Sunday 17 January 2010

Braving Ghosts in Lawang's Haunted Hotel


A night in an East Java hotel with a spooky reputation

Originally published in the Jakarta Globe, 12/01/10


Thunder crackled ominously and rain lashed down from a leaden sky.  The headlights of the trucks plying the Surabaya-Malang Highway were orange smears in the dusk; I needed to stop for the night.
The hotel loomed up to the right, a five-storey hulk of salmon-pink masonry towering over the low-rise town of Lawang.  “Hotel Niagara” read the sign above the door.
“Yes, we have a room available,” said the man at the desk, adding, with what could have been a sinister smile, “It’s on the third floor.”
The third floor?  Wasn’t that where they said the locked room never rented to guests was located?  I put the thought from my mind and followed the receptionist past an empty dining hall and up gloomy flights of tiled stairs.  There was a faint smell of furniture polish and old wood.
The room was at the back of the building.  It was enormous, with a high ceiling and its own balcony.  The receptionist handed me the key.  “Breakfast is included,” he said, and turned away, his footsteps fading along the dark corridor.  Breakfast?  I had to get through the night first…
***
My arrival at Hotel Niagara, seemingly plucked from the opening scenes of a scary movie, was entirely appropriate.   The suggestion of spending a night there had prompted near hysteria amongst my otherwise rational Indonesian friends.  The century-old colonial relic, about 70 kilometers south of Surabaya, was haunted, they said.  Many years ago a Dutch woman had thrown herself from one of the balconies – or perhaps she had been brutally murdered there by Japanese soldiers during the Second World War.  But whatever the details of the story, all agreed that the building was the abode of terrifying spirits.  The fifth floor, rumor had it, was so riddled with malevolent ghosts that it was closed to the public; there was a room somewhere in the hotel that had a tendency to fill with blood at night, and of course, there was that locked room on the third floor…
All that only made me more determined to go and investigate.
“Just make sure you sprinkle salt under your bed,” suggested one friend – an apparently failsafe anti-ghost measure.  “And don’t be surprised if you don’t wake up in the same place where you went to sleep,” added another…
It had all seemed rather silly at the time, but now I wasn’t so sure. 
At the back of my room was a locked door.  I tentatively slid the bolt.  Behind it was a flimsy sheet of wood.  It gave way slightly to my touch and a gust of icy air rushed over my fingers.  Could the notorious locked room lie behind it?  Apparently not: there was another occupied room beside mine; the sheet of wood merely blocked an old dividing doorway.  But there were plenty of other spooky corners.  At the head of the stairs was the entrance to the old elevator shaft.  Again the teak-and-glass doors creaked open to my touch; again there was a gust of icy air followed by a nervous retreat.
The way to the floors above was blocked by a “do not enter” sign, and beyond it a sturdy metal gate.  Through the bars I could see a corridor, and doors, half-ajar in the gloom.  The fourth and fifth floors were decidedly off limits.  What was up there?  The bleeding room?  The ghost of the Dutchwoman?    
Night had fallen.  I went back to my room and turned on the television.  No lank-haired demoness crawled out of the screen.  I took a shower.  No blood poured from the taps.  I settled down under my blanket.  Was that the distant sound of mournful singing in Dutch, or just Indonesian pop music from the television in the next room?  I wasn’t sure, but before long I was fast asleep…
***
Ghost stories aside the Hotel Niagara certainly has an interesting past.  Today the little town of Lawang is just a string of concrete shops.  Modern travelers from Surabaya merely shoot a nervous glance at the haunted hotel and head on to Malang, but in the colonial era Lawang itself was an upland retreat of considerable renown. 
The hotel was originally built at the turn of the twentieth century as a private villa for a wealthy local Chinese businessman, Liem Sian Joe.  The architect, Fritz Joseph Pinedo, was also responsible for various notable buildings in Surabaya, but for the villa he eschewed the usual Indo-Nederlands style for what could best be described as proto-art deco with Latinate touches.  Five storeys high and with an elevator, it was a cutting edge design of its time.
The building remained a private residence until the 1960s when Liem Sian Joe’s family, fallen on hard times, departed for the Netherlands.  The villa was sold and turned it into a hotel.  But most of the original features remain – the tile-work, wood paneling, and the window panes, still bearing the “LSJ” motif of the original owner.
Unlike other colonial era hotels in Indonesia, the Niagara has not been restored; it has been preserved.  And though the balconies may be a little mildewed and the elevator out of order, with the simplest of the 14 rooms costing only Rp75,000 per night [2010 prices] it’s both authentic and cheap – and there’s always the chance of  a haunting thrown in.
***
Clear-headed questions are best left for the morning, and after waking up in exactly the same place where I went to sleep I set out to quiz the hotel staff.
Two uniformed young men, Adi and Gunawan, were cleaning the room next to mine.  Were the ghost stories true, I asked them.
“I’ve been working here for two years,” said Gunawan, smiling at the familiar question; “I’ve never seen or heard or felt anything.”
“I’m still new here, but neither have I,” added Adi.
But what about the rumors – why were the upper floors closed?
“They’re under renovation,” said Gunawan.
And was it true about the locked room on this, the third floor?
They laughed: “Nonsense – we use them all; you can see if you want…”
According to Gunawan the lurid ghost stories had their origins in nothing more than the fact that the Niagara is an unusual old building.  “And the people who say those things are always people who have never stayed here,” he added.            
Their smiles were certainly reassuring, but I glanced in the direction of the locked gate and the forbidden floors.  Could it be a pact of silence?  Could they be hiding something?  Don’t be so silly, I told myself, and headed downstairs to check out.
A young woman named Ratih was on duty at reception.
“I’ve been here for seven years; I stay in the hotel 24 hours a day and I’ve never seen anything strange, and neither have any guests that I know of,” she said, then asked, with a cheeky smile, “Did you see anything?”
“Well, no…”
“Floor five was never renovated when they converted the building to a hotel, and it’s not safe.  Floor four we used to use, but now it’s just for storage.  That’s why they’re closed, not because of haunted rooms, or anything weird like that.”
I paid my bill and Ratih bade me a cheery farewell.  I went outside and started the engine of my motorbike.  The sky was already dark with rainclouds.  Apparent lack of ghosts notwithstanding, the Hotel Niagara had certainly been an interesting place to spend the night, and at least I would be able to disabuse my friends in Surabaya of their wild ideas.
There was another reassuring smile from the security man at the gate, and I glanced back over my shoulder for one last look at the towering pink-and-white façade.  The lights were on on the fifth floor…

© Tim Hannigan 2010

A Pakistani Mountain Adventure

Travelling in Gilgit-Baltistan, Northern Pakistan,

Originally published in the Jakarta Globe, 22/12/09

Another gust of turbulent wind rushed up the valley and the suspension bridge – a rickety, meter-wide tangle of frayed wires and weathered planks – swayed wildly. Far below the Hunza River churned its cold course. I clung on desperately, and for the first time since arriving in Pakistan I felt like I was in danger...

Violence and unrest in the region has seen Pakistan – once a hot-spot for adventure travel – drop off the world tourism map in recent years. But as I would discover the mountainous region of Gilgit-Baltistan has remained unaffected by the troubles plaguing the rest of the country, and the welcome to travelers there remains one of the warmest in Asia.

My journey had begun in Gilgit, eponymous capital of the region. The international news pages had been full of tales of violence in Pakistan for weeks, and after stepping down late at night from a long-distance bus from China I slept fitfully, wondering what exactly I was doing here. A stroll in the bazaar in the bright sunlight of the morning saw all my apprehensions evaporate. The delightfully chaotic streets hummed with Central Asian smells – fruit, spice and grilling meat – and an endless succession of piratical-looking men offered hearty handshakes and cups of chai (Pakistani tea). Going anywhere in Gilgit in a hurry was impossible – chai and chat at every turn were an obligation.
Until recently Gilgit-Baltistan was known as the Northern Areas; the new name was chosen specifically to distinguish the region from more turbulent spots like Swat and Peshawar. Everyone I met in Gilgit was eager to stress that this place was somehow different – there were no Taliban here!
Gilgit lies at the point where the Himalayas, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush, the three behemoths of the greater Asian mountain system, come together. The region has the world’s highest concentration of peaks over 7000 meters. This wild geography creates a wild atmosphere, and nothing is as wild as a local polo match. The Game of Kings as it is played here is a world away from the gentile sport of British royalty. On my first afternoon in Gilgit I watched the Army’s Northern Light Infantry team beat the Police in a thunderous hour of dust and horse sweat. There are no rules in Gilgiti polo – the five-man teams simply gallop back and forth to a soundtrack of skirling pipes and drums. The horsemanship was incredible, the pace was blistering, and when the army won the crowd went wild.

Safely reassured that I was not crazy to be travelling in Pakistan I headed west to the remote valley of Yasin. The road cleaved to sheer, snow-streaked mountainsides above the cobalt-blue waters of the Gilgit River. In the villages the leaves of the willows and poplar trees were a blaze of red and gold in the autumn sunlight.
Despite being culturally and geographically separate, when India and Pakistan gained their independence from Britain, Gilgit-Baltistan was technically part of Kashmir. India still claims the region, and as a disputed territory the Pakistani government has never accorded it full provincial status. Locals complain of years of neglect by Islamabad, and it was only during the presidency of General Musharaf that there was investment in infrastructure in hidden valleys. Ten years ago only a dirt track led to Yasin.
It was a beautiful place beneath a high, clear sky. For three days I travelled north on foot, and in every village I was welcomed into homes, given a place of honor and fed to bursting on coarse bread, yoghurt and pomegranates. The idea that Pakistan was a hostile country began to seem absurd. The people of Yasin are Ismaeli Muslims, followers of the Aga Khan. Many locals like to ascribe Gilgit-Baltistan’s tranquility to the fact that it is the only part of Pakistan where Shias and Ismaelis dominate. In truth geography probably has more to do with it: Yasin is just 150 kilometers from the former Taliban fiefdom of Swat, but with ridges of sky-scraping mountains in between it might as well be on another planet.

From Yasin I returned to Gilgit and headed north on the Karakoram Highway. This fabled strip of tenuous tarmac snakes 1300 kilometers from Islamabad all the way to China, crossing the 4733 meter Khunjerab Pass en route. The road led me to Hunza, a fairytale kingdom in the high Karakorams. The Hunza Valley is flanked by truly enormous mountains – Ultar, Shishpar, Diran, Golden Peak and Rakaposhi. The light was sharper than glass. In the villages apricots were drying on rooftops and local Ismaeli women smiled and greeted me in English – a startling experience for a foreign man travelling in Pakistan.
Hunza was once the centerpiece of northern Pakistan’s tourist industry, and in the main village of Karimabad I realized just how badly people have suffered here. Suicide bombs and Talibanization belong to another world, but they have stemmed the flow of tourists along the Karakoram Highway. The handful of hardy adventurers who make it to Karimabad these days are outnumbered by empty guesthouses, bankrupt gift-shops and one-time tour-guides gone back to their fields. Over an incongruous cup of cappuccino in a cafe owned by his family a local businessman called Javeed told me how bad it has been. “People will not starve, because they have land so they can go back to farming. But it has been tough. Tourism was basically the lifeblood here and people got used to it,” he said.

From Hunza I would continue north on the Karakoram Highway, back into China, but I had one final stop to make in Pakistan. The little village of Passu lies beneath the snout of a huge glacier and a wall of glowing granite spires. Gilgit-Baltistan is famous trekking country and Passu is the starting point for one of the best day hikes in the region, a route that crosses and re-crosses the Hunza River – on a pair of hair-raising suspension bridges...
The first bridge – built to connect summer fields on the far bank with the villages around Passu – was some 500 meters long, and the construction did not inspire confidence. Lengths of rusty cable were loosely lashed together and splintered strips of planking slotted between them. There were gaps of more than a meter between some of the footholds.
With my heart in my mouth I crossed to the far shore, but when I arrived at the head of the second bridge, a few kilometers downstream, things seemed much worse. The wind was howling and I could see the bridge swaying wildly back and forth. Beside it – like a grim warning – hung the remnants of an earlier crossing, all snapped wires and dangling planks. The prospect was terrifying. I took the first tentative step. Beneath me the cold, gray water rushed past. Flurries of dusty wind rushed up the valley. The bridge lurched. Panic rose and I clung on for dear life until the wind eased.
When I finally reached solid ground I slumped onto a rock to settle my nerves. As calm returned I watched two locals trotting merrily across the bridge in opposite directions, pausing to chat midstream. As I watched them I began to feel a bit silly. The bridge had certainly looked an alarming prospect, but in truth it had carried me high above troubled waters. It was, I realized, much like Gilgit-Baltistan itself, floating serenely hundreds of meters above the troubles of the rest of Pakistan...


© Tim Hannigan 2009

Exploring China's Wild West



Xinjiang, China's restive Central Asian province

Originally published in the Jakarta Globe, 15/12/09

http://thejakartaglobe.com/culture/exploring-chinas-wild-west/347563

There is a smell of goats, fresh bread and melons. A cacophony of bleating animals rises, mixed with conversations full of hard-edged Turkic gutturals. A small boy clambers deftly onto the back of an unbroken, barrel-bellied pony, and reining it back sharply he somehow stays in place as it gallops wildly over the stony ground. Horse-trading elders with beards and skull caps look on with approval and begin to count wads of tattered money. Above everything arches a vast Central Asian sky.
I am in China, but here, in the Sunday livestock bazaar on the outskirts of Kashgar, an ancient city in the southwest corner of Xinjiang, I have to keep reminding myself of that fact.

Xinjiang is China’s Wild West, a state of deserts and mountains peopled by Muslim Uighurs, and leaning more to Bokhara than Beijing. It has long had a troubled relationship with the rest of the country, slipping in and out of effective Chinese control as imperial power waxed and waned over the centuries. Today the tensions continue. In July this year protests by Uighurs in Urumqi, the state capital, turned violent and a government crackdown followed. But unlike in neighbouring Tibet the government has kept Xinjiang open to tourists. As I arrive in Kashgar on a long-distance train, rolling though vineyards and pomegranate orchards, there has been a state-wide telecommunications shutdown for over four months and army trucks bearing anti-separatist slogans are rolling on the streets. But I am free to go wherever I like, and the first place I head is Kashgar’s famous Sunday Market.

Kashgar stands astride the ancient Silk Road, the much-mythologized trade route that once linked China with Europe. From here trails led east along the fringes of the desert, and west over mountain passes. For centuries people, religions and ideas passed along the caravan routes. The Uighurs’ Turkic ancestors dropped out of the mountains in the 6th Century. Before them Buddhism, Manichaeism and Nestorian Christianity had travelled west; a few centuries later Islam arrived.
Today a hint of this old romance survives – the borders of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kirghizstan lie within 150 kilometres of Kashgar, and trade goes on in weekly markets across the region. In the Kashgar Sunday Market I see carpets, fruits, and embroidered cloth, mixed in with everyday metals and plastics. Women in sparkling headscarves jostle with old men in embroidered pillbox hats.
But the Chinese government is determinedly dragging Xinjiang into the mainstream. The market has now been corralled into a modern complex, and beyond it new high-rises tower over the remnants of the old mud-walled city. In recent years swathes of the Uighur old town have been bulldozed, and immigration from other parts of China has been encouraged. These moves – and the dominance of immigrant Han Chinese in the job market – have only increased tensions. English-speaking Uighurs I meet on my journey whisper their disquiet in hushed, paranoid tones. One man at the Sunday Market explains the resentment at the destruction of old Kashgar. “There is no privacy in a Chinese apartment,” he says; “our traditional houses are built around a courtyard so we all live together, but with privacy. We don’t want to live in apartments.”

Looking for something a little more authentic I head to the livestock bazaar. It is a glorious chaos of goats, donkeys, horses and sheep and haggling men in fabulous hats. I am hoping to see a camel or two – real evidence that I am on the Silk Road – but to my disappointment there are none. I console myself with a plate of greasy kebabs and plot my onward journey.

From Kashgar I head east. Human habitation in Xinjiang has long been squeezed into the narrow margin between the mountains and the desert. A string of oases runs along what was once the southern branch of the Silk Road. My first stop is Yarkand – a place once as fabled as Samarkand or Xanadu. During Xinjiang’s periods of independence from Chinese rule Yarkand was usually the capital city. It was also the terminus of skeleton-strewn caravan trails over the mountains from India.
Today it is a backwater. A Uighur old town of mud alleyways remains, and a dusty graveyard of royal tombs studded with the faded flags of mystic Sufi cults sprawls behind a medieval mosque with a vine-shaded courtyard. A modern Chinese town of arrow-straight boulevards dominates, but away to the south I can pick out the faint white line of the Kun Lun mountains, the back wall of the entire Himalayan mountain system.
From the next oasis, Karghilik, I take a taxi into those hills along a road that leads, eventually, to Tibet. An army check-post by the chilly banks of the Tiznaf River is as far as I can go, but I scramble up a steep brown slope to take in the view. A mass of brown mountains, ribbed and scored with dark shadow, spreads east and west. Behind them, rising in a glittering white line is the backbone of the Kun Lun. This was the barrier that Silk Road traders from India once had to cross en route to Kashgar, Yarkand, and my own final destination – Hotan.

The road to Hotan blazes across stony desert, the mountains floating to the south. The vast void that surrounds it makes arrival in Hotan a strange experience, for here, at the very limit of China’s vastness, is another large, modern town. As a Uighur heartland the Chinese government has been particularly keen to integrate Hotan with the rest of the country. Roads from the north now plough straight across the Taklamakan Desert, and from next year a railway line will link it to Kashgar. A Uighur man I meet at a kebab stall hisses “When the railway is ready we will be finished – Hotan will be all Chinese...”
But something remains here: a week has passed; it is time for Hotan’s own Sunday Market. Nothing has been regimented here; the bazaar sprawls over a vast area, filling all the lanes and alleys of the old quarter with a mass of colour and commerce. There are sections given over to cloth and carpets, to the jade mined from the banks of nearby rivers, to animals and even tractors! Donkey carts clatter through the crowds, the drivers calling out “Bosh! Bosh!” – coming through! – and when I am tired of wandering I feast on laghman (Uighur noodles) and slices of fresh watermelon.
And as I leave the market I spot something – it is what I had hoped to see a week earlier in Kashgar. A small boy is leading a pair of shaggy, twin-humped Bactrian camels through the crowd. They are enormous, lumbering beasts, and they pass through the chaos unperturbed, noses held arrogantly high, and disappear amongst the trucks and buses. I stare after them as they go, now sure, despite the political tensions and the heavy-handed Chinese modernisation, that I am in Central Asia, and on the Silk Road...

© Tim Hannigan 2009