Bear's Milk
Once upon an evening at the Hotel Patra in Dumai. It was a Sunday, March 12, 2006. That fated evening, AZ and I was watching the TV in the comfort of the air-conditioned room while Rah was busy reading the items on the room service menu, one by one. The menu was in Bahasa Indonesia and some of the words were very new to him and some of them even sounded weird and funny.
As he was going through the list, I translated to him most of the food and drinks since I already knew most of them. There were lots of chuckles and laughters and both AZ and I ended up reading the menu together with Rah instead of watching what was on the TV. Even now, I just could not remember what was on the TV that evening.
Rah finally came to the end of the list of drinks and he exclaimed “Susu Beruang! (Bear’s Milk!). AZ looked at Rah curiously as if wondering whether he heard that correctly or not. Then Rah continued. “Rp 10,000!” That must be something special since it is quite costly, comparatively…
I, on the other end, had seen that product before although I had never, tasted it. I explained to both of them what it was and as I had expected, they thought that I was pulling their legs. I told them that I would prove to them later, where we could stop at a local grocery shop and get some of the milk, when Om Dodi picked us up for dinner. I messaged Little Lion to remind Om Dodi to stop for the milk later and all was set.
Later that night we went for the great Bear’s Milk hunt. Om Dodi stopped at one of the local shops and the three of us rushed in and started to look around. Many of the customers in the shop curiously looked on, at a bunch of strangely speaking people who was mumbling something about not finding the milk that they were looking for.
At last Om Dodi asked one of the workers for the whereabouts of the sacred milk. The three of us went over to the pointed direction and there I saw it and said: “Look! What did I tell you guys?“. And Rah went: “It’s only Rp 5000 here!“.
We all bought a few cans, obviously driven by our curiosity, and quickly opened them up as soon as we got into the car. We drank it up and it tasted like evaporated creamers in Malaysia (susu cair) that our mothers normally used to make puddings or jellies or the milk that some Malaysians add to their tea and called it Teh Si.
Nevertheless, we were happy and satisfied with our finding that night and now we can proudly say that we have had the Bear’s Milk!
******
*Original pic by berry bear
Cik Peah
zik
Anyyss Shuhaimi
terbelog
Khidhir
