While Australia might be a multicultural haven, complete with the nightly dilemma as to which restaurant to visit - Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Greek, Italian etc, as well as a seemingly endless number of denominations of religion (pick a God, any God), Indonesia is the reverse. There are more than 220 million inhabitants of this archipelago nation and despite the presence of Hindu temples and the occasional Catholic church, it is the Mosque that rules the skyline of almost every village, and Islam that rules the lives of perhaps 95% of the country.
For the most part there are just a few differences to the general flow of life that one needs to adapt to over here. The blaring cry of the call to prayer, boomed out from oversized PA systems is a charming alarm clock, at 4:30am, and then at multiple times during the day. Lunches are long as people must fit in a prayer or two (and I suspect a good kip) at the same time. Fridays are difficult as it is extra prayers on Friday, so not much gets done on Friday afternoons - even some major roads may be closed for an hour or so if they are too close to a large mosque at prayer time. All this would barely affect the carefree kayaker, except at during Ramadan. Every Muslim in the country (indeed the world), for the 30 days of Ramadan must fast between sunrise and sunset. No food, no water, no cigarettes, nothing is to be ingested all day, rain, hail or shine (well, shine, shine or shine!).
The swarm of villagers welcome us as we scrape our kayaks onto the pebbly, rubbish-strewn beach in front of our lunchtime destination. We wearily flop from the kayaks to the paparazzi snap of multiple mobile phones and the hounding questions - 'where are you going?', 'where are you from?' and 'how much is this little boat worth?' etc etc. After the inquisition we mention that we are tired and hungry and ask about whether any food is available in the village. The crowd falls silent as sunlight glints off the shiny domed roof of the tallest, biggest and most beautifully decorated building in the village.
"It is Ramadan, we are fasting." A hushed voice whispers from the crowd. Clearly we are not the only hungry ones here. The momentary awkwardness is broken as a friendly (and entrepreneurial) villager confidently steps forward and invites us to his shop. "I have food" he says, giving some extra sensory command to his mother who scrambles up a rickety ladder into the tiny house to prepare us a meal. We'll put up with the constant stares of the growing audience as we really need a good, hearty meal, fuel for our paddles.
Finally the ageing mother nimbly balances down the ladder, pots, plates and cutlery masterfully teetering as she descends. Like a chef in a fancy restaurant lifting the silverware to reveal today's speciality, Madame Villager raises the dinted aluminium lid to reveal…rice and two minute noodles! The very reason we even approached this village in the first place was that the meagre supplies remaining in our kayaks, and therefore the sole ingredients for our every meal for the last week, are almost exclusively just rice and two minute noodles. "Mmmm, enak (delicious)" we both proclaim loudly to the crowd as we tuck into our not so hearty meals.
Ramadan has made our last month more like a strict diet than a religious experience. We may have finally lost the excess kilos that we layered on before the Archipaddlo expedition began but we are fit, healthy, and looking forward to the post-Ramadan feast.
Photo: Lain checking whether the local 'supermarket' might be able to cook up a meal for us.
MasterChef Sumbawa style!! If you make it to Flores that's largely Catholic so you should be able to get a good feed there! But first you have to cross the Sape Strait (rough waters/strong currents according to Google) - and Komodo - which like Oz was settled by convicts......so you should feel right at home there!
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