Tomohon and Jakarta - Indonesia

I never finished writing about the end of our trip in Indonesia! I've got to do it sometime because spring has arrived (rain, rain, rain) and we play outside more often leaving less time for blog writing! My Indonesian tales ended in Lembeh Strait with our muck diving stories.... so I will pick up where I left off in Sulawesi. After leaving Lembeh we headed uphill to the land of volcanoes in the town of Tomohon and checked into our room at Onong's Palace where we learned exactly how to behave from these hilarious rules (click on the photo to magnify the rules and enjoy the laugh). This is one of the reasons why I love to travel...

Got that?

In case I haven't mentioned it before (I know I have) - the food in Indonesia is so damn good and Onong's Palace fed us very well.

Cinnamon, Tomohon market

The next morning we headed to the local market, where you can feel the pulse of a town and really see what people eat and how they live. I love markets. I love them for their smells, their sounds, languages, colors, fabrics, food, dirt, grime, and all walks of people. They are so alive..... that said, markets can also be very disturbing to Westerners because we don't always relate well to items that others may perceive as food such as dog, bat, or rat - all of which were quite on sale at this market. I respect other cultures and their foods but sadly there was a fair amount of "bush meat" for sale at this market that was likely acquired in Indonesian national parks (which is illegal). This included, but surely is not limited to, snakes (python?), monkeys, and bats. We saw a huge snake hanging in the market and Jay curiously discussed consuming snake meat with our guide. When Jay asked where it was harvested and our guide said, "probably Tangkoko National Park" Jay quickly lost all interest in sampling a new meat. We recognize that many people have small incomes and need to sell meat in order to support families (and maintain cultural traditions) but it is sad nevertheless that some rare or endangered animal populations may pay the price of our population growth.

Oh that is where all the bumphead parrotfish went! I was wondering where they were on the reef....

Julie drools over veggies, roots, and greens in Tomohon's market

This was our view on the drive to Mahawu, an inactive(?) volcano, right by the very active Lokon volcano that was closed to the public because it was acting up too much during the time of our visit. I think volcanoes are so neat!

Mahawu crater. We tried to walk around this crater and ended up in deep mud and thick brush that was at least 10 ft. high. We wimped out on the walk - we couldn't see anything through the brush anyway! 

It seemed that every meal was my favorite meal of the trip. Here I was eating papaya flowers with ferns. Couldn't get much better than this! 

We spent one more night in Manado before we left Sulawesi for Java and the big city of Jakarta. One item on our shopping list was to buy a bunch of Indonesian coffee. I love how such simple tasks can sometimes turn into super fun experiences. We wandered into a local grocery store and asked for bulk coffee beans, a request that turned out to be uncommon perhaps in this store because a crowd of about five Indonesians gathered around to help and watch us buy the beans. Or maybe the crowd had to do with the six-foot tall blonde dork trying to buy coffee in Indonesia? When I asked to chew on the different roasts that really got some giggles - I guess my way of sampling the flavor of the roast is not how Indonesians do it!

That evening we splurged and paid $30 for hour long massages in our hotel room by these awesome women who flew in, filled the room with the scent of jasmine, turned our muscles to mush, and left as quickly as they arrived. We didn't budge from our bed for an eternity. Fantastic.

WOW! This looks like a big change and it was! We flew into Jakarta on Thanksgiving Day and took a cab over to the house of Tim Brown and Lucy Mize, Jay's cousins who live abroad and work wonders wherever they live. They were hosting a huge gathering of expatriates for the big holiday and welcomed us into their house to join in on the fun. I never expected to celebrate Thanksgiving in Indonesia - but look at this fun! Staying with the Brown/Mize family was a real joy and we felt very lucky to be included in this celebration with all of their close friends in Jakarta.

Just to keep everyone on their toes, it decided to POUR immediately before the Thanksgiving guests were supposed to arrive at Brown/Mize household. Lucy and Tim's kids, Thaddeus and Belle, clearly knew what to do when the house started to flood. Towels appeared from all directions of the house while we raced around and tried to keep the water from gaining on the floor. Tim and Thaddeus worked some magic in their  courtyard to divert the water flow away from the doors and as quickly as the flooding started it ended. But that didn't help with their street - which looks more like a river in the above photo. Everyone took the rain and flooding in stride and I loved their sense of humor about all of it despite the fact that several guests ended up arriving quite late as they sat in traffic trying to get to the house.

Jay and Tim after a big mango and mushroom shopping spree

One of the real treats of our time in Jakarta was reconnecting with Dr. Stacey Tighe. Stacey hosted me for a month in Egypt back in 1999 when I was the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society scholar. Stacey was a scholar herself in 1980 and she continued the tradition of scholars hosting scholars when she put up with me in Egypt. We had so much fun together and the fun continued when we met again over Thanksgiving dinner at Lucy and Tim's house! Stacey is doing great work for the marine environment in Indonesia and we loved catching up after a decade of lost communication. She also took us batik shopping and taught us everything we needed to know about batiks and batik bargaining. A good skill in this country!

During a day tour of Jakarta, Lucy took us to a fantastic "antique" market in Jakarta where we bargained hard for some wooden shadow puppets. This dude was stoked when we finally bought one from him.

Lucy, Tim, Julie, Thaddeus, Belle, and Jay

Many thanks to the Mize/Brown household for putting up with us for several fantastic days in Jakarta. We loved the tours, the education, the martinis, the pool, and most importantly, the company of family in this gorgeous and wonderful country.

More photos here: https://plus.google.com/photos/111221596171793333099/albums/5815735330676677425?banner=pwa