July 11 - Banyuwangi anyone?

July 11 Day 147

                At about 1 am, when everyone was asleep, the conductor woke everyone up so that he could flip the seats around because the car was changing direction.  This meant moving your stuff when you're half asleep, trying to figure out where the pocket on the seat in front of you is now, look for anything that might have fallen on the floor while you were sleeping etc.  Luckily, nothing was lost but it took awhile to get back asleep again and we would have preferred to just go backwards.

                The last hour of the trip after sunrise was nice, with lots of paddy fields and mountains in the distance.  When we got to the sop on our tickets there was some confusion as it was one stop before the Banyuwangi stop but most people seemed to be leaving there and it was listed on our ticket.  while we were trying to decide what to do, the train started up again and made the decision for us.

                The next stop was the last one and we were able to get a cab using a meter into town.  Our driver was a real character who was shouting out to pedestrians during the entirety of our trip and turned some local religious talk show on the radio really loud.  Meg thought he was trying to convert us but that would have been difficult since there wasn't one word of English in the whole thing.

                We showed up at Green Ijen Homestay and were met by Yoga, who told us that Johan had gone to meet us at the first train station that we didn't get off at.  Our room was dark and worn but clean and so we spent some time trying to catch up on the sleep we didn't get on the train.

                When we got up we went over the blue light/Mt. Ijen tour that we would do that night with Johan.  We got some recommendations of what to do and then headed out to lunch to a place he recommended.

                Along the way we found an ATM that worked for both of us, crossed a nice public square and a huge mosque and enjoyed the light traffic the town had compared to the rest of Java.

                The place was a buffet with 4 kinds of rice and an array of other dishes that you could help yourself to.  The rice was hot but the other things were lukewarm.  Trusting Johan's advice and the steady stream of take out people were getting there, we decided to trust the place.  The food was excellent and cheap and we didn't get sick from it, high recommendations. 

                On the way back we walked down the painted village where bright murals covered most places in a small neighbourhood, many of which were designer to take your picture on (angel wings, head in the mouth of a shark etc.)  As we continued through the area we saw that kids were playing in the filthy river ad calling out to us ad many of the houses  were little more than shacks.

                Also on the way back, Meg got some pencils to give out to kids at a store where the merchandise was so dusty we felt like we were the only sale they had in the last decade.  We also dropped off a pile of laundry at a place where we were ward that we would be charged for 3 kilos because it was the lowest amount on their scale.  We were paying about $2.50 so it wasn't a problem.

                We caught up with more sleep and hung out at the hostel.  Two helpers for Johan had a room there but a bunch of young guys also seemed to be hanging out there.  Other than that, most rooms seemed empty.

                At dinner we went to a fancier place where Meg tried to order a meal minus tha meat but they said it wasn't available so she got a few side dishes.  Strangely, the place was showing a rerun of a North American soccer game between Vancouver and LA of all things.  The food was decent and the place was fancier than most on the strip.

                Meg though that she left her water bottle at the laundry place but we couldn't find it there.  We're not sure if the women there knew what they were looking for as their English was non-existent. Another casualty of travel.

                Since we had to meet our ride at 1 am the plan was to go to bed as early as possible before our adventure, so that's what we did.

Waiting at the train station.

Our buffet.

The river that runs through the painted village.

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July 10 - The Affendi Museum

July 10 Day 146

                We got up and had another great breakfast and chat with our Andorran friend.  When we asked what his name was he said that he has had many names and then changed the subject.

                Meg wanted the morning off as she had fallen behind in her work by spending hours the previous day trying to upgrade our flight using her airmiles (not surprisingly, she couldn't).  She stayed behind and the hotel got me a Grab to the Affendi museum.

                Affendi was a much beloved local artist with a quirky side.  The buildings on the site were all based on the shape of banana leaves and were nice, large curvy spaces.  The first building was the largest with samples of his work (mainly paintings, a few sculptures) in order from the earliest to the latest.  He had talent, and you could see how he went from a less distinctive style to using colourful, thick outlines of paint to frame his subjects to splattery grotequeries in his later work.  Also sitting in the gallery was a customized car which was supposed to be stylized to look like a fish but not really.

                The next room had sketches and oddities such as dressed and posed skeletons.  A third room had the work of his ex-wives and children, some of which was quite good.  Outside was a tower to look around the area (the gallery was right next to a river) and a cafe where a free drink came with your ticket.  Below was a gallery for local artists, a restaurant and a nice pool with strange creatures fixed onto it.

                The whole place was worth about an hour and the front office was able to get me another Grab to the National Gallery.  I was the only visitor there the whole time and there were at least a dozen people working there.  maybe they get tour buses as the restaurant space was built to accommodate large groups.

                The trip to the gallery was long and I should have checked it in advance as it as closed.  My Grab had gone so I walked back into town to check out the main shopping street.  The town is not an attractive one as the walk was hot and dusty with little to distinguish it.

                The main shopping street starts off basic with sidewalk space and racks of clothes in front of shops with lots of touts.  The restaurants along the other side are heavily touted and mainly empty with pre-cooked food ready to be re-heated, not a good sign.  As you continue south it becomes more crowded with locals and sidestreets with carts and makeshift stores going off in all directions and probably much better prices.  I wasn't in the market for anything so continued down until I got to the market.  There was lots of food and supplies and a few people doing satay over open flames.  Very busy with locals.

                I continued walking towards our hostel and ended up on our street after the time I suggested Meg get her own lunch and so had decent satay and beer at a place on our street.  When I got back to the room Meg hadn't been out so she headed out on her own to grab lunch.  She had used the woman at the front of the hotel's phone to call ahead for a pickup once we arrived in Bangyuwangi.  Johan, who was supposed to arrange pick ups, said he was busy but wanted our details in case he could make it.  Kind of a confusing message so Meg told him that we would make our own way.  Back in our room,  packing and readying ensued and we were on time for our Grab pick up for the train station.

                The ticket line was nothing so we had our tickets in 30 seconds after being told to be there an hour early.  In the station were plenty of seats and lots of shops so we loaded up on snacks and read our books while waiting for the train.

                All of the trains were pretty much exactly on time and we were in executive class this time with reclining seats.  We got comfy and ordered a cold dinner with dry chicken but decent rice in a box.  The old guy next to us was loud in talking on his phone and to the guy beside him, who might have gotten in about 5% of the conversation so we were glad we had earplugs.  The seats were much more comfortable than economy class (really, the price difference is minimal between them, it's all what's available when you book) but still hard to have a really good sleep on.  It also didn't help that they kept the lights on in the train car and there were long, loud announcements at every stop we came to.

The main gallery in the museum.  i don't see how the car resembles a fish.

A grotesque carving outside.

Huge Affendi sculpture in the cafe.

July 9 - Prambanan and grubby dinner

The largest of the three small temples, still pretty big.

A monkey relief on the main tower complex.

Hanuman burns huts with the towers in the background.

July 9 Day 145

                The next morning our Indonesian breakfast was excellent.  In the middle of the plate was a pile of coconut rice surrounded by various vegetable and meat dishes as well as some chili sauce.  It was restaurant quality and came with a plate of sliced fruit to share. 

                As we sat down to it one of the people running the hotel came and spoke to us.  He was an older white guy with a mustache.  He was from Andorra but his family moved to Africa and then to France.  We spoke a bit in French but his English was better than our French so we mainly spoke in that.  He was proud to be one of very few people to have Indonesian citizenship, apparently very hard to get.  He was a font of knowledge about Indonesian politics and history and his perspectives were really interesting if occasionally factually suspect.  We had a long chat with him so breakfast took a long time.

                Our tour was in the afternoon so we got stuff done in our room and had a simple lunch until it was time for our pick up.  In the van were two other people, one who didn't respond to a hello and another who did but then turned around.  Not a chatty small group.

                Prambanan is a Hindu complex not far out of town but traffic meant it took quite a while to get there.  At the site we talked a bit and the non-hello passenger was an American doing development work and the other woman was a Philippine nurse also working with communities.  We planned to meet up so that we could find our van together after the sunset.

                Meg and I walked down a pathway away from the main temple to three other sites considered minor.  The first two were smaller temples in good shape but the third was a huge temple surrounded by dozens of stupas and smaller temples with impressive brutish statues guarding the entryway.  At this site work was still going on and the ground was littered with stones looking for their homes.  You could walk through the main temple and many of the carving were in great shape but looking out on the symmetrical fan of crumbled stupas was the main attraction here.

                On the way back we stopped at the archaeological museum.  The curation was all in Indonesian but it had great pictures, including more nice old ones of the initial reconstruction of the temple.  We paid 50 cents to see a video on the temple which was mainly a summary of the Ramayana story which we would see in the dance performance later that day.

                Indonesians, like Indians, love to have their pictures taken with westerners.  On the way back from the temple was a nice version of this, where a girl asked for the picture politely and then we took one with her on our camera.  In the museum was a nasty version, where an arrogant guy in sunglasses motioned to me to move aside and then tried to get his friend to take a picture of him with Meg.  Meg gave them the back of her head and fortunately the slimy guy moved on. 

                We bypassed the zoo, video games centre and archery area to head to the main temple.  his had a large approach to the complex of six main temples and several small ones.  These were in great shape, covered with reliefs and many statues filled their alcoves.  It was also packed with tourists awaiting the sunset with us, many of them taking a long time to pose for their selfies and pictures and blocking the way for the rest of us.

                The sunset was a good one, with unreal colours and good light all around.  We met up with the American woman and helped each other get pictures and discussed the meaning of some of the carvings on the buildings.  After the sun was well set we headed to the parking lot and after a bit of a search found our driver.  Our party had expanded by three people, a German couple and a Romanian woman.  Together we went to a place picked out by our driver for dinner before going to our show.

                The restaurant was a typical local place and everything was going quite uneventfully until Meg pulled out what she thought was a dark vegetable in her spinach but turned out to be a big black grub.  She showed it to the staff, who apologized, brought her some tofu and didn't charge for the meal.  The rest of us mainly lost our appetites and carefully checked our forks before putting anything into our mouths.

                It was  a quick drive to the performance space, which used the lit towers of Prambanan as a backdrop to the danced performance of the Ramayana.  We had first class seats, which was actually the third level of priority.  These were close to the action and they gave us cushions to keep us from sitting directly on the concrete shelf.

                The band was huge with a few gamelans and many xylophones.  The stage was huge and teh costumes were striking, with subtitles off to the side being very useful for figuring out what was going on.  They had a bunch of kids cast as monkeys which won the audience over.  The first half was super long, 90 minutes.  We figured they wanted to end with Hanuman the magic monkey setting fire to a palace where two actual straw buildings went up in real flames.  You're not going to see a performance like that in any country with a fire code.

                At intermission we didn't buy anything and the guys next to us left so we were able to double up on our cushions.  The main characters were there to take pictures with but didn't look sweaty so we figured that they were stand ins for the real cast, who were having a well-deserved break.   The second half was only 30 minutes and ended in more pyrotechnics.  After it was over the performers stayed on stage and the audience could have their pictures taken with them.  The line was long and it was late so we just headed to the parking lot and hoped the rest of our group did the same.

                We gathered everyone together fairly quickly and the drive back to town was a little quicker.  We had to go to the tour office as our driver wasn't able to get a Visa machine in the parking lot and we hadn't paid yet.  Six people were there working even though it was almost 10, so we thanked them and hoped that they'd be able to get to their families soon.

                Our hotel was dark but the night guy popped up form behind the counter from the mat he was sleeping on to take our breakfast orders.  Indonesian breakfast again, for sure.  Back in our room we pretty much fell over and had a good sleep.

July 8 - Borobrodur and Chicken Church

Our eyes have seen the glory of the mighty Chicken Church!

Tourists hanging out at Borobrodur.

Back to front on the church, zoom in to see someone taking a selfie on the crown!

July 8 Day 144

                We got up early, picked up our boxed breakfasts and got onto our shuttle.  e were the first ones on and so we got a dark tour of the city while the van filled up with other guests.  Then it was more than an hour to the site of Borobrodur.

                The place was part of an ancient Buddhist capital.  There were a few other ruins in the area but we were focusing on the main temple.  Our tour was the hill sunrise one.  We could have paid double for the sunrise in the temple tour, or paid a little less for the morning tour, no sunrise.  Our tour took us to a hill overlooking the temple to view the sunrise.

                Alas, it was misty and the sunrise wasn't visible so we spent 45 minutes on a nice hilltop overlooking some jungle and a few buildings.  At least we didn't pay the extra to see the lack of sunrise from the temple.

                From the hill it was a short ride to the temple and then about a 5 minute walk through the grounds to the temple.  security was there but we all set off the metal detector and no one minded.  We were given a small bottle of water, told where and when to meet up afterwards and sent on our way.

                The main temple is quite large, with staircases at the four cardinal points leading up to a large top stupa.  Along the way are many levels where you can walk along the outside of the temple and see lots of Buddhas and sculpted Buddhist scenes along both sides of the path.  Just before the top is a field of stupas, each containing a Buddha.  A few are out in the open for us to see but most of the enclosed ones are headless or damaged in other ways.  many of the scenes had missing bits where they put in plain structural bricks rather than carved ones.

                The main stairway was busy but the sunrise people had spread out so all areas had people but few were bottlenecked by them.  Meg just missed getting a picture of tourists sitting on the stupas right next to a sign asking them not to, but a few security officers came around and shooed people off. 

                The preservation of the temple was impressive, the sheer number of carvings and scale of everything made it different from other Buddhist structures and we've seen lots, well worth the visit.

                After the temple we walked along the path by the elephant ride station and the movie tent, where no one was there to tell about when the informational movie might be shown.  We headed back to the restaurant we were supposed to rendezvous at with our driver and get a coffee.  All they had was a breakfast buffet for those who purchased it (we didn't) and a waiter sold us the coffees for cash which he probably just pocketed.

                Our driver made a point of finding us as we hadn't paid cash but asked to use Visa.  He got ahold of a machine and after paying we needed to negotiate the next part of our day.  We needed to see the chicken church, which was close to the temple but not part of the tour.  We were also looking forward to exploring the temple site after most of the tourists left.  Our driver actually offered to survey the other passengers, as one group just needed to get back to town and the others needed to get to Prambanan by early afternoon, both groups having some time to spare.  We thanked him but decided to make our own way.

                At the site we saw a superior coffee shop and headed to the museums.  The boat museum had a few interesting displays but the main one had been integrated into a digital presentation area full of cartoon characters aimed at 5 year olds, so we passed on that.  The archaeological museum had a yard full of stones that had yet to be placed on the temple and a fair amount of information in English.  It gave us some background and the old pictures of the temple's first reconstruction were interesting.

                The 9 am gamelan performance didn't happen so we decided to make our way out.  We walked along the town but found no taxis at all in the core.  We came back to the temple parking lot and found a Grab station.  Grab bought out Uber in Indonesia but our phone doesn't have enough memory to take the app.  Fortunately and employee was on hand and was able to order a car for us and tell us the price.  We were able to get a ride to the church with a one hour wait and then  a lift back to Jogjakarta which was exactly what we needed. 

                The ride there wasn't too long but went along many narrow roads and would have been very difficult for us to find on our own walking.  From the parking lot you had the option of getting transport to the church but we opted for the steep 10 minute walk because we're tough.  The ticket office was partway up the path and our tickets came with  vouchers for a discount on coffee and a free "local treat".

                Once we got to the top of the hill there were a few vendors offering us drinks but we ignored them as we basked in the glory of chickeny radiance.  The church was very much a giant chicken with glass eyes and a majestic open beak.  Its size was huge and its presence undeniable.  We were awed for awhile and then headed to the main entrance through the side of the beast.

                A woman met us at the door and checked our tickets.  She said that the church wasn't a chicken but a pigeon of peace, a dove we figured.  She gave a few facts about when it was built and that it was meant to be a temple of peace for all religions.  By the entrance there were many cave-like alcoves with Christian images in them and as you moved along you came across small private prayer areas for Muslims.  Down the stairs were some Buddhist statues and paintings leading to a small garden with a statue commemorating love and unity.

                Going upstairs we came to the main hall, which was three stories tall and had a few chairs set up to watch a video of the founder speaking in Indonesian about the church.  Behind the tv were displayed some nice pictures of the place being built and some couples getting married there.  Certainly if we were even to renew our vows, this would be the place to do it.

                Heading upstairs into the chicken torso were some large, unfurnished areas with walls covered with colourful murals about living healthy and avoiding drugs.  We were asked to wait in another area for tourists to descend before we could move on.  This room had large pictures of similar monuments sucha as the Eiffel Tower or The Pyramids mixed with images of the Chicken Church.

                We went up one level to get the view out through the giant beak, but the highlight was when we went up on top of the chicken's head to walk inside of its crown and get a 360 degree view of the surroundings.  We could pick out Borobudur but the view was a little misty.

                After coming down we went up the chicken's backside to claim out coffees as well as delicious deep fried cassava with chili sauce.  The cafe was well set up with great views and nice looking food and the gift shop was tempting but limited.

                We went back down the hill, turning around every once in awhile to have one last look at the church.  We waited a long time for our driver to come back from getting petrol and talked to another driver in the lot.  Meg also fed some chickens hanging out there, probably staying close by in case their leader gave them instructions in their quest for world domination.

                The drive back was really long as we were driving when other people were too, unlike our pre-sunrise approach.  We got back around two and grabbed a late lunch at a local place and then headed back to the room to catch up on our sleep, do work and watch part of a strange Indonesian movie about a hero with magic powers that allow him to move logs around.

                We had another nice dinner at the same place as the previous day and went to bed early.  On our way in the hotel asked us what kind of breakfast we wanted and we requested the Indonesian one.  The correct choice, as we would find out.

July 7 - passage to Yogyakarta

July 7 Day 143

                We got up early and met the Belgian couple preparing with us.  There was no sliced fruit like tthe hostel mentioned for us and the taxi came quickly.  It got us to the station quickly and we were told to leave an hour for getting our train tickets as there could be long lineups at the ticket printing machine.  We walked up to the machine and had our tickets in a minute with lots of time to kill at the busy station.

                We walked down past the lineups to the shops looking for breakfast.  We found a place that made nice coffee and had buns so we filled up there.  We initially walked through the wrong gate as our Indonesian is still weak but managed to make it to the correct platform and hung out with the Belgian couple until the train came. 

                They had executive seats and we had economy so we were in completely different cars.  Our seats were reserved but they were hard, 90 degree seats that kept you wiggling through the whole trip becasue they were uncomfortable.  The scenery stated with railside slums then turned to rice paddies and fields in between the small towns.  We were wiggling a fair bit during the 8 hour trip but were well prepared with snacks and so could ignore the vendors that came by.

                We were grateful to be off the train but couldn't find a Bluebird cab or a Grab centre.  Most people seemed to be picked up by Grabs so we got one of the few remaining cabs, which was willing to go on the meter, and headed to our hotel.  On the way there we saw motorized chairs, similar to the pedal ones we used on our slum tour but larger and attached to motorbikes.

                Traffic was as bad as Jakarta and the city was busy and dusty, not many attractive places.  We did do a circuit of the local stadium which had some interesting graffiti on it but that was about it. 

                The driver had to call the hotel because it was on  back alley but the room was nice and the staff was amazing.  The woman at the desk helped us to book tours over the next two days so that we didn't have to wander around and get information on our own.  That gave us a much more leisurely evening.

                We did have to go out and pay the tour company down the street and attempt to get cash out of ATMs.  Meg's card was acting up but I got some and we got the tour sorted.  We mt the Belgian couple again and planned to meet them at a local vegan restaurant.  The walked back and told us it ws 3 km away.  I consulted the guidebook and found it was taken over by the Via restaurant, which had expanded to give its bakery a new shopfront. 

                The Via looked pretty good so we ate there with the Belgians, who had eaten but got snacks and an incredible tropical fruit plate, which included dragonfruit and mangosteen.  We had good food and conversation and said goodbye and headed to our hotel.

                Since we had an early start to go to Borobrodur for sunrise, the hotel arranged to have a packed breakfast ready for us.  We thanked them and got to bed early to prepare.

July 6 - Big mosques, museums and Western movies

July 6 Day 142

We got up, had breakfast, got a few things done in the room and then headed out on the commuter train to the third largest mosque in the world.  Ronny had told us how Sukharno had courted the Soviets and gotten all sorts of things built in Indonesia by them, including this place.

                As we entered the grounds all of these women tried to sell us black plastic bags to put our shoes in.  Actually, they handed them to us and then demanded  money.  One chatted nicely with Meg and then said "you don't want to support me?" when we still refused the bags.  Supporting the local economy is one thing but adding to black plastic accumulation is quite another.

                At the door we were met by a greeter who showed us the shelf to store our shoes and gave Meg a robe to wear - headcovering was just for Muslims.  I didn't have to wear anything extra.  We walked up the steps past the washing area and saw the huge chamber - it can accommodate 200,000 worshipers.  During our visit, a few people were praying but several were sleeping or catching up on their phones in the mainly empty chamber.  There were shiny stations that I thought were drinking fountains but turned out to be bookshelves, presumably with copies of the Koran.  The upper levels were fenced off, it had 5 levels to mesh with the pillars of Islam, so we walked around the balcony of the 2nd.  The size was impressive, but it was real Soviet realism with almost none of the ornamentation that you can examine for hours in a Turkish mosque.  A 15 minute look around and you're ready to move on. 

                On the way out one of the bag ladies (sarcastically?) thanked Meg for her help.  Our greeter told us about a free bus to the museum when we asked how to walk there so we went with the bus option.  This was a tourist bus that did a long loop of the city, mainly the huge park and lush shopping areas, before dropping us at the museum an hour later.

                There seemed to be lunch at the museum but it was for participants in a women's cookoff being held there.  We found a coffee shop and had coffee and brownies to fill the gap until we could get somewhere else.

                The new wing of the museum had 4 floors of historical items.  We saw juice machines, old bikes, models of ancient ruin sites, furniture, weapons and burial procedures from the many areas of Indonesia.   There was lots of English explanation and a few groups of kids more interested in running around than seeing the displays.  The tops floor had the most gold we'd seen since King Tut's tomb with some amazingly ornate work.  The curation focused first on Buddhist traditions and then the Dutch conquest and some of the treasures taken by the Dutch.  This floor on its own was worth a long visit as there were many world-class pieces.

                We entered the old wing and saw rooms full of Hindu statues surrounding a garden of statues, similar to what we've seen in Greece and Turkey.  At the end of the space was a room showing videos of sites around Indonesia and he best of them had archival footage of indigenous rituals.  The statues were fine but we were tired and so we headed out.

                We managed to hail a Bluebird taxi and took a slow ride through traffic to the mall that was playing our movie.  It was a huge, posh mall and we had to walk a long way to get to the theatre.  We grabbed tickets and were looking at overpriced, fancy restaurants until we found an actual food hall.  There was lots of selection and I went for the hand-cut noodles, which were being made in front of us and were delicious.  They didn't have a veggie item on the menu, so Meg went to an Indian place that had a veggie curry that was mainly potato.  Tough being a veggie.

                We were looking to pick up some travel food so we went to a department store that referred us to their food hall, which is what the Indonesians call a supermarket.  We got some bread, fruit and snacks as well as some anti-perspirant, finally!  We bagged our booty and headed up to the movie theatre.

                Our film was the comedy Yesterday which we were interested in because it was directed by Danny Boyle and all of the other movies playing were not good.  We were surprised by how popular it was, as we only had about a dozen seats left to choose from and ended up sitting apart in the second row.  The Indonesians seemed familiar with the music as they laughed in the right places to song references.  Overall it was overlong and underwritten but an okay distraction for an evening.

                We wet back to the hostel with takeout from the food court, Meg having learned to ask for chicken dishes without the chicken and vegetables substituted, although she got raw salad vegetables on her her cooked noodles.

                The taxi back to the hostel was slow but we had time and were starting to recognize landmarks.  We first chatted with a Belgian couple who were on our train and so planned to share a taxi in the morning.  We also chatted with an Egyptian guy with his young son who expanded our knowledge of modern Egyptian politics.  Packing had to be done for an early morning so we threw our stuff together and went to bed.

The world's third largest mosque.  The prostrate people are sleeping, not praying.

Big, scary stone head in the statue garden of the museum.

Big, cool sculpture at the museum entrance.

July 5 - Jakarta Real City Tour

July 5 Day 141

         We got up and did stuff in our room until it was time for our real Jakarta tour, which we were looking forward to.  We took the train downtown to the main square and this time found an underground walkway that avoided one busy street but meant we had to cross another to get to the pedestrian street.

         We had some trouble finding the restaurant we were supposed to meet at and asked some people where it was.  Here we had the classic Asian problem of not wanting to say no, as we got some random instructions as to where it was close to and one person said it was closed.  I took one more look and found the restaurant and we met up with our two guides, Ronny and Anneke,  a husband and wife team.

         We ate in the simple but delicious restaurant they had chosen and introduced ourselves.  She was quiet and probably the organizer who kept things going.  He was an extroverted talker who used to be an artist (quite famous from his own description) and very detailed about Indonesian history, which we discussed at length. 

         We walked along a street close to the main square where he asked people selling simple wares on the street what their story was and took us into a back alley where the street buskers lived.  It was very basic with small dirty living spaces set up in ramshackle ways among the shining costumes and makeup stations.

         We then boarded a local bus with seats torn up that took us to a park where we got into a tuktuk ( I forget what they call them in Indonesia).  We stopped by a park that he said used to be low income housing and still had people living in it.  He mentioned how they had limited types of trees planted in public places and never replaced the fruit trees that used to be there as the fruit caused too many problems.  The result of this is that there were no birds in the park. 

         Across from the park was a dirty bay with shacks on the other side of it.  Behind the shacks were tall apartment buildings and in the water were cranes dredging out the mud from the bay.  He talked about how removing the mangroves hurt the wildlife and how the shoreline was being sold off to companies that wanted to build boutique hotels.  A short tuktuk ride along the filthy shore took us to the large slum where we spent most of our time.

         We started off in a dusty area with rickety shacks and pile of garbage burning.  Ronny found out from talking to the people there that the government was coming in the next day to bulldoze the area and kick the people off the land, some of whom had been living there for 20 years.  Meg made an impassioned video that hasn't yet made it to Facebook (wait for our movies about our trip, I'll insert it for sure).  When asked what could be done, Ronny said that he knew lawyers but the work was slow.  He had been involved in many protests but if 1000 police and soldiers come out with water cannons and tear gas, what can you do?  The people were not going to be given housing alternatives so that would be pushed further out  finally laid off when we kept insisting but our energy was pretty tapped by then.  We headed back to our room to sleep.or into more crowded conditions.

         We continued into the larger slum, where many of the buildings were made of concrete, there were shops selling everything you'd need and the alleys ran in all directions with houses and businesses.  Ronny talked with many of the people he met and seemed to be fixture of the neighbourhood.  Anneke had a bag with toothbrushes, pencils and treats for the kids that seemed to know to swarm around us when they saw us.  On girl had braces, which meant that some people living here were doing okay bus still didn't want to move.  There was a sense of community with things going on but the filthy streams everywhere and the lack of water had to be a deterrent.  Still, so many people smiled at us as obviously wealthy foreigners I was reminded of some of our Buddhist teachings.  These talked about our attachment to things and how wealthy people often were less happy than poorer people because as you get money you acquire things you become attached to which doesn't lead to meaningful happiness.  It can sound like romantic claptrap and people living here had to worry about their and their children's futures but everyone smiled at us and many were having a good time there.

         Groups of kids always clustered around us (certainly Ronny's doing) and we went for quite a long walk through the area, which must go on for kilometres.  We then got on more local transport, which were luxury cyclo seats which only fit one person at a time.  We went along streets with little traffic because of frequent steep speed bumps which we felt in our cyclos.  The homes were a mix of tidy and rundown.  Ronny explained that this area was different from the slum as people owned the land legally here, so it was a more mixed place but still under threat from development.

         Our ride ended in a big dusty square that looked like it held large markets at other times.  Another group of kids gathered around and they sang "Frere Jacques" to us in 7 languages.  We sang back a Beatles song and talked to a mother of two who looked 15 but said she was 23.  Ronny referred to these as "his people" as he had represented 500 families here.

         We took a tuktuk to another intersection and walked through a dark and crowded pathway of living spaces clustered along the train tracks.  We met a woman who lived in a small space with a cut window with her two kids up a ladder and down a narrow passage.  She had a dream to send her kids back to the country to live with their grandmother while she did laundry until she could buy a house for everyone.  She said it paid about $50 a month and Ronny said that at that rate the woman's dream wasn't realistic and she might be stuck here.

         we continued along the dark path until we came up by the tracks and watched a few trains go by just a few feet away from us and the people living there.  One place that was finished nicely and functioned as a shop/restaurant for the neighbourhood had a family who were very chatty with us.  They were very proud of their daughter who had gone to university and was on track to become a medical technician, the first university educated member of the family.  So success stories do happen.

         We came out by a dirty river by a bridge that Ronny said many people slept under the bridge.  We then walked under an overpass where the homeless gathered at night, each with their own space between pillars.  Only a few people were there but some had thermoses for makeshift cafes and spoke to Ronny easily.  One area close to the road was now being used as parking for a nearby Chinese restaurant so the people had less space.

         After all this they gave us a lift home and we talked politics most of the way.  Ronny thought that the current government was doing better than previous ones but that he companies that really ran things would try to defeat them in the next election.  He talked about how he can't return to art while all of these problems exist but he at least can use his notoriety with the media to call attention to issues.  The 4 hour tour was more than 6 hours for us and gave us lots to think about and showed us a side of Jakarta we wouldn't have seen otherwise.  Check out https://realjakarta.blogspot.com/ if you are interested.

         Back at home we had so much to digest from the tour that we didn't have the energy to catch a movie like we'd planned.  We walked in a different direction ad came across a shisha bar with Middle Eastern food.           There was one non-smoking area in the corner behind a screen and the food was pricey for Indonesia but it had been a long time since we'd had hummus.  The food was quite good but the roach that crawled out of our basket of naan and continued to explore our table made us grateful that we hadn't seen what the kitchen was really like.

         Back at the hostel we slept fine until about midnight when some kids started running and screaming through the hallways.  I got the staff member but we couldn't find them but he announced the problem at the bar and the mom came down and settled them.  Still, it was hard to get back to sleep and was our only bad night at the hostel.

A shack in a dumpy area with buildings behind representing creeping gentrification.  We were told that the city would be bulldozing this area tomorrow, leaving its inhabitants homeless.  The police and the army would be present at the bulldozing.

Me with our guide and one of he many groups of kids that clustered around us wherever we went.

A neighbourhood along the busy tracks of Singapore.