Seeing Indonesia with your son

Asia, family travel — By Bob Riel on December 29, 2008 at 5:00 pm

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season! Now it’s back to work…

Have you ever wanted to go to Indonesia? Would you go there with your two-year-old son? With your nine-year-old son? Lisa Reed did both – traveling there with her two-year-old son in 2001 and returning this year with the same child, now nine. She recounts the two trips in a story for the NY Times.

My husband, John, and I had spent three months in Indonesia in 2001 with our son, who was then 2, and I was curious about how deep an imprint the culture had left on him. His enthusiasm for Indonesia back then — his wide-eyed delight at the lizards, called cicaks, that lived in the house in Jakarta; at holding the reins of a pony cart in Lombok; and at the sunset performance of a fire dance on an oceanside cliff in a monkey forest in Bali — made me think that the soul of the country had seeped into him. He was thrilled by the drama and magic of the country’s arts and folk tales.

And if he had loved Indonesia, it had loved him right back — Indonesians being famously kind and affectionate to children. He was fussed over, played with and indulged everywhere we went.

At 9, he is no longer such an enthusiast; the prospect of our sunrise trip to Borobudur tomorrow is not exciting to him in the least. But I want him to see it again, now that he’ll remember it…

The alarm goes off at 3:45 a.m. and we are on the road by 4, my son asleep again in the dark, quiet comfort of the car, his head in my lap. Lonely trucks pass us on empty streets. The road is lined with warungs, wooden food stalls, which are still closed but cheerfully lighted with strings of bulbs…

My son sleepwalks across the lawn as I point out features of the temple, trying to gin up interest. We climb to the top with the others and jockey for the prime location facing Merapi and the reddening sky. Monks in saffron robes meditate facing inward to the stupa, perhaps trying to resist the distractions of a beautiful sunrise or an erupting volcano.