Video games, lifting, Japanese anime and live action stuff, learning Japanese, dating girls, hanging with friends, reading here and there.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Oh, wait… you mean paste the story? Haha!
Shit, I could, but it’s looooooong. Had to be split up into three parts when I submitted to TC all those years ago. And it’s nearly 3 in the morning here right now. Maybe tomorrow.[/quote]
Do it.[/quote]
I’d read the shit out of that.
Sigh.
All right.
My readers have spoken.
Lost in Tiger Country
“You should not go into the jungle,” Ibu Darmadi cautioned me sternly. “Disana ada banyak harimau.”
Even with my pitiful Indonesian, I got the message: “lots of tigers there.”
I could hardly wait.
Fearful Symmetry
The Sumatran tiger is the runt of the species, far more compact than his Siberian and Indian cousins, but is nonetheless not a cat to be trifled with. What he lacks in size, he more than makes up for in intelligence and cunning.
I’ve spoken to a veteran tiger handler in Los Angeles who said that he would rather face five Bengal tigers than one Sumatran. They are the Irish of the feline world, he told me. Quick and feisty, with a mean, almost vindictive streak.
It’s said that the tigers will only attack you from behind, and that the natives of the island of Mentawai deal with the problem by wearing wooden masks of human faces on the back of their heads when they trek in the jungle. Supposedly this works. It certainly couldn’t hurt, however I also have heard reports that the cats are catching on.
The tigers, now severely endangered, had been enjoying an upswing in population when I visited Sumatra in 1991. I was told that the reason for this was the Indonesian government’s transmigrasi program, whereby poor farmers from overcrowded Java were settled on sparsely-populated patches of Sumatra. To the tigers, this influx of fresh protein was manna from heaven, and many a stripy feline dined gratefully on the newcomers’ goats and water buffalos, and sometimes on the newcomers themselves.
And here I was, about to enter their domain. I doubt that Ibu Darmadi actually gave a rat’s ass about my safety, but I was, after all, escorting her only daughter Yasmin into the jungle. She probably also figured that putting me on my guard against man-eating predators would dampen my enthusiasm for any predatory behavior of my own.
Yasmin was nineteen years old, a slender, very pretty girl with pale skin, almond eyes and glistening dark brown hair that cascaded down to her waist. She spoke about as much English as I spoke Indonesian, which was not too much, but we had spent the last three days together having a wonderful time romping around her hometown of Bukittinggi.
Yasmin’s father was Hokkien Chinese, and ran a little restaurant on Jalan A. Yani. I had eaten there a few times. The food was pretty good, with the exception of the chicken in tomato sauce, which had some very peculiar-looking, decidedly non-avian bones in it. Plus, whereas most unfamiliar meats taste vaguely like chicken, this, which purported to be chicken, curiously did not. I cannot say for sure what was in this dish, but I can certainly speculate. I hope I was mistaken: I generally enjoy eating pussy… but not literally.
But I digress.
Ngarai Sianok, the Grand Canyon of Sumatra, and Graveyard of the Toyotas.
Yasmin wanted to show me the Ngarai Sianok, a beautifully verdant canyon outside the city. Looking out over the canyon, we could see the twin volcanoes Gunung Marapi and Gunung Singgaling in the distance, skirted in lush rain forest and veiled in cloud. I knew that Mt. Marapi was highly active, and local wisdom was that it would blow its top at any time. Naturally, I wanted to climb it.
We walked along the lip of the gorge, then scampered down the steep side. Surefooted as a mountain goat, Yasmin in her little pink flip-flops easily stayed ahead of me in my Vietnam jungle boots, but I was enjoying the view so much (not only of the canyon, but also of her in her thin tank top and very short cutoff jeans) that I didn’t mind a bit.
Down at the bottom we walked along the shallow river, where a number of Indonesians were tossing bowling ball-sized chunks of stone into the back of a battered blue Toyota pickup truck.
“What are they going to use the rocks for?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “To build houses with, I guess.”
I considered how many pickup loads of rock it would take to build a decent-sized (by Indonesian standards) house, and wondered how many prospective house-builders and their overladen vehicles had careened off the side of the narrow road and tumbled into the canyon. More than a few, if the rusted and mangled truck carcasses we saw littering the riverbed were any indication.
The noonday sun was scorching, and I was drenched with sweat as we made our way back up the side of the gorge. Yasmin seemed totally unaffected by the heat. “We should be careful,” she said as we walked back through the jungle. “The tigers usually hunt at night, but not always.”
We took a side trip to see the Lobang Jepang, which is a network of manmade caves dug into the mountains during the Second World War. Hundreds of Sumatrans had lost their lives digging these caves for the Japanese Imperial Army, Yasmin told me bitterly. Afterwards, the complex had been used as ammunition dumps, bunkers and an internment center for prisoners of war.
Before we reached the main entrance of the underground complex we came upon a number of small caves which had been half-heartedly boarded up, with signs warning us “Bahaya! Dilarang Masuk!” (“Danger! Do Not Enter!”). Needing little more encouragement than this, Yasmin and I slipped through the large gap between the boards and entered one of the caves.
I had brought along a flashlight, the one that normally rode on the handlebars of my mountain bike, but the utter darkness of this cave swallowed its pathetic little beam like a flat beverage. I had thought the cave would peter out after the first few meters, but it kept going deeper and deeper into the mountain. I began to wonder if any of the “banyak harimau” I had been warned against were using this particular cave as a crash pad.
Yasmin was evidently having similar musings, because I felt her cool, smooth little hand slip into mine, and heard her whisper breathlessly, “saya takut…”
“I’m afraid.”
I have a hypothesis that in the brains of higher primate males, there exists a neural pathway, perhaps originating in the hypothalamus or the amygdala, that responds exclusively to the presence of a pretty female in distress.
Rather than causing a release of epinephrine for the so-called “fight-or-flight” response, however, this neural network directly simulates the testes to unleash a gush of testosterone, which in turn leads one to believe that he can easily take on an entire regiment of Nazi soldiers (Indiana Jones), three hungry tyrannosaurs (Kong), or a whole cave full of Sumatran tigers (me) in order to protect the damsel at his side.
I smiled in the dark and gave her hand a squeeze. “Don’t be afraid,” I said, a lot more bravely than I had any right to be, “I’m right here.”
In the Forests of the Night
That evening we returned to the restaurant, un-devoured by tigers, and with Yasmin’s virtue more or less still intact. It was here that I met Benny, who was reputed to be a hotshot mountain-climber and guide. He would take me to the peak of Gunung Marapi, he said, for only 30,000 rupiah (about twelve U.S. dollars at the time). We negotiated a bit, and eventually agreed on 20,000, including the ride out to the base of the mountain.
The best time to climb the mountain, he said, was at night, so that one could see the sunrise from the peak. If we hurried, we could leave that very evening and make it to the summit by morning. I bid goodnight to Yasmin and followed Benny up Jalan A. Yani to the old clock tower, where we piled into the back of his friend’s old pickup. It was strewn with burlap sacks and tools, and had the distinct aroma of goats about it.
We drove for about an hour outside of town, the road cutting across rice paddies glittering in the moonlight. Ahead of us I could faintly make out the imposing shadow of the mountain.
Benny’s friend stopped the truck by a nondescript dirt track, and we dismounted, pausing to watch the vehicle disappear back down the road. I glanced up at the volcano.
“Eight hours until dawn,” Benny said, shining his flashlight on his watch. “Let’s go.”
It was an easy hike for the first four hours, the trail easy to follow through the dark greenery. Benny and I chatted amiably, our conversation interrupted only when we had to pull ourselves over the occasional patches of rugged and overgrown terrain. Eventually we fell into silence as the trail became progressively steeper and wilder. An hour later, however, Benny stopped.
“What’s up?” I asked, shining the thin beam of my flashlight at him.
Benny’s face was dripping with sweat, and he seemed out of breath. He fished in his pockets, coming up with a pack of Gudang Garams. A wooden match briefly flared, casting an orange glow over the foliage. Through the clear night air came the sickly-sweet aroma of smoldering cloves. I looked down. We were standing in a patch of undergrowth that looked very much unlike what I would call a trail.
“Let me guess,” I said sardonically, “we’re lost.”
“We went off the trail,” he admitted. “I think we should go a little further, see if it clears up ahead.”
This seemed like a bad idea to me. If we had gone off the trail, pressing on further would only make us more lost. It made more sense to retrace our steps and pick up the trail where we had left it. We argued for a while, until Benny reluctantly agreed to give my idea a try.
In a matter of only ten minutes, we had regained the trail, and I was inclined to forgive my guide for getting us lost. After all, it was dark, and the trails were heavily overgrown. Then the same thing happened again. And again.
I began to come to an uncomfortable realization: this man was incompetent. He was no more qualified to be a jungle guide than I was. Less so, in fact, because he was in terrible shape, getting winded on relatively gentle inclines, losing his step easily on the rough patches, incessantly smoking those damned clove cigarettes.
Finally we came to a bend in the trail, underneath a rock outcrop. I suggested we take a rest, which Benny enthusiastically agreed to. I watched him as he attempted to build a fire, striking match after match against the small pile of damp sticks and leaves he had collected from the forest floor.
Sighing, I set off up the hill to gather dry wood and tinder.
At last, the fire was started, and we sat in its flickering warmth. Benny pulled out his pack of Garams and lit one up, the tenth one I’d seen him smoke in the past hour.
“I’m sorry,”, he said, sucking on his kretek and coughing. “I don’t know why I’m so out of breath.”
Christ, I thought, casting a disdainful glare at Benny’s wheezing form in the firelight, I should have come up here with Yasmin instead. She’d be far more pleasant company right about now, and I’ll bet you dollars to durians that she could kick this bozo’s sorry ass all the way up this goddamn hill.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, smiling at him through clenched teeth.
We passed the next two hours in silence, I taking the lead this time, picking up the trail easily in the moonlight that filtered through the canopy, and making little attempt to slow my pace. Occasionally I looked back to see Benny in the distance, thrashing through the underbrush, the ember of his cigarette bobbing and weaving like a drunken firefly. I waited for him to catch up, and then I was off once again.
It was refreshing to walk through the cool jungle mist, the ground soft against the rubber soles of my Japanese jika tabi, the moonlight silver on the leaves. I heard a rustling in the brush and turned around, expecting to see Benny struggling to catch up again. He was standing stock still, and yet the rustling continued.
There are times in a man’s life when he knows, with a reasonable degree of confidence, that he is toast. It may be the shriek of an incoming mortar shell that informs him of this, or the black shadow of an oncoming tsunami. In my case, it was the quiet rustling of leaves on a totally windless night.
A tiger. Had to be.
I’ll bet he knows I ate that cat and tomato sauce, I thought. And now it’s payback time.
When you think you are about to die, the damnedest things pop into your head.
I envisioned myself on the Other Side, surrounded by the denizens of Hades. The are all making small talk, telling how they died:
“Colon cancer. Yourself?”
“Drug overdose, dude. How 'bout you?”
“Oh, I got hit by a garbage truck.”
They all then turn to me, the new guy, and I look each of them in the eye, and I say, quietly but with pride,
“I was devoured by a man-eating tiger in the middle of the jungle while climbing the most active volcano on the island of Sumatra.”
If you’re gonna go, I thought, might as well go in style.
We waited. The rustling stopped. We waited some more. Not a sound.
Any second now, I thought.
Nothing.
I took a few tentative steps.
Still nothing.
In horror movies, as soon as you sigh with relief that the strange noise you heard was nothing, that’s when the monster or the psycho killer jumps out and rips you to pieces.
This tiger, if indeed it was a tiger, clearly was not up on his horror movies. We continued on our way, and still nothing jumped out at us. Nevertheless, I would have been happy to have had one of those Mentawai masks that you wear on the back of your head. Just in case.
The sky was bathed in the cold gray light of the approaching dawn by the time we exited the jungle. What lay before us was a desolate moonscape, a completely un-vegetated expanse of mountain stretching into the heavens.
“How far to the top?” I asked.
“Maybe an hour,” Benny said, consulting his watch. “I think we’re too late to see the sunrise.”
The hell we are, I thought, and continued on, quickening my pace.
I looked back to see Benny sitting on a rock, puffing on a Garam. He clearly had gone as far as he was going to go. Some fucking guide, I thought, for the twentieth time. It was a fairly straightforward exercise from here. No trails per se, but nowhere to go but up. Only forty minutes had passed when at last I reached the rim of the volcano.
Looking out, I could see the valley and the expanse of emerald jungle we had traversed, and in the distance the orange glow of the rising sun. Then I gazed downward inside the rim, at the steep and treacherous slopes of Marapi’s caldera. The ground seemed to vibrate under my feet, and sulfurous-smelling steam billowed from one of its many craters. I was standing, I realized, on the crossroads of heaven and hell.
Bewildered
I walked along the deserted rim, taking in its horrifying beauty from a different angle. The cone was strewn with cinders and ash, and corrugated by lava tubes running far down its sides and into the jungle. I had heard that Marapi had exploded in 1979, causing a landslide that had taken out five villages and killed over eighty people. As recently as the previous year, the volcano had erupted violently, spewing steam and poisonous gas into the air, but with no fatalities. Looking into the caldera, I refused to believe that this now seemingly placid mountain would be so ill-mannered as to take my life right then, not when I had a date with the prettiest girl in Bukittingi that very evening!
The thought of seeing my long-haired little vixen again propelled me down the side of the crumbly moon-rock cone at alarming speed. It was like skiing, only with no skis, down a slope of dry powder mixed with jagged pebbles. Before I knew it, I was at the jungle line, but at a far different spot than the one from which I had emerged. Neither Benny nor the trail were anywhere in sight.
A more clear-headed fellow would have followed the jungle line around the cone in the direction he had come until the terrain became more familiar. Unfortunately, my head was not so clear then, and besides, I had come across something that momentarily made me forget everything else, even Yasmin.
It was a lava tube, about as wide as my body, smooth and slick from the morning dew, stretching far into the dark and verdant jungle. Throwing to the wind all caution, forbearance and any thought whatsoever except, “shit, this looks like fun!”, I climbed inside and pushed off.
If descending from the summit was the downhill skiing event, then this was the luge. Imagine sliding down a 500-meter long water slide, fully clothed, through primary tropical rain forest, and you have an idea what it is like to ride a lava tube down the side of Gunung Marapi.
Adrenaline rushes tend to distort one’s perception of time, but it felt like I was riding that tube for a good long while. In any case, I was deep into the jungle when I noticed to my great distress that the tube came to an abrupt halt at what appeared to be the edge of a cliff. To my even greater distress, I realized that I had no idea how to halt my (now considerable) momentum. In a flash of inspiration (i.e. panic) I threw myself back, allowing my rucksack to act as a brake, while grasping at whatever foliage my fingers could find along the edges of the tube.
It took me a few seconds to realize that I had stopped. Opening my eyes, I saw that my hands were full of muddy leaves and vines, and my feet were dangling off the edge of the precipice. Had I slid just one more meter, I would have done a very uncomfortable flying pratfall onto the jagged boulders four meters below. I gingerly lowered myself down the side of the cliff, then set off in the general direction of the trail.
It was maddeningly slow going. Every two meters or so I managed to run into the tendrils of a pervasive thorny vine. I found that the more I moved once caught, the more tenacious its hold on me would become, and attempting to tug it off only resulted in tearing my shirt, lacerating a fair amount of skin into the bargain. I was forced to carefully extricate myself thorn by goddamned thorn, so that I would be free to entangle myself again. Humiliating.
To make matters worse, I really had no idea where I was going. Only a few dim patches of sky were visible through the forest canopy, not enough to get a sun bearing, and the thick foliage prevented me from seeing any farther than about two or three meters in any direction. Even my compass was conspiring against me, the rose swinging mockingly back and forth, pointing everywhere and nowhere. I had heard that volcanoes often interfere with magnetic compasses, and here in my hand was the proof.
I found that my path was dictated by circumstance: if the way offered relatively greater visibility, even ground, and the promise of somewhat fewer thorn vines, I took it, regardless of whether it was the direction I actually wanted to go. I began to feel more charitable toward my poor guide Benny than I had the previous night. Who was I to berate him for getting lost now? And I sure was craving one of his fucking cigarettes.
Finally, I sat down on a rock and shrugged off my rucksack. It was past noon. I had spent half a day blundering around in the jungle, and all I had to show for it was a face and a pair of hands bloodied by countless thorns, a body covered in bruises and bug bites, a thick spattering of mud on practically every surface of me, and a gradually darkening mood.
I scrounged in my rucksack for my water bottle and took a long drink, then idly surveyed the contents of the pack. A few clothes. A box of matches wrapped in Saran wrap. Some books. A bag of dried fruits and nuts. My camera. A small curved dagger I had bought in a market in Pekanbaru. A roll of toilet paper. Another roll, tucked away in a secret zipper compartment, of twenty- and fifty-dollar bills.
Over a thousand dollars. A small fortune in Indonesia, enough to feed a family of four for a year. Of absolutely no value to me at all in the jungle.
I thought about Yasmin, down in her father’s restaurant in Bukittinggi. If I didn’t make it back by six, would she think I had stood her up? Would Benny have the decency to mention to her that I was still somewhere in the tiger jungle? Unaccountably, my mind wandered back to a conversation we’d had a few nights before, about God.
Yasmin was not a terribly devout Muslim, but she did tell me something about her faith. Islam, she said, was all about surrender. If a man can surrender his pride and his ego, and come humbly before God, then He will be merciful, and even compassionate.
I stuffed everything back in the bag and took a deep breath, then did something I had not done in years.
I prayed.
“Okay God. As you can see, I’m in a bit of a bind here. I’ve done my best, and I’m still as lost as I was five hours ago. It’s in your hands now. Please help me out of here, will you?”
I sat there, staring at my muddy hands. I saw no clouds parting, felt no earth rumbling. I only heard the birds, and the insects, and then a quiet voice that sounded very much like one of my own unspoken thoughts. It said, “why don’t you go that way?”
I stood up and went the way my eyes had pointed, through a small gap in the vines. The way led me back to a small ridge that I had been avoiding for the past three hours because I hadn’t felt like climbing it. I climbed it now.
On the other side of the ridge was the trail. I had taken no more than five steps down the trail before I saw Benny, rushing up to meet me.
“I waited and waited for you,” he said, practically in tears. “When you didn’t come back down, I went up to look for you, but you weren’t there. I was going down to the road to get help, but then I got this feeling that I should come back up. And here you are!”
I smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. He wasn’t such a bad guy, after all. We hiked back to the road, where we caught a bemo into town. I paid Benny the amount we had agreed upon, and threw in my little Pentax camera as a bonus. After scrubbing the grime out of my hair, and having a barber give me the most excruciating shave I have ever endured, I bought some new clothes and took Yasmin out to dinner.
No meal is more delicious, and no woman lovelier, than the ones you thought you’d never have again. Yasmin and I talked for hours that evening, with the help of my dictionary. We talked about volcanoes and savage tiger jungles. About pride and humility. About getting utterly lost, then miraculously found.
I like to think that I am a rational man, a skeptic even. I usually put unexplainable phenomena down as coincidence. I like to believe that it was only a matter of time before I figured out that the trail was just over the ridge. That Benny would have come running back up the trail all on his own. That I could have handled it all by myself.
I like to believe that, but sometimes I wonder.
Afterword
Gunung Marapi erupted on June 5th, 1992, exactly one year after my climb. One person was killed, five were seriously injured.
The Sumatran tiger is on the verge of extinction, as a result of the inevitable destruction of–and encroachment into–its habitat by man. The tiger is also the victim of illegal hunting, for its valuable skin, claws…as well as its penis, which is thought (erroneously) by many Asians to enhance male “vigor”. Today there are only between 400 and 500 Sumatran tigers left in the wild.
I met Yasmin briefly, for the last time, in 1994. She was still the prettiest girl in Bukittinggi.
Oh, yeah.
That’s something else I do for fun (and sometimes for money).
I write.
Great read! Thanks for sharing.
[quote]sjoconn wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Gunung Marapi, West Sumatra, Indonesia
[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
I lift weights, climb volcanoes, study history, ride my bike, fuck women, and practice martial arts.
Not usually all at the same time.[/quote]
Would love to know where these volcanoes are…You live in Japan correct?[/quote]
Indonesia, for the most part, although Japan certainly has its fair share. Mt. Fuji, of course, is a dormant (no longer considered extinct) volcano, which I have climbed no less than five times.
Up until recently you could read an account of the time I climbed Gunung Marapi, the most active volcano in Sumatra, right here on this site (Lost in Tiger Country). Unfortunately, the powers-that-be seem to have reorganised the site in such a way that that article is no longer available at the URL it always has been at.[/quote]
Beautiful. I spent a lot of time around Jakarta and Bogor (Java) and even a few nights in Lombok in 2010. I would love to go back to Indonesia sometime. Right now I am looking closer to home for adventure. Sometime this year I am going to go up Mount Pinatubo (only a few hours from my house) and maybe next year I want to hike up Mount Apo in Mindanao.[/quote]
SJ, this is completely off the subject, but at some point I’d like to pick your brain a bit about the Kopassus, whom I have an inkling you got to know rather intimately during your “time around Jakarta and Bogor”.
A screenplay I’m writing (which was actually inspired by my stay in Bukittinggi and Marapi climb) features a Kopassus colonel, and being able to flesh out the character using anecdotes about actual officers would be priceless.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]sjoconn wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Gunung Marapi, West Sumatra, Indonesia
[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
I lift weights, climb volcanoes, study history, ride my bike, fuck women, and practice martial arts.
Not usually all at the same time.[/quote]
Would love to know where these volcanoes are…You live in Japan correct?[/quote]
Indonesia, for the most part, although Japan certainly has its fair share. Mt. Fuji, of course, is a dormant (no longer considered extinct) volcano, which I have climbed no less than five times.
Up until recently you could read an account of the time I climbed Gunung Marapi, the most active volcano in Sumatra, right here on this site (Lost in Tiger Country). Unfortunately, the powers-that-be seem to have reorganised the site in such a way that that article is no longer available at the URL it always has been at.[/quote]
Beautiful. I spent a lot of time around Jakarta and Bogor (Java) and even a few nights in Lombok in 2010. I would love to go back to Indonesia sometime. Right now I am looking closer to home for adventure. Sometime this year I am going to go up Mount Pinatubo (only a few hours from my house) and maybe next year I want to hike up Mount Apo in Mindanao.[/quote]
SJ, this is completely off the subject, but at some point I’d like to pick your brain a bit about the Kopassus, whom I have an inkling you got to know rather intimately during your “time around Jakarta and Bogor”.
A screenplay I’m writing (which was actually inspired by my stay in Bukittinggi and Marapi climb) features a Kopassus colonel, and being able to flesh out the character using anecdotes about actual officers would be priceless.[/quote]
Unfortunately, when I was there in 2010 they were still lifting the State Department ban on training with Kopassus. I did get a great opportunity to work with the PASPAMPRES and was integrated with them during the POTUS visit that year. I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Now that PM is off how do we communicate thats not an open forum?
[quote]sjoconn wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]sjoconn wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Gunung Marapi, West Sumatra, Indonesia
[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
I lift weights, climb volcanoes, study history, ride my bike, fuck women, and practice martial arts.
Not usually all at the same time.[/quote]
Would love to know where these volcanoes are…You live in Japan correct?[/quote]
Indonesia, for the most part, although Japan certainly has its fair share. Mt. Fuji, of course, is a dormant (no longer considered extinct) volcano, which I have climbed no less than five times.
Up until recently you could read an account of the time I climbed Gunung Marapi, the most active volcano in Sumatra, right here on this site (Lost in Tiger Country). Unfortunately, the powers-that-be seem to have reorganised the site in such a way that that article is no longer available at the URL it always has been at.[/quote]
Beautiful. I spent a lot of time around Jakarta and Bogor (Java) and even a few nights in Lombok in 2010. I would love to go back to Indonesia sometime. Right now I am looking closer to home for adventure. Sometime this year I am going to go up Mount Pinatubo (only a few hours from my house) and maybe next year I want to hike up Mount Apo in Mindanao.[/quote]
SJ, this is completely off the subject, but at some point I’d like to pick your brain a bit about the Kopassus, whom I have an inkling you got to know rather intimately during your “time around Jakarta and Bogor”.
A screenplay I’m writing (which was actually inspired by my stay in Bukittinggi and Marapi climb) features a Kopassus colonel, and being able to flesh out the character using anecdotes about actual officers would be priceless.[/quote]
Unfortunately, when I was there in 2010 they were still lifting the State Department ban on training with Kopassus. I did get a great opportunity to work with the PASPAMPRES and was integrated with them during the POTUS visit that year. I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Now that PM is off how do we communicate thats not an open forum?[/quote]
By email, if you like. I just sent you one. 
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]sjoconn wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]sjoconn wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Gunung Marapi, West Sumatra, Indonesia
[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
I lift weights, climb volcanoes, study history, ride my bike, fuck women, and practice martial arts.
Not usually all at the same time.[/quote]
Would love to know where these volcanoes are…You live in Japan correct?[/quote]
Indonesia, for the most part, although Japan certainly has its fair share. Mt. Fuji, of course, is a dormant (no longer considered extinct) volcano, which I have climbed no less than five times.
Up until recently you could read an account of the time I climbed Gunung Marapi, the most active volcano in Sumatra, right here on this site (Lost in Tiger Country). Unfortunately, the powers-that-be seem to have reorganised the site in such a way that that article is no longer available at the URL it always has been at.[/quote]
Beautiful. I spent a lot of time around Jakarta and Bogor (Java) and even a few nights in Lombok in 2010. I would love to go back to Indonesia sometime. Right now I am looking closer to home for adventure. Sometime this year I am going to go up Mount Pinatubo (only a few hours from my house) and maybe next year I want to hike up Mount Apo in Mindanao.[/quote]
SJ, this is completely off the subject, but at some point I’d like to pick your brain a bit about the Kopassus, whom I have an inkling you got to know rather intimately during your “time around Jakarta and Bogor”.
A screenplay I’m writing (which was actually inspired by my stay in Bukittinggi and Marapi climb) features a Kopassus colonel, and being able to flesh out the character using anecdotes about actual officers would be priceless.[/quote]
Unfortunately, when I was there in 2010 they were still lifting the State Department ban on training with Kopassus. I did get a great opportunity to work with the PASPAMPRES and was integrated with them during the POTUS visit that year. I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Now that PM is off how do we communicate thats not an open forum?[/quote]
By email, if you like. I just sent you one. :)[/quote]
Not sure where that email went. I hesitate to post an email address…I do have one that I am not using much for the time being
Strippers
Travel
Lifting
Boxing
Salsa dancing
Rock concerts
Reading, especially biographies
Crazy Strippers
[quote]RampantBadger wrote:
Strippers
[/quote]
y’know, that’s one thing I’ve just never really seen the point of. I mean, obviously I understand the appeal, but I dunno. Just not into it.
[quote]sjoconn wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]sjoconn wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]sjoconn wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Gunung Marapi, West Sumatra, Indonesia
[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
I lift weights, climb volcanoes, study history, ride my bike, fuck women, and practice martial arts.
Not usually all at the same time.[/quote]
Would love to know where these volcanoes are…You live in Japan correct?[/quote]
Indonesia, for the most part, although Japan certainly has its fair share. Mt. Fuji, of course, is a dormant (no longer considered extinct) volcano, which I have climbed no less than five times.
Up until recently you could read an account of the time I climbed Gunung Marapi, the most active volcano in Sumatra, right here on this site (Lost in Tiger Country). Unfortunately, the powers-that-be seem to have reorganised the site in such a way that that article is no longer available at the URL it always has been at.[/quote]
Beautiful. I spent a lot of time around Jakarta and Bogor (Java) and even a few nights in Lombok in 2010. I would love to go back to Indonesia sometime. Right now I am looking closer to home for adventure. Sometime this year I am going to go up Mount Pinatubo (only a few hours from my house) and maybe next year I want to hike up Mount Apo in Mindanao.[/quote]
SJ, this is completely off the subject, but at some point I’d like to pick your brain a bit about the Kopassus, whom I have an inkling you got to know rather intimately during your “time around Jakarta and Bogor”.
A screenplay I’m writing (which was actually inspired by my stay in Bukittinggi and Marapi climb) features a Kopassus colonel, and being able to flesh out the character using anecdotes about actual officers would be priceless.[/quote]
Unfortunately, when I was there in 2010 they were still lifting the State Department ban on training with Kopassus. I did get a great opportunity to work with the PASPAMPRES and was integrated with them during the POTUS visit that year. I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Now that PM is off how do we communicate thats not an open forum?[/quote]
By email, if you like. I just sent you one. :)[/quote]
Not sure where that email went. I hesitate to post an email address…I do have one that I am not using much for the time being
[/quote]
It went to the address listed on your CV.
No matter. My email address is in my hub, just after the quote by John Adams.