Lost in the Palm Plantation October 11, 2006 Today, while handling some necessary procedures and brick press equipment, my partner and I purchased some daily necessities under the accompaniment of the receptionist. The place we are in feels like a small Chinese town, with narrow streets that are somewhat dirty. We visited seven or eight shops to buy slippers, all of which were flip-flops, before finally finding ones we liked. Prices were generally high, ranging from 28,000 to 38,000 Indonesian Rupiah, approximately twenty to thirty Chinese Yuan. This reminded me of two days ago when we ate in Jakarta; scrambled eggs cost 16 thousand Rupiah, and mushroom chicken noodles cost 15 thousand Rupiah. After resting at noon, we went out at 15:00 to buy an electric kettle. There was a two-story department store where the first floor was a supermarket for food and beverages, and the second floor mostly sold clothing and footwear, but there were no household appliances, so it seemed we had come to the wrong place. In the end, we found one in an electrical specialty store. The store was about thirty to forty square meters, mostly featuring Japanese brands of televisions, refrigerators, DVD players, and tape recorders, as well as a rarely seen high-frequency speaker. The variety and models of electrical appliances in the store were many, refrigerators were even placed on two-tier shelves, and LCD TVs were as large as over 40 inches.
After buying almost everything we needed (oh right, we bought a roll of film in the morning), we set off. On the way, we passed through a small town. What they called a town was actually just a few places by the roadside selling things. It was already dark, and we still had half the journey left, so we decided to eat first. After eating, we bought a few bowls and spoons. Mr. Chen introduced that we would next pass through a very large palm plantation, over ten thousand hectares, and it was easy to get lost. Sure enough, we did get lost. The roads illuminated by the car lights looked almost the same, narrow and straight, with water ditches over two meters deep and two to three meters wide on both sides. There were numerous crossroads, each marked with road signs, mostly Arabic numerals. Of course, I didn't understand what they meant. Eventually, after asking several drivers of trucks carrying palm fruits within the plantation, we finally managed to exit this maze-like plantation. What should have taken 30 minutes ended up taking nearly three hours. The car drove onto a wide dirt road, with 19 kilometers left to our destination. None of the four people in the car spoke anymore. The car silently and bumpily drove for another half hour. Occasionally, we saw a couple of dim yellow lights far away. Not long after seeing a cluster of lights, we finally stopped. A piece of land that had been mechanically leveled lay before us, with a few cars and excavators parked there. We saw two stilted wooden houses and entered the smaller one. Upon entering, there was a hall about ten meters deep, five meters wide, and about four meters high, with three wooden rooms on each side. On the front wall of the hall were several charts, one of which showed the work progress of twelve excavators.
Under the cover of darkness, only a small area under the tiny incandescent light could be seen, nothing else. We heard the faint hum of a diesel generator not too far away.
In the daytime market, we saw many motorcycles and cars. All motorcycle riders wore helmets, and about 80% of them wore full-face helmets that we only wear during cold winter times. The weather was hot, around 31-32 degrees Celsius. I couldn't help but admire the strong traffic safety awareness here. The motorcycle models were almost all 100cc, mainly Yamaha and Honda. Cars were almost all SUVs and minivans, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Honda, etc., and all 3-5 ton cargo trucks were Mitsubishi.
It wasn't until heading towards our destination from the town that I realized why we didn't see any sedans: the roads were too narrow and the conditions were poor.
Throughout the journey, we could see vast forests smoking and on fire, smoke and dust blocking the sun, and the pungent smell of smoke occasionally entering the car.
Related articles:
- He Married Three Wives
- The Four Sentences You Should Know Most
- Why Aren't We Happy!
- Baby, I Like You This Way...