Category: Travel

So I (jm) was in the bathroom at the Institute today and while I washing my hands heard a very loud sound like meowing. I looked up and there was a teeny tiny kitten at a little break near the window trying to get into the room from seven feet up. It was very strange. We think somehow this kitten (and hopefully it mother) got themselves stuck on the roof and were wandering around up there. It was very sad, but some guys were going to try and help them, and I hope they got down. Then I walked around the corner and scared the lizard who sometimes lives in the hallway (and myself). I think that’s enough indoor wildlife for the day.

I’ve got some pictures of Bandung which will hopefully be up tomorrow, the site wasn’t working correctly today. I took some pictures from the (moving) train, and they turned out well. The train ride was absolutely gorgeous, with rich paddies everywhere. There were tons of little valleys and gorges all full of terraced steps.

As soon as we left the train station, we were accosted by three teenage girls who were giggling lots and asked to interview us (well I think they actually only wanted to talk to Tom, good thing I was there!). Tom made a deal, and said they could ask questions after they told us where the puppet shop was which was pretty funny. But it worked and we weren’t even lost for a change. They had all sorts of questions, but were mostly very shy, and one kept whispering questions to another, who then asked us in Indonesian how to ask things in English. We helped them figure out the question in English, and then answered in English too. It was very confusing but quite silly and fun. For the rest of the day as we walked around we were treated to the usual “HELLO MISTER!” screamed at top volume by everyone. I still cannot comprehend why they do this. I would never think of screaming “HOLA” at a Hispanic person just walking down the street.

We spent even less for our hotel (about $11) than in Bogor, which was miraculous, and dinner ended up costing the same as our room. We found a place in the guide book which looked like it would be good for trying the local Sundanese food, but couldn’t seem to find it when we walked around. Turns out, it was gone. As was the next place we tried, a fancier Chinese place. The third time was a charm. Sometimes we just can’t seem to get anything right.

We just returned from our little jaunt to Bandung. It’s about a 3 hour train ride from Jakarta, but it’s like a different world. It’s still smoggy and busy, but not nearly as smoggy and busy as Jakarta. It’s far cooler too. Bogor didn’t seem like much of a difference, but Bandung was a good ten degrees cooler due to its altitude. When we went out for dinner, it was downright cool…probably about 70 degrees, which feels like sweater weather to us now.

The city itself was nice. There seem to be a lot more ethnic Chinese Indonesians in evidence there, and we had some awesome Chinese food for dinner. To tell the truth, it’s not really that different from American Chinese food: still stir-fried, still lots of rich sauce, baby corns, pea pods, etc. But it was really really good; some sort of spice or other ingredient seems to make the difference.

We also saw a neat little store that sold handmade wayang golek puppets. These are the ones made out of wood. We didn’t buy any, but this is going to be the place to visit again, for sure.