Demons at the Gate

11 April


Here are a few differences in what is otherwise a completely western, familiar hotel in the city of Bandung, 3 hours south of here.

• DEMONS, like our friend up there, guard the entrance & lobby. Some people say this is to keep out other Evil Demons—takes one to beat one, I guess. But where is our demon in the hierarchy of demons? How did we get this demon working for us? Why does this demon not also frighten off Good Spirits, or, say, obnoxious tourists, or the rest of us? Is there a lobby-demon dance floor in the basement, where all the local lobby-demons gather on their off hours to dance?

No one can answer these troubling questions. These are just facts the of life: the demon keeps out the evil spirits. As I am frequently admonished, you don’t get to have every detail of the universe all spelled out in some exciting, consistent, complete story, the way I like it. More often, I suspect the demon is in the lobby just because it’s cool looking & arguably native. Like a totem pole. Or because, like vases of lilies, that’s just what you put in lobbies. There are quite a lot of them guarding entrances to buildings.

• FORBIDDEN ITEMS. There is one item on the List of Forbidden Items written up in the hotel directory & rules: “The Durian Fruit is strictly prohibited on the premises.” Everything else gets a pass.

• QIBLAT (or Kibblat) on the ceiling. This is the small marker stenciled onto the ceiling in many public spaces that indicates the direction of prayer. When Muslims pray five times a day, they pray facing Mecca. Usually we think of that as being to the east. Here, in Indonesia, Mecca is to the west.

There are also prayer rugs for sale—these are 2x3 foot rugs—that have compasses imbedded in them.

• SOUVENIRS. Available for purchase are bath mats, Bibles, Topi (Muslim hats for men), Koran, & post cards.

• GECKOS . At dawn & dusk, & often all the night through, there are geckos here. These are gentle, lucky creatures who inhabit the rafters & bathrooms of the tropics, eating mosquitoes & singing you to sleep with little Geck-Geck chirping. They can climb anything, literally. I've seen them in our 30th floor apartment in Jakarta, in our 4 star hotel in Bandung, & everywhere in Bali. The babies are easy to catch, perfect little imprints of GECKO-ness, & weigh absolutely nothing.

Here's a fat one on a sign:

Here’s another difference, in general: The night we went to the theatre—the whole reason we were in Bandung—E left his backpack in the taxi. In it was a very expensive video camera & tripod, with which he’d intended to tape the performance. He gave his name & information to the parking attendant, but knew it was hopeless. A few minutes into the play, the attendant came into the theater to fetch E from the audience: the taxi driver had returned & brought the backpack, with everything in it.