Team activities for our final week

The internet was broken at our hotel for a few days (so no blogging for me for a while!) so we were off the grid but not by choice.  There is something nice about not connecting, although the internet broke mid-way through a skype conversation with my parents so that was a bit inconvenient.  Our team had a nice few days with some team activities - first a nice dinner at a local restaurant called R&B Grill.  Daniel and a few others had tried this restaurant out a few nights before and highly recommended it, so we we gave it a try.  Like I mentioned earlier, I like rice & noodles (the typical staple diet here in Indonesia) but it's nice sometimes to completely change gears and get something different - in this case a steak that you cook on your very own hot stone.  There were also some live musicians, which was a welcome change from the 300X repeated CD we've been hearing in our hotel lobby and restaurant for the last month.

Steak at R&B Grill

Next up was a team excursion to the zoo.  I am typically not a huge fan of zoos, as I was a bit worried about what type of conditions the animals would be in and I hoped they would be taken care of.   The zoo turned out to be pretty small but nice.  The reptile exhibit was the most impressive, with lots of lizards and snakes that I had never seen before.  A few of us were brave enough to hold a young python, although I chickened out and didn't actually put it around my neck.  It seemed friendly (?) enough and was docile.  In the picture below it appears that I am calm but the zoo attendants were just out of view probably saying soothing things to the snake.

 

A "baby" python

The zoo also had an exhibit of Komodo Dragons. One of my teammates, Shannon, is heading to the island of Komodo with her husband in a few days -for the rest of us though, this is as close as we will ever get to a live one.  They were basking in the sun and one was even drooling from his mouth.  My guess is that we just missed feeding time or he had something on his mind other than me taking a picture!

Komodo Dragons in the background

Komodo dragon salivating at something (me?!?!)

Hungry hippo

After about two hours we were ready to head back to the hotel.  We all have found much notoriety here in Jogja as every day at least 2-3 people ask to have their picture taken with us.  Some even hold their children up near us to get them in the photo.  We are all used to it by now and it is kind of neat being a celebrity of sorts in a foreign land.

While waiting for our driver to pick us up, we sat at the zoo entrance and did some people-watching.   Probably one of the most interesting things here in Jogja is just sitting back watching the locals go about their everyday lives.  You soon realize that what is important in one culture takes on a completely different meaning or level or importance in another.  Sitting in front of the zoo we saw an older woman  riding a bicycle equipped with a drink cart and she soon stopped for a group of locals.  She started serving fruit juice out of old plastic containers (they looked like kerosene containers) into a single glass.  Someone would pay her, she's mix together a concoction of juices in the glass, then when the person was done she would dip the glass into a bucket of water she had hanging from her bike handle, and start all over again with the same glass with another customer.  She seemed quite popular with the locals but I am sure if we ever tried something like that, our foreign-not-yet-iron-clad stomachs would not be too happy.

The fruit juice cart

Speaking of fruit juice, one of the nice surprises here in Jogja has been all of the freshly squeezed juices you can buy.  I have only ordered them from our hotel and restaurants for safety reasons, but there are many food carts around town that squeeze the juices to order.  After a day sweating out in the heat, some nice refreshing juice hits the spot. My favorite juice here is called Sirsak juice - which comes from a white fruit that I had never seen anywhere else in the world.  I tried buying some squeeze-juice boxes of Sirsak juice from the supermarket but the fresh variety is much much better.

Delivering our final presentation

We spent Friday afternoon preparing for our final presentation and made some CDs with all of our files and a 40 page detailed document that explained all of our recommendations.   We take a lot for granted at home with having ample printing & photocopying facilities at our fingertips.  Printing here was a huge challenge and we had to convince our hotel to do us a favor and print out our large presentation so we could then copy it and distribute it to our clients.  After several failed attempts at printing, we finally got it to work and we were then ready to go for our big meeting on Monday.  CD-burning was another challenge as we had difficult finding CDs.  After going to 2 stores we were able to buy 20 CDs in total.

Our final presentation was held on Monday at the Tourism Authority offices.  About 20 other people were in attendance from other Yogyakarta tourism-related organizations.  Daniel, Nicole, Yuan Yuan & I took turns presenting.  Yuan Yuan focused on the summary of our international tourism survey, Nicole focused on recommendations on how to improve the tourist experience in Yogykarta, Daniel focused on improving collaboration and networking between the Yogyakarta tourism stakeholders, and I focused on a new marketing slogan for Yogyakarta and recommending updates to our client's website, social media presence, and their marketing materials.  We were all very proud of our final presentation & put a lot of effort into leaving our clients with written material about our recommendations that they can reference after we leave. 

Getting ready to give our final presentation - L to R - Nicole, Yuan Yuan, Daniel & me

Presenting our final recommendations

The materials we prepared for our final presentation

On Tuesday, we went back to our client offices to meet with the director of the agency to discuss our recommendations in more detail.  We were very pleased to hear that earlier in the morning, he had a meeting with the Sultan of Yogyakarta where they discussed our project.  The Sultan requested that an action plan be put together to start implementing our team's recommendations.  We couldn't have asked for a better ending to our project.  We are going to miss the wonderful team we worked with at the Tourism Agency.  They gave us great insight into living, working & exploring around Yogyakarta and we will miss their friendship and smiles.  We hope that our recommendations can make a difference here in Yogyakarta and once implemented, we hope that more international tourists will come to this great city.

Our team - Nicole, Me, Yuan Yuan, Pak Herro, Ibu Marlina, Daniel & Ibu Ida

Our last weekend in Yogyakarta

I cannot believe how quickly time flies!  I’ve been gone from home now almost a month but in many ways this adventure of ours has just flown by.  I’ll save the sappy “I can’t believe our project is over” thoughts for later this week.   In the meantime, we’ve had a packed fun-filled weekend of sightseeing.  With last weekend’s washout – or ash-out I should say – we all wanted to get out and explore more this weekend.   Our local contact Diane was kind enough to help us arrange transportation this weekend to a few local sights and places.

One of our groups had a big presentation Saturday morning at the University, so we decided to rent two private drivers and cars and start exploring at noon.  Claudia, Shannon & I had quickly visited the silver town of Kota Gede earlier in the week but we decided to go back with the group as there were a lot of historical things we missed the first time around.  We first visited a town called Kasongan, which is known for its pottery and crafts.  The pottery was amazing – much of it was taller than I am and most cost $50 or less.   

Rooster, anyone?

Kasongan pottery

Our second brief stop was to a town called Manding, which is known for its leather goods.   There wasn’t too much there but it was interesting to look around town. 

Kota Gede Royal Cemetery

Then we headed back to Kota Gede.  Our first stop was the Royal Cemetery where many of the sultans’ families are buried.  

Out of respect for the departed, we were asked to remove our shoes and socks before entering the cemetery.  The ground wasn’t particularly clean so we were all tiptoeing around.  There were ants everyone so we were hoping we wouldn’t get bitten.  It’s always interesting to see the burial habits of a culture.  In this cemetery, the direct descendant of royalty is buried on the right, with his or her spouse on the left.  A pointed grave marker indicated a male whereas a smooth rounded marker indicated a female.  

We then visited a second cemetery but you had to pay to get into the historical chambers, so we explored around outside instead. 

Entrance to the walled city

Sultan's bath house

Our next stops were a few silver stores where many members of our group bought souvenirs for home.  I ended up getting another pretty necklace, a chain to go with the pendant I bought the other day, and a matching pair of earrings.  After a few shops, we did a side trip to the Monggo chocolate factory.  I picked up a few small bars of delicious white chocolate.  I've already eaten two of them - oops!

To cap off the night we ate at a really nice restaurant in town called Omah Dhuwur in the center of Kota Gede.  It overlooked a very pretty garden with Asian buildings lit up by lanterns.

The Omah Dhuwur gardens

Sunday morning we woke up early and took a bus trip to a few natural sights.  A big thing here in the Yogyakarta area is ecotourism.  The Sri Gethuk waterfall was our first stop.  After driving for 2 hours we finally arrived.  Our bus driver decided to take the adventurous route and instead of parking in the bus parking area, he decided to take the bus down what I hesitate to call a dirt road.  That’s putting it lightly, as it basically was an infrequently-traveled tire track path through the jungle.  The bus bounced up and down and side to side - across rolling hills and between ride paddies.  A few of us were keeping our fingers crossed that we would not blow a tire out in the middle of who-knows-where. 

The "road" traveled by the tour bus

 Once we arrived (& our driver paid the entrance fee) we found out that due to some very heavy rains the night before, the waterfall was closed.  "How can a waterfall be closed?" you might ask......  To get to the waterfall we were supposed to take a raft that local men would paddle up the river against the current.  Due to the high water, the current was too strong so the rafts were not going anywhere.  It was disappointing (especially after a two hour drive) but we got to see some great jungle scenery overlooking the swollen river.

We then headed to Pindul Cave to do some cave tubing!  On our way we passed through some very dense forests that were filled with teak trees.  I had never seen teak growing in the wild before.  The wood was very red in color and some chopped trees were alongside the road where we got to see a closer view.

Teak trees

Rice fields swaying in the breeze

About an hour later we arrived at the cave.  Before we left Yogyakarta, we were told a few things about this experience:
1) you will not get wet
2) you will get lifejackets and helmets
3) there will be changing rooms so you can change into your swimwear
4) there will be lockers to secure your valuables

Doing some research on my own before we left, I soon realized that we would get wet - likely soaked - so I came prepared.  We did get life jackets but no helmets, and there ended up not being lockers.  We said a little prayer and turned over our bags to a nice lady behind the counter.  The people here seem to be much more trusting than when I live - but rightfully so.  Everyone's stuff was returned un-touched.  The changing rooms were wet bathrooms, but they did the trick.  Here in Indonesia, bathrooms are used for many purposes - including showering and changing clothes.  There are usually small hooks on the wall to hang things, and as I changed I kept praying that the flimsy hook would support the weight of my big bag.

I was the designated photographer of the group because I was the only one with a waterproof camera. We got in our tubes and held on to little straps to connect ourselves into a daisy-chain.  A guide led the caravan and another guide pulled up the rear.  The purpose of these guides soon became evident as the water was really stagnant and the front guide pulled our tube-caravan through the water in the cave.

Seth, me, Daniel, Yuan Yuan & Claudia getting ready to get in our tubes

Group shot by the river

Jay, Rosa & Daniel - waiting for our group to go into the cave

After a lot of waiting, our tube crew slowly made its way into the cave. There weren't any lights so some of the guides used flashlights and headlamps to illuminate the walls and point out key features as we passed by.  

Pindul Cave

Bats on the ceiling of the cave

The long line of tubes exiting the cave

 After the caves we drove about an hour to the sea side - Indrayanti Beach.  The beach is located on the southern shore of the island of Java, touching the Indian Ocean. The beach itself wasn't very wide but it was organized with rental umbrellas strategically lined up in a row along the whole stretch of sand.  We decided to first hike to the top of a cliff overlooking the beach and the water.  The views from the top were incredible.  We then walked along the beach for a bit where a few folks went swimming.  I didn't go in because I had already changed out of my muddy bathing suit from the cave tubing, but it was nice to just sit back and people watch for a few hours.

The Indian Ocean - check this one off the bucket list!

Overlooking Indrayanti Beach

Selling fruits on the beach

Just as the sun started setting, it was time to head back to the bus for the ride back to Yogyakarta.  We totally lucked out with the weather today as we had sunny skies for most of the day.  It started to pour on our way back to the hotel, but by then we didn't care because we had a great day exploring some of the more natural wonders under sunny skies.

Sunset from the beach

 Random pictures of the day:
Small bus yields to bigger bus?  The roads here are very narrow so with our bus we ran into quite a few oncoming traffic predicaments.

Who needs a station wagon when you can sandwich your family of four on a scooter?  This mode of transportation is very common here and economical.  Most scooters cost around $1400.

Putting on the finishing touches

Whew!  What a week.  Anyone who thinks that working remotely or working from home means less work doesn't really know what goes on behind the scenes.  Our team has had a really productive week, even though we've been at the hotel most days.  Monday and Tuesday we had to work from the hotel because of the ongoing ash cleanup, but by Wednesday, things were more back to normal and we were able to go into the office.  We spent Thursday and Friday heads-down working on our final materials.

The Intro to Social Media & Strategic Marketing presentation that we intended to hold last Friday was rescheduled to Wednesday morning.  The Tourism Authority invited a bunch of other key stakeholders here in Yogyakarta who also focus on tourism, so we ended up with a great crowd in attendance.  Many of the audience members asked us questions and everyone seemed very engaged and interested in our messages.  We structured our presentation to introduce basic strategic marketing concepts, then gave an introduction to social media and ended with some real life examples of Yogyakarta's existing presence on tourism social media sites.  Thanks to everyone who filled out our traveler survey.  We'll be sharing the results of the survey with our client next week, but we gave our audience a sneak peek and used our survey as an example to show how quickly things travel on the internet and via social media.  They were amazed to learn that a survey originally disseminated by our small four-person team was completed by 50 people within a half hour of the link being sent, by 300 people within 12 hours and by 550 people within 24 hours.  It was very eye opening to them that we could gather so much information so quickly, just via use of a free online survey tool.

Here I am presenting the basics of Social Media

Our audience members were very engaged during our presentation

The rest of the week we spent putting the finishing touches on our final presentation, which is scheduled for this coming Monday at our client office.  Many of the tourism groups here in Yogyakarta have been invited to attend but we're never quite sure how many people are going to show up.  To work this week, we scouted out a little private corner in the hotel - but our location was compromised mid-week when a group of several hundred businessmen came to the hotel for a conference event and they also started finding ad-hoc work areas such as the one we had commandeered in the upstairs mezzanine.  We also noticed that the internet connectivity of the hotel plummeted while they were in town and there were days when we'd be trying to do internet research and would have only 1Mbps to 5Mbps connectivity.  They also filled up all of the elevators and smoked outside my room at 1am, so I am happy to have a quieter weekend in store now that the hotel has emptied out.

Today, our task was to finalize our presentation and also finalize an accompanying detailed document that we will be leaving with our client for future reference purposes.  Throughout the week we've been collecting various office supplies at local stores and bought a few binders and 20 CDs.  That was no small feat as each store carried at most 5 to 10 CDs at a time.  Our next challenge was to find somewhere to print a 40 page document and then copy it several times.  Our hotel has been very accommodating and did us a favor by printing it in the back office (granted it cost me $20 US, which is a huge amount of money here), but we had a lot of challenges with formatting and just explaining what we needed help with.  Such is part of the challenge of being here trying to make our way to our final product result.   It puts things in perspective how I take for granted my quick laser printer at home, reams of paper, staplers, and just general access to anything I'd need within a 15 minute car ride.  We eventually got everything printed today and will be spending some time later tonight and tomorrow burning CDs and putting together the materials in our binders for distribution on Monday.

This weekend we have a few sightseeing trips lined up.  Unfortunately the big temple of Prambanan is closed due to the ash clean-up, but we found some other great things nearby to see.  Tomorrow a few of us are going back to the town of Kota Gede (it was mostly closed earlier in the week when we went) and a small pottery and craft village called Kasongan.  On Sunday we have a bus trip planned to go see a local waterfall, then will be going cave tubing in the Pindul Caves and then to one of the beaches on the southern side of the island.  It's sad that this is our last weekend to explore here, but I'm starting to get excited for my vacation after the assignment as well!