February 16

February 16

• the shed where the gula Jawa was made

Today is Wednesday and we are going on a tour of Pangararan with Haryman.
The tour would consist of a visit to:
a kampong where we stopped at a Gula Jawa maker

a primitive coconut shelling cooperative

the master wayang golek doll carver

a puppet maker, who    makes wayang golek dolls.

krupuk Opak drying

Hariman's family

A krupuk opak producer, which a local speciality, made of rice flour, water and salt, then dried and skewered on thin coat hangers and baked over open coals, to my surprise they puffed to 6x their original, thin size.

a dragon...

A boat ride to the green canyon, where we were encouraged to swim, but I was not aware of this option, so, I did not bring my swimming suit. We did see, however a small Komodo dragon...

Bamboo bridge

We had a little lunch at the seaside, which was without a doubt the worse food we had so far.....Menno had a nasi goreng and I had a bahmi goreng. It really tasted like tourist food and a bad variety at that. Haryman should scrap this stop off his list, for sure!
After this nasty food experience, we visited a bamboo bridge, over a wide river that separates 2 kampongs. The bridge is so rickety, that only 1 motorcycle can traverse it at a time and having more than 1 pedestrian use it causes it to sway dangerously....it was great fun crossing it...
By now it started raining and we drove via a fishing village to the hotel, where we dropped off the other 2 guests and headed home, to Harriman's house.

In the early morning we bought belut, which are small thin eels, caught in the sawas. Cindy cleaned them and had cooked them crispy, she served a nice sajur lodeh with it, which contained daun melindjo, tahu, and several other delicious vegetables. As well as side dishes we had tempeh goreng, tahu goreng and a very nice sambala goreng.
What a difference between makanan kampung and that beach side shit.....

belut....they small sawa eels

Grass hoppers, in coconut milk....

We retired early...tomorrow we will travel to Yogya (karta).
We arranged for a minibus to pick us up at 930am and drive us to the train station in Sidareja, were we will take the train to Yogya (we hope to be able to upgrade to an airco wagon...we'll see..
The 2 night stay at Haryman's house cost us 1000.000 rupias, including the tour, 2 breakfasts and 1 dinner.
We will say a fond good-bye, I have taken many pictures of the family, also for Marti...
Next month, Hariman's son will have his circumcision celebration..."sunatan" 

Harriman's son

I have a couple of printed invitations to the celebration, which I will give one to Marti when I see her in Holland.

Interestingly, the invitations are delivered with a package of instant noodles, you know, the Chinese soup noodles... This seems to be the tradition in Hariman's kampong.