An Amazing Weekend!

So -
I have only one full weekend in Jakarta before I ship off to Sulawesi and beyond. The big question, what to do? Go to some islands north of the city? Or head south into the cooler highlands, ringed by volcanoes and studded with rice paddies? Fresh air, here we come.
After some planning, on the part of a fellow ACICIS member, we booked ourselves in the Cianjur Adventure homestay accommodation and tour. Cianjur is a smaller city about 120 km from Jakarta but takes about four hours to reach due to traffic and crazy winding roads. Twelve of us decided to head there for the weekend. We all brought our stuff to uni on Friday and were picked up by two guys in vans. Two groups of six in the vans and we were off. The ride brought us down the toll road, past the city of Bogor, with views of green mountains and fields to greet our city-weary eyes. The ride was pretty uneventful except for a brief detour through some crazy steep roads and a few rest stops. We arrived around nine, exhausted, and were fed some nasi goreng (fried rice). We decided on an action plan for the following day, half of the group headed off to the bamboo hut while the rest of us crashed in the rooms provided. I shared a bed with Sarah, a fellow Murdoch student, and we chatted for a while before falling asleep. BAM the mosque woke us all up, and all I felt was, you gotta be kidding me. The speaker was literally across the street. But it was brief, and we slept not so fitfully, and were up at seven.

So the twelve of us piled into an angkot, a local van transport, and headed out of town into the hills. We stopped and began to stroll down into beautiful, terraced rice paddies. We all pulled in deep breaths of mountain fresh air and took insane amounts of photos. We walked up and down rocky paths for an hour or so, visiting a small rice mill, finally arriving at our lunch destination, a few houses where some local women were busy cooking up a feast for us. Here there is no electricity or running water, and everyone grows most of their own food. In the other house a woman was boiling sugar cane sap into brown sugar, which we tasted hot off the fire.

Rice likes rain.

Here is the man working in the local rice mill, powered by a generator. The mill is cooperatively owned and funded by the government.

Here is our host, a smiling and charming woman who has lived in these hills her whole life. Jakarta would be quite a shock for her I imagine!

And lunch, fresh local, healthy vegetarian food, served with white rice, of course.

Here's the girls trying the freshly produced brown sugar. It looked like fudge and then hardened before our eyes. Yum!

After lunch it began to rain so we waited in the house for it to stop. Then we walked about another half hour back to the main road. Here a random ute (pickup) picked all of us and our two guides up, and we started rallying up the steep roads towards the tea plantation. It rained again and we sought refuge in a small roadside shelter, entertaining ourselves with charades, everyone smiling and in high spirits.

Jumping into the back of the truck with 12 wet foreigners and our guides.

Here's David, one of our guides, enjoying himself in the mist from the waterfall.

Eventually we arrived in the tea plantation, and took a quick walk down to the waterfall in the drizzle. Photo ops ensured. Back into the ute and an hour ride back into Cianjur. I stood up in the front the whole time, getting quite wet.

Back at the house, we all took hot showers and rested, and were soon picked up by a local restaurant owner who took us to his place and gave us the royal treatment. All I wanted was a cold beer but alas, this town is quite Muslim, and no alcohol was served. So on the way to our bamboo hut we stopped at a small convenience store and bought all of their 'cold' canned beer.

After an evening of warm canned beer and conversation, we awoke in our bamboo hut in front of a rice field with people working away. Ring ring goes a random phone from inside the hut. We are invited to a wedding! Right now! In our dirty clothes! Would we like to go? But of course! And we're off. . .

Here's the bride who greeted us like family and had us take numerous pictures with her bridal party. W e were quite the celebrities and everyone wanted a picture with us, especially the women with the Aussie men.