This is Johny. We met Johny a few days after we arrived in Denpasar. We had been circling a neighborhood trying to find the “Lorena” ticket station to get us to Yogyakarta on Java. I pulled over and asked Johny for directions. Johny did not hesitate to tell us that Lorena was a shitty bus company with a record number of road accidents. Better go with a reliable company called “Safari”.
Seeing that we were fairly lost in Denpasar, Johny decided to bring us to the station himself. Thanks to him we may have avoided disaster (at the bus station I saw a severely dented Lorena Bus with major windscreen cracks). How lucky we were!
After we bought our tickets, Johny invited us to his house so that we could have tea/coffee together. Johny’s hospitality knows no bounds, as he insisted on cooking a special Indonesian dish for us.
We also discovered that Johny lived in Yogyakarta for many years and seemed to know the area very well. Johny told us that he was on vacation the following week and asked us if he could come with us. Of course!
In Yogyakarta we learned that Johny had an exceptional talent for singing. He told us that he had won many national singing contests. One night he brought us to one of his favorite karaoke joint. After an excellent meal he picked up the microphone.
I was floored. And so was Ania. What we were hearing was pure delight. In fact I have never seen somebody sing live so well. Now I understood why he took second place in Indonesia in opera singing.
Johny made our stay in Java unforgettable. He brought us to his favorite restaurants and showed us places that we’ll never find in a travel guide, including beautiful towns in the mountains.
Encounters like this make a great trip even better. Ania and I will make sure we see more of Johny in our life.
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