Driving

• Vehicle of choice - Toyota Kijang
• Right hand drive is strange. I was expecting opposite pedals and shifter, but they are the same orientation as right hand drive cars. Wipers and blinkers are opposite, which screwed me up a couple times, and so far has screwed me up a couple times since being back.
• Driving on the wrong side of the road took very little getting used to. However, looking both ways for right hand turns did take a bit of practice. Just ask the motorcycle taxi I almost ran over!
• 1.8L is not enough to get you up large hills unless you keep 3rd gear almost to redline.
• Kijang’s are fairly easy to break into. Notice nothing above about calling security or the rental company to get the keys out of my locked car
• Motorcycles can carry a family of 5. And they will pull out right in front of you, day or night, with or without head and/or tail lights.
• Pedestrians walk on the side of the roads with their back to same direction traffic. One lady was run over during my trip there. Apparently this is common.

After Work/Weekend Activities

• Forms of Entertainment
  1. 1 english TV channel? Hardly entertaining!
  2. Boating - daytime only - This involved loading up the raft with food and beer for an hour trip out to “the island”, a couple hours of swimming, and almost 2 hour trip back once the wind picked up…
  3. Golfing - daytime only - The company golf course there was pretty good and scenic for how cheap it was to play. 9 holes was 50,000 rupiah (a bit over USD$5) and 20,000 rupiah (a bit over USD$2) for a caddy that would fetch your ball from ponds, rice paddies, and any out of bounds spot…
  4. Nighttime activities? Drinking or that 1 english channel…needless to say, we drank a lot!
  5. Hash runs followed by the On-On (more beer drinking). More on the hash runs below
  6. Pub crawl…again more beer drinking. More on the pub crawl below
• There are 2 main beers that are enjoyed by those that are not locals. Anker Bir and Bintang Bir. Others are available such as Bali Hai, Guinness (mostly enjoyed by Indonesian females), and Panther Stout - a Guinness knock-off, but Anker and Bintang were by far the most popular. Anker is the better tasting of the 2 but less popular with the locals, so it usually ran out fast meaning that we unfortunately had to close out the night many times with Bintang.
• The selling price for beer at the bars ranged from 10,000-13,000 rupiahs or about USD$1 to USD$1.25
• 5% beer can be evil to someone who drinks all drinks fast, like me! It took a couple trips to the bar to figure out that drinking a 6-pack of 2-3% beer at home meant no problem in the morning while a 6-pack of Indonesian beer meant a headache in the morning.
• Raft = pontoon boat, not a bunch of logs bound together like you would see in an episode of Gilligan’s Island…
• I have never seen such clear water. You can easily see 20′ down in all areas of Lake Matano.