Turkey trots revenge...

Well I am connected to the world again, as I have been on the go the last 2 days pretty much all day, and into the night, by the time I reach my hotel, I am exhausted.

It is Tuesday night in Jakarta, 10:30pm as I type this. The last two days have been quite adventurous. This is where the fun stories begin...

Sunday evening we went to a Korean BBQ restaurant, and ate a lot of beef, some tempura pumpkin (it looked like squash to me), bean sprouts soaked in something tangy, and some beer to top it off. You would think by now I would be an expert eating with chopsticks, but I just get by, and don't drop my food on me. After dinner, I couldn't wait to lay in the bed and crash. I put my earplugs in, and turned out the lights.

Monday morning, 4am, I was awaken by the chanting at the Islamic mosque nearby. It is Ramadhan right now, and everyone who is a muslim, will leave on holiday tomorrow afternoon for 10 days to celebrate. They do not eat from dawn til' dusk for many days, and then at 6pm or dusk, they eat their first meal, and then another a few hours later, and then their last meal at 3am. It's no wonder there is slow productivity during this time, as going 12 hours without food or beverages can make you quite sleepy. On our return from our factory visits, we thought our driver was going faster because he couldn't wait to eat! My butt is officially sore. I have sat so much in the last 4 days, it makes me ache thinking about it. We drove 2 1/2 hours the factory in Bandung yesterday for a 3 hour visit at the factories, and then back on the busy roads again for 3 hours return because of traffic.

After the long day traveling, we decided to have dinner in our rooms, as we had an early flight to Semarang to visit some more factories. We arrived at the airport 20 minutes before our flight departure. While boarding the plane, you could swear that you had stepped in a pile of shit, the smell was horrible. Stana and I both checked our shoes but could not find any evidence of this horrible smell. We never did find out what it was. The flight to Semarang was quite short, only 45 minutes. Beats driving 6 hours with so many crazy scooters and drivers on the roads.

Tonight we went to Korean BBQ again, this time with another factory manager, and there was so much food on the table, you didn't know where to start. Of course I do, because I only eat select things. I picked a few things that I thought were safe and not too exotic, but when I was biting into what I thought were all fresh vegetables, there was a squid tail in there...that was enough to make me gag. I then carefully selected the next few items to put on my dish, but not careful enough, as now, I am paying for whatever did not agree with my stomach. Thank goodness I am at the hotel now with toilet paper and flushing toilets. The factories normally do not have T.P. and if they do, you can not flush down the toilet, poor sewage system, not enough power to flush. You only hope you have to go #1 and nothing else when traveling. Oh the adventures of 3rd world countries. Yes, and today I also managed to take some skin from my hand, after hitting it on the metal toilet paper cover of which had not toilet paper in it in the first place.

Well, now it's time for me to go to sleep. It has been a very long day, and my body is ready to shut down. Thank goodness for strong anti-diarrheal medicine! It comes in handy quite a lot on these trips.

A word that I saw a few times today, Di lareng, means forbidden in Indo.

Good night for now. Tomorrow I will be heading to South India, Chennai to be exact.

More to come