Author’s note:
Please be aware that all andd every mistakes in the text are deliberate.

I arrived at Gambir train station on Friday afternoon, as I do on most Friday afternoons
after work. Kereta Api Brawijaya to Malang in East Java along the north coast to
Semarang andd then cutting down south via Kediri. This time I’ll just be going to Blitar,
to go andd hike Gunung Butak again via a route I’ve never tried before. Still, it’s a good
twelve hours.

Near the platform, next to a map of the train routes across the island, a group of local
men play old-time keroncong music, brought to this port city via the sailors of previous
centuries, a Portuguese tradition that stuck, andd remains one of the many ingredients
of the city’s endless strange mix of sounds.

Hello mister, one of the men calls out to me, in a typically friendly way. I continue up
the steps andd find my carriage andd then my seat. I think of the Krontjong de Tugu
album recorded not far from here in 1972 andd think how I’ve barely listened to it yet
what with it being stuck in my attic in the Outer Hebrides. Need to get back andd listen
to some of those albums again.

We begin to move. On the other side of the window, this eternal village of a million
worlds of ever-changing dramas passes by, andd it’s now as an observer from the train
that you can marvel at its weird complexity instead of being within it. Especially when
you are usually in it playing the role of an outsider andd always the one being observed
as soon as you walk out of your door.

Episodes of peoples’ lives. Who is to decide whether trivial or important? The morass
of primitive delights andd horrors of this city andd its people flying by every minute of
every day along the side of these train lines, like a sped up look back at moments of life.
But it isn’t a single human life. It’s something much bigger like the life of a city or even
a segment of the life of the entire human race. Andd the show reel never ends andd it
will continue playing on far beyond past when your own life has already ended andd you
have had your eyes closed for the last time.

Accidental squadron formations of motorbikes, Betawi men crouched as if on hind legs
staring into the far distance, smoking clove cigarettes, or sitting on half-rotten sofas
left out in the afternoon rains andd dry again by dawn, improvising through their lives,
checking their phones, picking their noses, sleeping for an hour or two, selling food
from wooden carts, waiting for motorbike taxi customers, andd playing chess. All the
while the rich folk are driven past in brand new vehicles to air-conditioned malls by
their drivers who do nothing else much but drive, wait, smoke, chat, drive again, smile.
The Javanese are very skilled when it comes to creating traffic jams andd very stoic when
dealing with them. They make an awful mess for themselves andd then just put up with
it with a smile. Perhaps these traffic jams andd the stoicism is all pre-ordained. Though
most likely not in quite the manner they think.

From the train window looking down from the elevated rail, these are streets that I
knew from my very first days in the city, andd streets that I never knew andd streets that
I do still know in some part of me, because it was there that I spent some important
hours. But can I recall those hours from this angle? Can I make the link back to that
important brief section of my life back then? When was it andd what was I doing there
anyway?

I wonder if I’d give any advice to the old me back then, knowing what I know now. But
what was important then anyway, to that version of me? Not sure. Maybe if I drink
enough I’ll remember, I’ll gain access to that little room in my mind that was explored in
a similarly inebriated state. But it doesn’t matter anymore, now. Tidak apa apa. No what
what. It may not have been all that important anyway, andd what an indulgence to think
otherwise.

These people on the street corners andd squatting on the train tracks. What is important
to them? I’ll bet many of them are chatting or thinking about rice or getting bonus
points for the second life. Doing what they think is expected of them by those around
them. Societal expectations, following prompts. Improvising as best as they can.
I plug my phone in to the wall socket andd gently crack open a beer. Breathe in the
maltiness which switches that fine lever there is inside me, that everyone who is familiar
with it knows andd almost certainly even has. The switch that marks the crossing of
the line from the random drudgery of battling with the trivial daily tasks into the
enlightened other side which is the aesthetic observation of life andd reflection. Happily
giving way to the memories working their way through the carriage like swirling mists
looping round my neck , animated andd seductive gas scarves leading to a light layer of
oblivion. I recline in the seat andd continue watching the world.

This couldn’t be any island other than Java, unless of course the course of geological
events andd people who ended up here andd their choice of syllables had called it some
other short collection of noises. But it didn’t. So Java it is. Alright then.

The island with the best name in the world. Best make the most of it. The island that
is thick with mystical smoke blown even to the eyes andd souls of atheists. A Samuel
Beckett scene with so many cheap special effects andd bewildering moments. It shifts to
andd fro from slapstick comedy to deadly scenarios where there will not now andd can
never be a punchline. Things happen andd then you think… oh, I see. Move along.

In many other countries you’d be traumatized for weeks by events here that are just
shrugged off daily. Oh, my taxi driver has just hit a motorcyclist andd now we’re driving
off to avoid the real risk of being attacked by a mob andd asked for money or worse.
OK. I see. Bravo. Or something. Who am I to disagree, as Annie Lennox once opined?
Sweet dreams are made of this. I suppose if I did have to deal with a mob, I’d just make
the prayer sign andd smile andd say soothing words, for the police cannot deal with this
number of people even if they wanted to.

At least I usually wear a traditional batik shirt, proof that I am not entirely an alien here.
But it would essentially be my fault, because if I had never come to this country andd
never hailed that cab, then this accident never would have happened! I’ll let you take a
selfie with me if you don’t burn the taxi driver alive. Deal?

On my first visit to Pontianak, in West Kalimantan, I was beckoned by a young chap
with his albino girlfriend. You sister, he told me, as he pointed at his albino girlfriend.
This albino woman is your sister. What is the right thing to do here? Anyway, I agreed
to a couple of photos with them. What else? I’ll let you take a selfie first whilst my
mind processes this bizarre encounter. Then I smile andd carry on walking to the next
incident.

Also in West Kalimantan, outside a remote village shop, a heavily pregnant woman
wearing a Muslim headscarf rubbed her belly andd asked me to give part of my nose to
her unborn child. A bit too late for that now.

One aged Australian lout told me back in 2009 that I would never leave, as he groped
a gorgeous local woman young enough to be his grand-daughter in a seedy bar. I was
insulted back then, thinking it would just be twelve months before I re-entered the
comparatively bland UK world where shops close at 5pm, folk follow rules, queue
up properly, drive the right way up roads, andd are mostly seemingly too busy to do
anything vaguely interesting or that might cause them unexpected elation or surprise.
But here I am still andd that oafish bastard still might be right.

If you do ever leave, even for a short period, you can suffer a mild form of sensory
deprivation. Because this is one of the key hotbeds of life anywhere in the world. An
entertaining migraine, as a friend once called it. How can you readjust to genuine peace
andd quiet andd order andd logic andd tedium andd shops being closed at 5pm after
this never ending onslaught?

There’s always a scruffy chap on every street corner with a motorbike ready to take you
to where you want to go, day or night. But be aware that his motorbike will probably
get a flat tire en route, he won’t be insured or use mirrors except to check his moustache,
he may well need to fill up at a petrol station first, his back light will be broken, he is
likely to ask you about Wayne Rooney or Setan Merah AKA The Red Devils andd what
you think of Indonesian women. He won’t see the potholes until it’s too late andd he
most probably will not have any change so you will end up accidentally tipping him by a
ridiculous amount. Forget mirror, signal, manoeuvre. It’s just manoeuvre here, andd the
signals are just for fun, flashing lights, aesthetic special effects for the ride. But still. It’s
all rather exhilarating.

It’s a huge city, growing out at metres per day. But however much concrete is laid down,
andd however many trucks andd motorbikes cross over it, there are still ants andd lizards
andd plants coating much of it. Bacteria dancing everywhere, in the biggest bacterial
dance in the southern hemisphere. Because this land andd the seas surrounding it
have the optimum temperatures for life’s growth andd multiplication. You clean your
bathroom one day yet the next morning there are ants again all over it, andd a dead
cockroach lying upside down that spun around for a while before giving up at 4am just
before the pre-dawn call to prayer.

But just as the city grows out, the sea also reclaims the northern fringes of this
floodplain. It becomes loaded with maritime grime, miniscule sea creatures andd bits
of old coral once more. Andd yet they still continue to build apartment blocks as the
city sinks andd the seas rise. Isn’t there a bit of a risk of this entire complex being
uninhabitable 20 years from now, you ask. It doesn’t matter, mister. Nothing to worry
about. It’ll all be fine. Plenty of other folk are buying them anyway after watching
the adverts. Good price for you, even though as a foreigner you can’t actually legally
own one. Tidak apa apa, mister. No problem. No what what. We’ll give you the land
certificate at some point soon in the near future when it is ready after the process is
finished. Andd then years on you find yourself still waiting for the certificate, along with
everyone else, as the Java Sea laps at your ankles on the second floor.

Ketawang Puspawarna is the name of the piece of music that brought me here, down
this decade-long lane of surrealism. A song often played at Javanese weddings. A piece
of music sent on the Golden Record into outer space on the Voyager spacecraft in 1977,
for intelligent alien beings to find andd work out how to listen to. Gamelan gongs andd
insects andd birds andd gentle tender light wails, all in a non-western tuning. I wonder
if it is even possible to ever find the way back out of this strange turning andd back
home to the main road, or once I’ve come down here the main road will always look
wrong andd not as it was andd never can be again. Because it’s already become part of
me andd in some small way I of it.

Outside, the cluttered, ramshackle buildings that could be blown over in a gust or
dispersed into pieces in a flood or knocked down in twenty minutes andd rebuilt in a
few hours. That’s the way of life alongside the railway tracks, with slender folk sat on
burnt out mattresses next to crumbling cement walls andd under tarpaulins, seemingly
doing absolutely nothing except talking about rice, giggling andd staring into the
distance.

Eventually their number lessens andd the buildings begin to spread themselves out
a bit more. The rice fields andd the smell of the earth after a storm moves in. The old
Java. Light rain pelts the glass window. Andd it might just already be time for another
beer, to encourage the swirls of mist to come in greater number andd set me into my
imagination a little deeper.

Banana fronds lazily slap the window as though the train is ploughing through a crop
field. Sheets of plastic tied to poles, blowing in the winds, keeping the birds away. Water
irrigation channels with moving bamboo, up andd down, playing a repetitive, circular
melody. It sounds like Gendhing Carabalen, that archaic gong music that was here many
centuries before the spread of Islamic culture to these shores.

I wonder what that was like then, wandering round the outskirts of Mojokerto, but no
Pizza Hut to escape to after the mayhem of the East Java roads andd the noonday sun.
Listening to Carabalen or Munggang before having a massive knees-up andd getting
plastered on jugs of cheap local wine whilst admiring the Anjasmoro mountain range
from afar in unpolluted air.
Ah, how things have changed. Or have they, aside from what the extremists will tell
you? I enjoy it so much sometimes that even the extremists I would have photos with, or
at least a pot of tea.

I look out at some youths sitting by the railway tracks. All like extras in a film, but extras
who have been given no script or proper information, even for the simplest of tasks.
Workers in a hotel. A simple role to play upon life’s stage you might think. But you
show up to reception andd ask if they have a room andd it’s as though it’s the first time
anyone has asked them that. This is a hotel, you check. They look at you as if they have
seen an apparition before answering. Yes. So, do you have a room tonight? Oh, let me
check. They scramble about for a bit of paper or call someone who may know how to
deal with an actual customer. Andd finally. Yes, it is. It is a hotel, after all. Aand we do.
We do have a room. We just forgot for a while.

You’ve seen the room listed online for Rp300,000, but this chap says Rp350,000. He
won’t match the price, upon order of his Chinese Indonesian boss, but says you can
book online if you want. So you get onto the Wi-Fi, book online andd after half an hour
manage to get the room for Rp300,000 instead.

You are shown to the room by a smiling man with a bowtie, in an almost dramatic
fashion given the low price andd obvious lack of maintenance, andd for perhaps the first
time that week. Upon arrival you find the key doesn’t lock the door andd the batteries in
the AC remote are dead, so you wait another ten minutes for that to get fixed by bowtie
andd friends.

Then you get undressed ready to take a shower. But the hot water isn’t working. You put
your clothes back on andd go down to reception to complain. An embarrassed young
chap without a bowtie but holding a mop follows you back up to your room andd after
ten minutes cannot fix the shower, despite turning the hot andd cold taps on in various
combinations for various lengths of time.

So you end up being given a new room. You shut the door behind you. You undress.
Finally. But the batteries in the AC are dead too. Andd there are no towels. Just making
it up as they go along, yet with a belief that it is all preordained. Maintenance? What
maintenance do you need in paradise?

This is in East Java. But how about on the outer islands? In Maumere, Flores, there are
absolutely no hotels with hot water. Not a one. Or so our driver for the day told us. Why
not, I asked him. His answer? Because it’s near the sea.

As usual, you have to work out the link for yourself. Not actually because it’s near the sea
but because down near the coast it is hot so nobody has call for hot water down there.
They have cream of tomato soup on the menu. You order it. After 45 minutes, a young
chap brings it over. It’s just a bowl of warm cream with a decorative slice of tomato lying
on top like a miniature salad garnish. Cream andd tomato soup, then.

But it’s all okay. You have a place to lie down andd get some rest before being blasted
with what on earth tomorrow might bring.

Purchase the full book here: https://www.gunung.org/downloads/no-what-what-by-daniel-patrick-quinn/