Howie leaves Jakarta

Merry Christmas! Here in Indonesia Christmas is more of a Western concept than a religious one and although you really could not tell tonight from any other night, there was something festive in the air. We returned from Bogor this evening and went to dinner at the seafood place down the street. It was packed and you could just tell people were celebrating, many of which were obviously not Christian.

Bogor. A great place. Took the express AC train down, which was a pleasure. Actually not overstuffed and the perfect temperature. We found a hotel easily and spent the afternoon on Saturday wandering around...oh who am I fooling....eating. Wandering really from place to place finding the perfect place for lunch. We found it. The Bogor Permai, which was recommend by all the guide books. It was delish, and attached to a bakery, which only made it that much better. The one non-food find of the day was the "puppet factory", which is in quotes because it is actually the puppet makers home, nestled in the valley of Bogor. It was a great little neighborhood with small winding streets only wide enough for two people to walk side by side. Everyone knows the puppet factory though and once we were there, we could tell why. The puppet maker is a pleasant man, missing his front teeth and with glasses that might be coke bottles. The puppets were very impressive, hand carved and painted, dressed in batiks. No two exactly alike. Of course, we came back the next day and bought two.

As soon as we left, it began to absolutely pour. Rain is one of the things Bogor is famous for, which is why it has the lush botanical garden it is also known for. Rain continued for the rest of the night. We hit the gardens early so we could pick up our puppets and make the last train and the timing worked out well since the rain started a bit on the earlier side today. The gardens are lush and tropical as you might expect and the few hours we spent were well worth it. A gorgeous orchid house, a crazy "Mexican Garden" full of the same cacti that Howie's parents have in their backyard and some bats that really impressed Howie with their crazy wing span. The garden's only flaw was the hoards of students screaming, "Hey mister! Can I ask you question??" It was cute at first, but there were so many of them and they all had a list of about 20 questions given to them by their teacher that they could barely read and that they did not even begin to understand the answers to. Had we actually answered all of them, we never would have seen the garden. We learned their uniforms quickly though and we able to duck behind trees and run the other direction when we saw them coming.

We put some more photos of Bogor online at http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva