Picking up where I left off last time... The three of us were really chuffed on Wednesday (23rd) when all of our counterparts turned up in the hire car to pick us up at 0700 (that almost constitutes a lie-in around here, where the mosque sounds the 4am wake up call! Incidentally, I am rapidly getting used to the sound of the mosque - maybe even growing to find the Islamic equivalent of hymns quite amenable - BUT the 0400 call to prayer is just a tad too early,...

Had a bit of a busy weekend this weekend, what with being invited to so many local events as VIPs. On Friday morning, after the weekly Keep Fit session - which this week was aerobics, and saw about 60 members of staff, us 3 included, prancing about to some really bad dance music on a patch of mud, surrounded by tropical plants - we went up to the next village, Talunongko, for its harvest festival/ thanksgiving. We went with a few Kaliandra staff, who have a ver...

Just a quick update. On Sunday morning, Sugi drove us to Malang (in the 'pimp-mobile', so named by guess who?); about a 40km journey that took almost 2 hours due to the number of snail-like motorbikes taking their kitchen sinks for a Sunday outing. Malang is the second city (I think) in East Java province, and home to about 4 million people. Once there we went straight to Agus' house, where all four of us had been offered beds for the night. Agus is the executi...

Now that you've seen the photos of the amazing accommodation that we stayed in, forget them, because we don't live there anymore! Out is the hot shower, toilet roll and pancakes; in are buckets of cold water (aka mandi), err, water and rice rice rice (and a bit of savoury jelly too). All three of us are now staying at a homestay in Gamoh, the village closest to Kaliandra. The hosts spoke no English on Monday night when we arrived, but all 3 of them are rapidly ac...

After pancakes for breakfast again, the three of us set off to meet our counterparts. Mullins and I were to go down to the closest village, Gamboh, to meet the village head (as is customary when new people are to stay in a village), and Will to nearby Tambak Sari for a meeting. Mullins and I were accompanied by Sis and Udin, who showed us lots of things on the way down the hill to Gamboh, such as the inter-cropping of cassava, maize and peanuts underneath the ...