A Journey With Mrs. Claudia and Her Daughter

 


A Journey With Mrs. Claudia and Her Daughter


August 2025


I can’t quite remember how my first conversation with Mrs. Claudia began. As usual, it started with a foreign number appearing on my phone—European, but not French or Dutch. Eastern Europe, maybe? She introduced herself simply: Mrs. Claudia, currently in Yogyakarta, planning to come to Malang and book some tours.


I’m still not sure whether she also booked her Yogyakarta tour through me. Maybe she did… maybe not. My memory drifts sometimes, hehe.


I work with a few private drivers, but the most loyal one is Putra. He’s young, a law student, polite, good-looking, and always reliable. Strangely, despite years of working together, I had never once shared a car with him.


So when Mrs. Claudia arrived in Malang, I finally took the chance to go with him—to see with my own eyes how he handled guests on the ground. I had never seen him in action before.


We picked her up at her hotel. As usual, the warm “hello, good morning” from Europeans made the morning feel brighter. I even told her that I was “just a worker at Java Jive, not the owner,” because I wanted to observe the tour from the perspective of both the staff and the guest.


Mrs. Claudia came with her daughter—still a teenager, maybe around eighteen, but already tall and athletic like many Europeans. Sometimes I wonder what Europeans eat to grow that tall and strong. I always end up laughing at the thought.


Our first destination was Tumpak Sewu Waterfall. I told Putra to take as many photos as possible because, at that time, I desperately needed fresh pictures for promotion. With her 80s-style bandana, Mrs. Claudia stepped into adventure mode, ready to explore.





Meanwhile, I waited at the top. I’ve visited Tumpak Sewu so many times that, honestly, it no longer excites me.


After they finished exploring, Mrs. Claudia sat down to rest her legs. I checked the photos and felt satisfied. Then we continued to Pamotan Rice Fields.


Pamotan Rice Fields


I can’t remember whether Mrs. Claudia was the second or the third tourist I ever brought there—Pamotan was still a very new discovery back then.


As usual, we walked past small village homes and crossed the tiny wooden bridge over the river. For them, it felt like a new world. For me, it was familiar, yet always charming.



We didn’t stay long—just enough for photos. Children from the village kept shouting at us, thinking we were movie actors or YouTubers. They kept asking for pictures, laughing and waving. They weren’t used to tourists; only content creators had visited before. Seeing foreigners must have felt like watching celebrities right in front of them.


We headed back to Malang. Along the way, I noticed something: Mrs. Claudia spoke perfect English, but her daughter didn’t. It made me wonder—does Germany not require English in schools? Or do Europeans mostly learn English on their own?


When we arrived at the hotel, Mrs. Claudia handed us a tip.


And here, I must correct myself. For my previous blog, I wrote that Mrs. Gina from Australia was the first person to ever tip me directly. But actually… it was Mrs. Claudia. Funny how memories work.


I went home and continued with other work. The next morning, she filed a complaint to my tour organizer—apparently the girls with her in Bromo were taking too long with photos.


Honestly, this is the one thing I dislike about many Asian girls—they’re obsessed with taking pictures, as if nothing in the world is more beautiful than themselves. Not just Indonesians—Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai… all the same. Image is everything to them.



But that’s enough complaining, hehe.


If I remember correctly, Mrs. Claudia also booked the Ijen tour. But the details have slipped away from me somehow.


And until the moment I write this, I still haven’t said thank you to her.


So through this story—

I want to say it sincerely:


Thank you, Mrs. Claudia.


—Java Jive Journeys


3D2N BROMO, IJEN, SEWU GROUP TOUR

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