Excerpt from Chapter One
Indonesian Adventure

continued:

Before long, I bought a Honda motorcycle (to the dismay of my parents) and felt eager to wander and explore every corner of Yogya. The walled city surrounding the Kraton, the huge palace of the Sultanate of Yogya where people have lived for centuries, became one of my favorite haunts. Riding my motorcycle through the narrow white-walled streets late at night, I often imagined the saronged generations that had walked these lanes. I would usually end up near the palace, in an ancient square dominated by a pair of enormous three-hundred-year-old trees. Many Indonesians gather here, attracted by a popular legend that it is impossible to walk a straight line between the trees blindfolded because of fairies who like to trick humans and lure them astray. At night, determined Indonesians blindfold themselves and try to march a straight line; I would join them, taking slow steady steps, resolved to remain straight. I always thought I succeeded until I took off my blindfold and saw that I was far off to one side, sometimes even having made a near circle. I couldn't help but develop a bit of faith in fairy power.

When I wasn't walking around blind-folded, I spent time with my friends: Sophie, a witty teacher also from Princeton; Matt, a rugged Australian graduate student; and Lusi, a bubbly Indonesian college sophomore. The four of us were quite nocturnal and passed many a night singing karaoke down in Sosrowijian (the tourist area of Yogya), lounging in my garden gazing at the stars, and riding our motorcycles out to nearby Prambanan, a Hindu monument built in 900 A.D. On our way to Prambanan, Matt would provide us with a lot of entertainment, Australian-style, as he popped wheelies and yahooed through the silent rice fields. For all-night Javanese culture, we went to the wayang kulit performances in the Kraton.

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