February 20

February 20

Drying rice after the harvest...I never realized how much work growing rice is!

It's Sunday today, and someone should tell the cleric, that calls the believers to prayer, at 5 am. (and several times during the day as well) as soon as the first "call" has "broken the ice", all the mosques’ loud speakers break into this horrific noise…, each competing for who can claim ownership of the loudest, most antiquated, loudspeakers system and who can boats the distinction of "singing" the calls in the most off-key and offensive manner ....
A powerful sound soon fills the entire area, not unlike that of a large jet making a crash landing in one of the nearby kampungs here, then....just as sudden as it began, it stops.....peaceful bliss.....
Menno claims that this call-to-prayer has yet to wake him once, and I wonder if, because of his very loud snoring, his noise tolerance is somewhat different than that of the rest of the world. Or, perhaps, in his very own way, he tries to drown-out the calls with his own contribution to noise pollution?

As you may know, Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country on the globe. It is probably also one of the most tolerant. Tolerance is one of the corner-stones of the Indonesian psyche, just to name such a tolerance.....
When wanting to cross one the busy streets, and you would think it to be a death wish, as literally hundreds of motor bikes, becaks, cars, bicycles, trucks, busses and dokars swish by in a cloud of dusty, diesel fuel polluted pea-soup, yet all you need to do is just start walking (carefully) and raise your hand, slightly, so as not to confuse the becak drivers into thinking they have a chance at a fare, which then would cause a frenzy. Miraculously, traffic slows down, and stops, just long enough to let the pedestrian cross to the other side.....
The first time I had this experience was in Jakarta and I know now, how Moses must have felt when the waters of the red sea parted on front of his very eyes.... miraculous !!
I asked an English speaking local person about this phenomena and he explained it like this....."we Indonesians are a tolerant nation, we practice tolerance daily without even knowing that we do....."
I wondered what it would take for us Canadians, to even have a little bit of this tolerance within all of us...if.... I only wondered for a few seconds, .....this, this land of my parents, is unique...it is tolerant....it's people are special and wonderful  !!

Bubur Ayam

This morning we started our day with a nice bowl of bubur ajam, which is translated as "chicken porridge". The Chinese would call it "congee or jok...."
Here, at the Duta guest room Hotel, they played a bit with the presentation, which I appreciated.
The rice porridge, was cooked perfect (I have also seen it, thick as a brick…or at least the cement in between the bricks)
It had just enough liquid added to the mix, and was flavored only with salt and Yan's Wonder Powder.....( AKA MSG. Something that Indonesia has no issue in using....thanks goodness !!!)
On the side in another earthenware bowl, over a charcoal burner, was kept warm the shredded chicken in a flavorful sauce, and as well, there were "trimmings" such as green onions, crispy fried onions, sambal, tong-choy (pickled mustard greens, in salt) Chinese fried donuts all cut up, light and dark soya sauce, white pepper and kacang goreng ....fried peanuts...
 It was quite delicious and this breakfast carried Menno and I until well after lunch.

Surely one of the dishes that I grew up on, when we lived in Jakarta. Vendors (hawkers) would come by, at every meal time and in between, to try to sell us a delicacy.  

Vendor with pikulan

These vendors would most often have pikulan....a large pole where they had attached 2 large bamboo baskets, that contained all they needed to prepare their speciality, even a small stove to heat their wares or roast the sate kambing...
An other example of tolerance was when I accidentally dropped the clay lid, that belonged to one of the buffet pans, with a loud crash. It broke and there were shards everywhere, yet, the staff just smiled as if I  had done the old lid a favor by putting it out of it's misery.

The New Bird Market

We hailed some becaks and made a deal to go to the bird market, via a stop at a special place that Tine had previously, on one of her trips here to Yogya, discovered. It sells "high-end" Batiks. After some searching we found it and Menno bought 2. Because the lady did not want to "Tawar" he decided to buy 2 instead of the 6 that we had planned to buy......c'est la vie !
Clutching his priced possessions, we went on to the pasar burung baru....the new bird market.

What a revelation.....thousands of birds, in cages, of all varieties and colors, a nice selection of Indonesian articulated pythons, one was in excess of 200 kg, before he ate the pig, in it's entirety. Many types of chickens, some roosters that were destined for the ring.....quails of any color, owls, large birds of prey, you name it, they had them for sale. The songbird section was segregated so that they could compete with each other as to the nicest song....
It was a great experience indeed to see all this, but I cannot help wondering, how many of these birds would stay in their cages, if the doors  to their cages would be left open??

A baby owl

We went back to the hotel, but not before we stopped of at "Tante Lies" for a couple of te-es-tawar...this is unsweetened iced tea and, of course, a few sticks of sate.

Once back at the hotel I enjoyed the air-co so much, that I fell asleep and had a nice siesta. Menno went down to the desk to see about organizing the transfer and suitcase issues for tomorrow. They will come and get our things and take them to a waiting car or cab destination airport, we'll wait and see if it goes smoothly.

It's  nearly 5 pm and it's time to plan our evening.....
We decided to have a bite to eat at the Kabun Garden restaurant, about 1 km down the Jalan Pravirotaman.
We had a couple beers each decided to split a nasi goreng gala hitam which is a fried rice with black pepper, we also chose some prawns in garlic sauce, and a couple of spring rolls before hand.
The food came and Menno quite enjoyed the flavor, as for me, I was a bit disappointed with the lack of garlic in the prawn dish, I also thought the fried rice lacking  a bit of oomph.
We shared a dish of ice cream and called it the day.
It was nice getting back home, into the airco, we were hot and sticky.
A nice mandi and I started this blog....
Tomorrow, we will pack, have some breakfast and await the next step in our journey. On to Lombok, via Surabaya, which lies at the north coast and once, was a major Dutch settlement.we will transfer in Surabaya to board a winged put-put to Mataram airport on Lombok, and from there onto Sengigi where our hotel awaits us.
We should be there by about 9pm.

Gerobak

 Glossary:

Dokar is a horse drawn carriage used as a taxi

Bubur Ayam is a rice porrige, flavored with chicken, recipe follows

Gerobak is a water buffalo drawn farmer wagon, used for transporting rice from sawa to drying area

Bubur Ayam Rice Porridge (Congee)

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 to 4-lb chicken, cut into serving pieces, including back and giblets (exclude liver)
• 10 cups water
• 3 tablespoons Chinese rice wine or medium-dry sherry
• 3 (1/4-inch-thick) slices fresh ginger
• 3 scallions, halved crosswise and smashed with flat side of a heavy knife
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup long-grain rice
• ½ tsp Yan’s wonder powder

• Accompaniment: fine julliene of fresh ginger, thinly sliced scallions, and Asian sesame oil

Bring chicken and water to a boil in a 5-quart heavy pot, skimming froth. Add wine, ginger, scallions, and salt and cook at a bare simmer, uncovered, 20 minutes, or until breast meat is just cooked through. Transfer 1 breast half with tongs to a bowl and continue to cook stock at a bare simmer, skimming froth as necessary, 2 hours and 40 minutes. Meanwhile, cool chicken breast long enough to remove skin and bones, returning skin and bones to stock.

Cool breast meat completely and tear into shreds. Chill shreds, covered, and bring to room temperature before serving.

Pour stock through a large sieve into a large bowl and discard solids. (you should have about 8 cups: if less, add water; if more, cook longer after adding rice.) Return stock to cleaned pot and add rice. Bring to a boil and stir. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered until consistency of oatmeal, about 1 3/4 hours, stirring frequently during last 1/2 hour of cooking. Add ½ tsp Yan’s Wonder Powder (Congee will continue to thicken as it stands. thin with stock if necessary.)

Season congee with salt. Serve topped with chicken and accompaniments.

Accompaniments:

White pepper---Light and dark soya sauce---sliced Chinese donut---green onion---peanuts---tong-choy---ginger