Who's the cowboy?

The guy standing with me in the picture above was our host while we stayed in Bandung. He had a business making shoes, but he specialized in making cowboy boots. Unfortunately, I never got to check out his handiwork.

So, on Saturday, we went over to Stan's house for lunch with entourage in tow, me in Indonesian wear and Pak Achus dressed as a cowboy. Stan had prepared an incredible spread of food, ranging from salmon to lamb, and he grilled it all himself. The avocados never materialized. He said they were still too ripe. We spent several hours there, speaking English with Stan without even feeling slightly guilty about it. He opened a few bottles of very nice wine for us, we stuffed ourselves and had a great afternoon.

A meat free diet?

Everyone's heard the saying about how you don't want to see how sausage is made. While I'm sure that's extremely true for sausage, we learned it to be true for tofu after visiting a local factory.

I can't describe the process, because I don't know how it's made. I do know that this factory was open-air and looked less than hygienic. After being formed in bamboo trays, it's taken out to float in these big vats of water.

On the bright side, the factory owner told us that the best soy beans in the world come from the good ol' U.S. of A.

Sulfur, very aromatic

The next day we took a short drive to one of Indonesia's 130 active volcanoes, Tangkuban Perahu. Since it hasn't erupted since 1983, it was clearly a safe place to walk around.... It was our first experience being really close to an active volcano and the smell of sulfur was really intense. It was also exceptionally warm. The area where we walked was on the side of the main volcano where it had an opening that heated the ground and caused the water to boil. It's a large tourist attraction, and there were vendors who sold eggs that you could hard boil in one of the pools. We said no thanks.

Stan the Man

We were invited to visit the studio of Sunaryo, a famous artist in Bandung. He had a gallery on one of the hills overlooking Bandung, and after showing us around and explaining some of his art to us, we were treated to some dinner and a dance performance. After the show, we were invited over by a guy who had randomly shown up because he lived next door, and he offered to show us his house that Sunaryo had designed.

The guy who invited us over was named Stan. He was an Indonesian who had moved to the U.S. a long time ago after his wife was diagnosed with cancer so she could be treated at M.D. Anderson in Houston. They had ended up staying in the U.S. for around 30 years and after driving cabs in NYC for awhile, eventually became very successful. He and his wife had recently moved back to Indonesia after they had hired 600 workers to build their house as fast as possible.

The house was one of the nicest houses we've ever seen. It was so architecturally unique and had an amazing view. He was even in the process of having photos made of it for use in a book. He also traveled around Indonesia a lot and when he found a traditional house he liked, he would buy it and move it to his home to put outside as a guest house! (The picture shows one of them.)

We hung out at his house for awhile talking and had a couple beers (our first alcohol since arriving in Indonesia). At one point, he mentioned that he grows great avocados, and someone in our group mentioned how much they'd love to try one, so he invited us back for lunch that coming Saturday.

Interaction with Indonesians, what a novel idea

One of the really nice things about our time in Bandung was that on our first night there, they gave us the entire schedule and asked us for our feedback. We cut out all of the meetings with officials we didn't feel like we'd get much use out of. What we really wanted were opportunities to interact with Indonesians, so one of our young hostesses offered to take us to her private university, Parahyangan Catholic University.

She had set up a meeting with students who were members of the International Affairs student group, so they were pretty interested in talking to us. We spent a couple hours there speaking with them one-on-one, which was awesome, and we all got a tour of the campus. While we were in the library, the students told us there was a book explaining that Hitler had moved to Indonesia after World War II! However, it was checked out, so we weren't able to peruse it. Too bad...

Ahhh, massage

So in case I didn't emphasize it enough in the previous post, the availability of cheap massage is a very nice thing about Indonesia. After our somewhat tumultuous experience in Bogor, we felt we were entitled to a relaxing day off. After class in the morning, we went and explored one of the shopping districts, then ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant in a nice outdoor mall.

Following that, everyone was ready to make a visit to a spa we had passed earlier that morning. This place was definitely upscale when we walked in, so we were a little afraid that it was going to be expensive. It was more expensive, but I'd still say that $7 for an hour-long massage is pretty damn nice. An extra buck-fifty for a private V.I.P. room isn't too bad either. I also was talked into a manicure and a pedicure by Hillary since it was so cheap. Won't be doing that again, but the massage will definitely be part of normal life.

Hello Bandung

Our next destination was the city of Bandung, a metropolis set in the heart of West Java with a more laid back atmosphere and cooler temperatures. We made a relatively uneventful cross of the mountain passes to get to our destination shortly after nightfall.

Bandung is the closest thing we came across in Indonesia to a college town. There are several state-run and private universities, so the population that we encountered was much younger and more educated.

In general, we stayed with families that were more well-off than those that we stayed with in Bogor. Our friend, Hunter, was incredibly happy because he was treated to running water for the first time since leaving Jakarta. Unfortunately, Hill and I didn't have that luxury despite staying in a nice house with the amazing garden to the left.

After hanging out at the house that was used as our gathering point and getting to know our hosts, everyone eventually headed off to their respective houses and we called it a night.