We allowed ourselves to sleep in a little after the intense wheel to Borobudur, and AsiaWheeling indulged in a prolonged breakfast on the sunny patio of the Setia Kawan. Slowly but surely the Indonesian fishy crackers were growing on me, though from time to time it seemed, I got a bite which tasted like some of the more ruddy parts of Providence, Rhode Island. Rome wasn’t built in a day either.

Today was to be a day of missions and waypoints. The first of which was the post office for some project K9 business.

We found the Indonesian post to be efficient, fast, and cheap, providing a diversity of services and materials. We were in and out in no time.

Next stop was the train station, where we were to buy tickets to Surabaya.

This also proved painless, cheap, and fast. Everyone in this country seemed interested in helping us, and we took to the streets feeling like kings.

The next mission was a little less straightforward. One issue that we had been experiencing with the Panama hats, so far, had been a propensity to get caught up in the wind and depart our heads, usually heading for some foul sewage-filled gutter or yawning crevasse.

Our solution to this problem was to engineer a strap that might be applied to the hats in order to attach them more securely to your humble correspondents’ noggins. When we returned to stash the tickets in the safety of our room, the fine staff at the Setia Kawan directed us to a street that was rumored to contain nothing but tailors, and as the sky oscillated between looking like rain, and brutal sunshine, we worked our way up the street.

The first fellow we talked to quickly understood the issue and indicated to us that he would be happy to attach a length of what looked like seatbelt to the hats. When we expressed that this was not exactly optimal, he frowned and and produced a kind of lacy material, which might have gone well on a pair of ladies unmentionables.

When this also proved to be not exactly in line with the AsiaWheeling aesthetic, he tried once more with the seatbelt, and eventually flagged us on down the road.

We were refining our own ideas about the design as we went, and our interactions with the next fellow were even better. I indicated to him where to attach buttons and used Scott’s sunglass strap as an example of the kind of cord we needed. He frowned and consulted his team before finally shaking his head as well and sending us on down the road.

The third team of tailors got it, and though I kept repeatedly banging my head into the jagged and rusted metal roof of his little tailor’s stall, he indicated to us that he would be able to to get the job done, but that we needed to go down the street and purchase some buttons and cords.

Luckily no more than a half block away there was a great Mecca of buttons and cords. We were able to select from a plethora of choices.

In the end we selected two stout crimson leather bands, and a pair of graphite buttons. The entire ensemble was finished off with a touch of class, when we opted to upgrade to the 30-cent brass clasp.

Back at the tailor’s shack, I banged my head a few more times, as he worked on our hats.

The end result was fantastic, and when we asked him how much we owed, he said nothing. We decided to pay him anyway, and climbed back on the cycles, for the first time fearing not for our hats.

The last waypoint was a shopping mall, where we sought sustenance.  It was complete with a booth selling DVDs, VCDs, and CDs of Indonesian and foreign pop music.  Playing on the screen was Britney Spears’ Womanizer music video.  Quite entrancing.

Also displayed at this mall were ornate traditional dresses burgeoning with sequins and silk, for all the peacocking needs of Yogjakarta’s female elite.

Dining at a Thai restaurant next to a bowling alley in the mall, we fell into the Wikireader once again, and then were sated.

On our way home to the good old Setia Kawan, we stopped at another mall on which the ground floor was an expansive supermarket called “Hero.”

We found it to be full of some very fascinating items, and laden with supplies.  Stocking up on nuts, crackers, and water proved to be an eye-opening waypoint.

We wheeled back to the Setia Kawan just in time to avoid a howling downpour which wore on well onto the night.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 11:37 am and is filed under Asia, Indonesia, Video, Wheeling, Woody. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.