skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Indonesia
This is a typical traffic scene in Jakarta. Notice the orange bajaj, at the front of the pack - best way to navigate through traffic.
Tim and Kaleb hired a bajaj to take them to the train station to get us tickets to Bandung. According to Kaleb, it was quite a ride!
This is the Alliance Guest House in Jakarta where we stayed for the first three nights and the last night of our trip. Highly recommended for a great night's sleep and a scrumptious breakfast at only $25 AM per night.
The lounge at the guest house was beautifully decorated for Christmas so the kids hung out there watching TV....
and surfing the net.
This is Christmas morning in Bandung, at a homestay house just down the street from our friend's home. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two living rooms and a kitchen area that we shared with a few cockroaches! We opened presents before we left but I took along the kids stockings that were full of fun things.
This is the way to our friend's home. The streets in Bandung, at least in this area of the city, are narrow and very full of potholes.
On Christmas day, we learned how to play Ticket to Ride - a very fun family game.
This is the yard of the second home we stayed at - friends of our friends! The porch was huge and overlooked a lovely yard fully of banana and coconut trees. We were only here one night and again, it is on the same street as our friends so Kaleb and Annie were able to walk to hang out with the other teenagers.
This is the third home we stayed at while in Bandung. It was huge and gorgeous! The family who lives here was away on holidays and wanted someone to stay in their house so it worked out great for both families. The house came with a helper, who made meals and did our laundry, a gardener, a night watchman, a motorbike, a car and a very friendly Doberman.
Kaleb and Tim are in the dining room, on the ground level.
This is the second story sitting area, a great place for taking an afternoon nap on the lovely Thai couch.
Just off from the sitting area was the master bedroom with ensuite.
Tim is standing at the front door. The verandah above was a great place to hang out or read a book.
The yard was a couple of acres of rain forest with monkeys, squirrels and other things like...
this tremendously huge spider. It's hard to tell how big it actually was but it was as long as two of Tim's handspans. We found it inside the house and the gardener graciously removed it for us.
Tim and Kaleb plus our friend and his son went out motorbiking in the mountains. Here they are getting gas!
Kaleb loved ripping around on the bike. While the guys were out, the girls went shopping to the factory outlet stores and got some very good deals.
The fellows stopped for coffee and our friend, who speaks fluent Bahasa, was able to chat with the other Indonesian men.
Along one of the mountains roads were vendors who sold rabbits. We stopped to pet and hold the little ones. Just down the road from this is the rabbit satay house - if the rabbits aren't sold for pets, they are sold for food!
On our trip up the mountain to the volcano, we were asked several times to pose for pictures with the Indonesians. After I put my sunglasses on, they must have thought I was a movie star since people would run ahead of me, turn around and snap my picture. And one fellow even followed me with a video camera!
We are standing on the edge of the old volcano site and it was very windy up there. It was chilly but I didn't mind since the wind was fresh and clean.
The trials of curly hair on a windy day while trying to get a decent picture taken.... ugh!
We took a hiking path to another volcano site where geysers are still spewing out steam. It was very rocky and had a strong sulfur smell.
Soaking our feet in the +30C pool of water - it felt wonderful and the mud worked wonders on the skin.
As we were hiking, I managed to slip on the greasy mud and get all dirty. Now there's a spot dedicated to me along the path!
For lunch, we took our picnic basket to the local tea plantation. Tea plants are stocky and dense so rolling on top of them is a lot of fun. Kaleb loved doing it but, being so skinny, occasionally fell through the small gaps.
Cream bath is an absolute treat that North American beauty salons should pick up on. For $5, we had an hour and a half treatment of avocado cream on our hair along with a head, back and arm massage. This was followed by a scrub treatment that was rinsed off with steaming towels. Later they rinsed, washed and styled our hair.
Back at the guest house in Jakarta before flying home, Kaleb had far too much energy and poor Annie endured a lot of brotherly love!
This is the Alliance Guest House in Jakarta where we stayed for the first three nights and the last night of our trip. Highly recommended for a great night's sleep and a scrumptious breakfast at only $25 AM per night.
The lounge at the guest house was beautifully decorated for Christmas so the kids hung out there watching TV....
and surfing the net.
This is Christmas morning in Bandung, at a homestay house just down the street from our friend's home. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two living rooms and a kitchen area that we shared with a few cockroaches! We opened presents before we left but I took along the kids stockings that were full of fun things.
This is the way to our friend's home. The streets in Bandung, at least in this area of the city, are narrow and very full of potholes.
On Christmas day, we learned how to play Ticket to Ride - a very fun family game.
This is the yard of the second home we stayed at - friends of our friends! The porch was huge and overlooked a lovely yard fully of banana and coconut trees. We were only here one night and again, it is on the same street as our friends so Kaleb and Annie were able to walk to hang out with the other teenagers.
This is the third home we stayed at while in Bandung. It was huge and gorgeous! The family who lives here was away on holidays and wanted someone to stay in their house so it worked out great for both families. The house came with a helper, who made meals and did our laundry, a gardener, a night watchman, a motorbike, a car and a very friendly Doberman.
Kaleb and Tim are in the dining room, on the ground level.
This is the second story sitting area, a great place for taking an afternoon nap on the lovely Thai couch.
Just off from the sitting area was the master bedroom with ensuite.
Tim is standing at the front door. The verandah above was a great place to hang out or read a book.
The yard was a couple of acres of rain forest with monkeys, squirrels and other things like...
Tim and Kaleb plus our friend and his son went out motorbiking in the mountains. Here they are getting gas!
Kaleb loved ripping around on the bike. While the guys were out, the girls went shopping to the factory outlet stores and got some very good deals.
The fellows stopped for coffee and our friend, who speaks fluent Bahasa, was able to chat with the other Indonesian men.
Along one of the mountains roads were vendors who sold rabbits. We stopped to pet and hold the little ones. Just down the road from this is the rabbit satay house - if the rabbits aren't sold for pets, they are sold for food!
On our trip up the mountain to the volcano, we were asked several times to pose for pictures with the Indonesians. After I put my sunglasses on, they must have thought I was a movie star since people would run ahead of me, turn around and snap my picture. And one fellow even followed me with a video camera!
We are standing on the edge of the old volcano site and it was very windy up there. It was chilly but I didn't mind since the wind was fresh and clean.
The trials of curly hair on a windy day while trying to get a decent picture taken.... ugh!
We took a hiking path to another volcano site where geysers are still spewing out steam. It was very rocky and had a strong sulfur smell.
Soaking our feet in the +30C pool of water - it felt wonderful and the mud worked wonders on the skin.
Cream bath is an absolute treat that North American beauty salons should pick up on. For $5, we had an hour and a half treatment of avocado cream on our hair along with a head, back and arm massage. This was followed by a scrub treatment that was rinsed off with steaming towels. Later they rinsed, washed and styled our hair.
3 comments:
What an amazing Christmas journey! You all look relaxed, refreshed, happy and full of the adventuring spirit! I love the photos.
You did a good job of chronicle-ing your trip. What memories.
Thanks for this informative and beautiful update, Shauna.
Those bajajes look like crazy little units!
I remember well the hair washes in China. Never had one with avocado -- often Head and Shoulders from a sample-packet. :) But the wash and massage for as little as a dollar, you are sooooo right that North American hairdressers would do well to pick up on it. And the rinse ... do they have extremely comfortable rinse sinks in Indonesia where you basically lay down and don't have to hook your head on the edge of a sink? It's so humane!
Post a Comment