Palm Coconut Plantation

My company sent me and my manager to conduct a language proficiency test at the Palm Coconut Plantation at Air Molek, a 3-hour drive from Pekanbaru. The three hour drive with 120 km/hour speed is the last thing I ever expected from a helldriver. I tried to sleep during the trip, but ended up banging my head over the window. The great thing is that trying to relax with the typical local songs played loud on the tape. Yeah,yeah, it's a free country.

The single road with nothing much seen a far seems to be a good reason to shut your eyes and save the energy while you can. The picture of the bridge over the river is anyway a great scene for your blog.


I have never been to any real forest in my life. Not even on a camping site as a girlscout. But this time, the lined coconut palm trees are for real. To make it even more impressive, they do not have a special training room for the test, but only make the best use of the dining room. What startled me was the way they throw jokes --for example "Lonte" for lontong sate (for the word means prostitute in Jakarta slang words) or some other words I prefer less to remember.


With limited if I can not say low proficiency level, the participants endured the two-hour test plus interview.

I wonder how you have to rate these people when the interview went like :

" Tell me about yourself"
" rrrr.."
" Tell me about yourself"
" ....(silent)"
" What's your name"
" ...(silent)"
" My name is Kenny. What is your name?"
"....rrr..Kenny? yes,yes".
Then I just smiled at the guy who was sweathing and trembling as if I was an alien trying to abduct him. I was totally at a loss and felt guilty at the same time realizing the fact that we shot a mosquito with a bazooka.

We spent the night at the guess house, had durians in the morning, took the original forest honey bee at a PET bottle. Before we left the camp, they took us for a tour. They showed us the fruits -- palm coconut bunch and where they processed them into the crude palm oil.
















I left the site with a little sensation of diarrhea, not really sure the cause was. Perhaps it was because the last question I asked, about this place. They said proudly "oh, this is the lake where we get the water from. We use the water after refining it for drinking and washing." Yeah, right.
Must be very practical that my digestive system complained.