and his family. But let’s be honest: a 17,500-mile trip (one way) benefits from additional justification.
Indonesia has hundreds of distinct cultures. The Toraja are among the more famous, and relatively accessible.
So Anto and I made an elaborate plan: I’d fly into Makassar. He’d take a ferry from Selayar. Then we’d meet and do a land tour of Tana Toraja.
Which we did.
Selayar
Selayar doesn’t offer much to most visitors beyond beaches and scuba diving. There’s a world-class marine park, Taka Bonerate, but lodging there is primitive and the cost and logistics of liveaboard diving put it out of reach for this trip.
I wasn’t there for resorts. I was there to see Anto’s island, meet his family, and get a sense of the place he comes from. Selayar is roughly 80 km north to south and about 20 km east to west. You can explore it without feeling like you’ve moved in.
Then it was time to start the long trip home. Again.
Sanur
You can’t fly just anywhere from Makassar. If you’re headed to a major destination, you often transit.
So for the second time on the trip I flew into Denpasar. This time I stayed in Sanur, a smaller town where Kathy and I stayed on our first Bali trip.
Despite growing up, it still had a small-town feel.
I visited the Tanjung Sari Hotel where Kathy and I once stayed. It was still lovely.
Vancouver (and home)
I’d been on the road for a month.
Overall it was a brilliant trip, and for Anto it came with a number of firsts: meeting his foster dad, seeing a completely different part of Indonesia, and taking his first and second airplane flights.
But I was ready to go home.
After a couple of days in Sanur, I flew to Taipei and onward to Vancouver, returning on November 4, 2018.