Kerapan Sapi: 24 Jam in Madura

In the city of Pamekasan, on the island of Madura, there is a tradition called kerapan sapi.  Madura is located off the Northeast coast of Java, but connected by Indonesia’s longest bridge and a history of association that dates back for hundreds of years.  Karapan sapi is a series of races, each heat containing two teams that each consist of two bulls, one rider, and a colorful, plow-like contraption on which the rider stands.  These teams compete for the President’s Cup and the rights to sell their bull’s studding services at an astronomically increased price.  Despite having to travel about nine hours, one way, to make it to the event, I was compelled to attend.  I was going to check out these sloppy sapi-sapi, no bull.

So, the distance was traveled, the bus rides sustained, and Madura was straight 24 jam.  In Bahasa Indonesia, jam means hour.  Many of the gas stations and other various roadside establishments have "24 Jam" boldly printed in face-melting neon colors.  On the way in to Madura, one of the sapi-bound (Brett) pointed out the awesomeness of a 24 jam gas station.  I agreed.  24 jam is something to live by; I mean, that’s a lot of jam.  In fact, it’s the most jam/jamming possible.

Early on Saturday morning, Said, our driver for the weekend and an amateur drag racer, arrived to sweep us off to Madura, hitting the fastest speeds I am yet to travel on the ground in Indonesia (this is despite my best efforts on the occasionally empty road from Pati to Tlogowungu).  Said was cool behind the wheel, though.  When speeding into oncoming traffic or the wayward goat, he didn’t blink, sweat, or smile. He only once growled at motorbike drivers who had persistent death-wishes.  We were in good,chubby hands.

  

After acquiring everyone in our crew—five strapping, male, ETAs hailing from different corners of East and Central Java—we set out for Pamekasan.  Sapi-sapi, here we come.

The crew and Said

En route to Pameksan, we drove across the famous Suramadu bridge.  Suramadu connects Surabaya and Mudra, and is the longest bridge in Indonesia.  This is a great talking point, as Indonesians are pretty proud of their large bridge. I mean, it’s a nice bridge, I’ll give them that.  As a point of national pride, though, I would stick to Komodo dragons and orangutans.  In my opinion, fauna is something to get jingoistic about; engineering feats almost entirely provided by another country, not so much.

Once in Pamekasan, we checked into our hotel, enjoyed a quick cup of ginger coffee, and headed out.  As I have noted previously on this web-log, one American ambling about a city is enough to cause all heads to turn and most vehicles to honk.  Multiply this by five.  In Pamekasan, we were a spectacle.  We were a novelty act.  I think having a bearded lady among us would have made us seem more normal.

We managed to turn this attention to our advantage by asking the curious townspeople of Pamekasan to direct us to various locations of interest around the city: the market, the stadium where the sapi-sapi would race, where to drink Jamu Madura, and where to secure some beers.  The people of Pamekasan were able to help us with all of the above, despite the illegal nature of the beer.  There is more on this adventure in the previous post.

One of the more memorable events of the weekend was when our crew enjoyed a tall, frothy glass of Jamu Madura.  Jamu, an herbal drink meant to cure all and everything that ails you, is common across Java.  The Maduran variety is supposed to increase your virility.  Despite already being paragons of virility, we decided that we might as well throw some down the hatch, you know, since we were in the neighborhood.  One of the townspeople led us to a little stand where the menagerie of jars and powders on the counter signified that this was the place to get your virility fix.  Despite feeling pretty meaty, I opted for the non-raw-egg variety.  Salmonella is real, guys.

So, Jamu Madura is not the tastiest beverage in town.  Clearly, the Madurans know this, as it is served with a citrus tea chaser.  Think of a warm, frothy, slightly off glass of jagermeister and milk; that is Jamu Madura.  I took the plunge, tilted the beverage back, and roared.  Immediately, my muscles bulged and I grew a thick—non-Batman shaped—patch of chest hair.  I sneezed and impregnated the entire block: male and female.  Yes, the jamu worked.  Here is why it works so well:

It is made from, in part, crocodile penis.

I’m not joking.  As the other guys took their turn downing a little jamu and chasing it with the tea, I inquired into the ingredients.  Pointing to one particularly interesting jar, a phallic shaped object with a claw on the end, I was surprised to hear “zakar buaya.”  Yep, that means crocodile penis.  Yum.

Surprisingly, the night took a few more interesting twists and turns.  After that . . . interesting . . . evening, we settled into our flea-ridden sheets to a good night’s slumber.  

We woke up at 5 AM, a pretty reasonable hour in Indonesia.  After rolling out of bed, taking a shower, and eating some breakfast at the hotel, we drove down to the racetrack.  The racetrack is not so much a track as it is a crumbling cement wall surrounding an arena of patchy, green and yellow grass.  In the center a bamboo fence closes off the actual race course, which is just a straight line where the bulls charge, full speed, about 100 meters.

Yeah, I use metric now.  He’s soooooo international!

 

With the first heat slotted for 8 AM, we had some time to kill.  Well, a segment of this time was spent taking to the field and marching with one of the teams.  Upon arriving, we were ushered onto the course to parade about while the bulls were serenaded with percussive, Maduran music, and the riders/owners puffed out their chests proudly, showing the crowd their teams.  After we did a couple spins around the course, we beat it back to the shade for some mie Madura and I partook in a refreshing, cold Sprite.  With an hour left before the races started in earnest, we decided to check up the inflatable VIP section, sponsored by Djarum, a cigarette company.  When we walked up to the room, we were immediately asked to come in.  Of course, we obliged.

The VIP tent was cold.  Yes, despite it being about 32 degrees Celsius (ohhh, you know it!) at 7 AM in the morning, the tent was COLD.   We decided to buy a pack of cigarettes to keep up appearances and hide out in the air conditioning for a bit.  Meanwhile, we were asked to play very simple games, and were given some Djarum shwag.  I raked in a lighter and a t-shirt . . . not too shabby.  As we were leaving, the band in the VIP tent was playing “High and Dry” by Radiohead.  Watch out Nashville Machine, Radiohead has a hold on the bull circuit in Indonesia.  

With a few minutes until race time, we crowded the fence.  Here it was, the moment we were waiting for.  The bulls were being lined up, the riders standing on their yolk/what-have-yous, and suddenly AWAS!!! There they went!  In a flash of red and yellow, the bulls were being brought to a halt at the other end of the course.  

 

"Do you want to walk with my bulls?"

AWAS!!

At the end of the course, the bulls were being stopped manually.  There were bull-catchers.  We knew where we had to go.

Watching the race from the catching end of the course is a lot more exhilarating.  It really makes you pay attention to the race, especially when the bulls start careening into the crowd.  A few times I thought the bulls were heading for our small crowd of Americans, just to make a point.  Well, if they were, they missed.  After a few heats of heart-pounding, bull-dodging, we made our way to a shaded, raised viewing platform where Jack, one of the fellow ETAs, knew someone who was going to let us partake in the better viewing. 

We step up on stage and someone tells us that the Bupati, the ruling official similar to a mayor is sitting up front.  Well, we eventually meet the guy and are asked to drink his waters/juices and eat his fruit/peanuts.  A few more heats, in the heat, and we are done.  The illustrious President Cup continued into the blistering afternoon, but we chose life.  Standing in the puddles that had become our shoes and socks, we all thought it best to dive into the car and make our way back to Surabaya.

Watching the world whiz by at a dizzying speed, I was led to reflect on how incredibly foreign karapan sapi was.  Sure, there was Western flare: the VIP tent, Radiohead, a handful of other foreign tourists sticking out amongst the crows, but in a large part, this is an unadulterated cultural event, For Madurans, By Madurans.  Thinking about how beautiful that was, I decided to suggest we go somewhere For Americans, By Americans.

Pizza Hut never tasted better.  If I remember correctly, the cooks spelled out “24 Jam” with pepperonis, but don’t take my word on that.  All that jamming makes a man forget a thing or two.