Traveling with your mother (part 1)

Since last week, I am in Indonesia with my mother. We had planned this trip since 2012, but weren't able to go up until now. I wanted to show her Indonesia, hoping that maybe she would enjoy it as much as I do and that it might help her change some of her flaws, such as impatience, negativity, etc. 

Maybe I expected too much for a first trip though: Although I tried to make everything as perfect as possible, the complaints started early on: Travelling is too "rushed" and complicated, there is no time for bathroom breaks (although I told her dozens of times to go on the plane, she didn't go once on a 12 hour flight just to almost make us miss the connecting flight in Kuala Lumpur and earlier in Amsterdam), food is too cold, too spicy, the breakfast is too limited or foreign, the beggars annoy her (me too, but I bet every Indonesian feels the same?) and so on and so forth. 

It didn't help that apparently you can't use any non-Indonesian phones in Indonesia. Or you have to have your IMEI registered. Since I didn't know that and nobody seems to inform you, I had to buy a phone, just to use for the time being here. My mom simply can't or doesn't want to understand that it's not my fault or that the SIM cards aren't broken, but that it's a protectionist movement by the government that can't be changed. 

I was worried that some of this might happen, because my mom - sorry to say - is pretty incapable of doing many things that should be simple, even back at home in Germany. She can't go to the bank to get a new debit card, she can't or doesn't want to find her old one, she can't watch videos on YouTube in order to learn how to use Amazon or eBay, she doesn't know how to update or use most of her computer. And yet she is quick to assume and judge others and put blame on them or things without knowing the half of it. 

I really hoped that her tendency to be so negative about things would change, that she can see the positive in everything. 

For example, she seems to think basically everyone here is poor, that every female friends I have just want to marry me, that every person has a personal vendetta against her. Maybe I can't understand that because I have never been THAT negative and more logical/less emotional, especially after my first couple of visits to Indonesia and later Japan or Singapore. But I surely didn't think I would disagree with her so much or sometimes feel happy people can't understand what she actually says or thinks. And she seems to blame me for wanting to be on my own or with friends sometimes, although she had told me she is an adult and she can keep herself busy (this already lead to some arguments or "hurt feelings" with friends). 

We're currently on our way to Bali. I hope it'll be better there, because it's less crowded and leaving your mom at the beach for 8 hours, 5 mins from your hotel isn't the same as leaving her in some mall or at the hotel all day. 

I do feel like I am the parent, only with the added disadvantage of having a "child" you can't teach anything new out of sheer ignorance or unwillingness (ironically the exact things she ALWAYS blamed my grandma for who at least had us give her a Nintendo for her 60th birthday or tried inline skating and other new things). 

I love my mom, despite a lot of the crappy things she did or how unfair she has been sometimes, but I really wonder if this trip will bring us closer together or further apart...

Tbc