Our first full day in Jogjakarta began with rain. We collected ourselves and walked down to breakfast. Lacking coffee, and still somewhat asleep, we agreed to the waitress’s suggestion and ordered the European breakfast. It was fine, and certainly beat the pants off our untoast experience in Bandung, but left something to be desired in terms of volume and butter content. We vowed, after being revived by coffee to go for the local option in the future.

With the rain seemingly done, and the sun back out again, we climbed on the speed TRs and headed south. We kept riding until the city began to dissolve into jungle.

Here we discovered a truly unbelievable expanse of furniture makers and sellers. For kilometers, we rode by nothing but furniture, and we were astounded by the prices. Ten dollars for a very solid hand-built chair. Lots of cheap tables and couches, all made of deep rain forest woods, and without the use of nails or pegs. Quite unbelievable.

We wheeled on until even the furniture sellers were gone and it was just us and the rice farmers. Rice takes an order of magnitude or two more labor to grow than wheat or corn, as evidenced by the fact that there are always many people out in the rice fields, scooping mud, redirecting water, spreading various powders, and generally keeping things in line. All without shoes.  The rice farmers also seemed to be enlisting the help of a number of strange stork-like birds, perhaps for pest control? If you know anything about this farming method, please tell us in the comments.

We wheeled on past plot after deliberately flooded plot, until the sky began to threaten rain. We were just able to duck into a small local shop in time to avoid the huge pelting drops. The interior of the shop was so packed with inventory that I was almost unable to make it up to the counter to be refused access the the bathroom. Perhaps the only inhospitable event to date in our adventures in Indonesia.

The rain lasted no more than 10 minutes, and we were once again off. We caught the Jogjakarta ring road and took it part way around the city, eventually angling back toward the shopping district, where we were fixing to have lunch and conduct some operations for Project K9.

The rain began again quite suddenly as we were passing a local bank. We called a quick waypoint and dashed for cover.

This time the rain ceased to quit, and eventually the security guard at the bank agreed to watch over the cycles and lend us an umbrella so that we could go out and find some food. Huddling under the umbrella like two young lovebirds, we sloshed through the centimeters of water which ran in the streets. Luckily, right around the corner, we discovered a gigantic grocery store and mall with a vast, but none too clean food court.

We selected a place called Basko, which seemed to be a chain and also the name of a certain kind of everything but the kitchen sink soup: two different kinds of noodles, meatballs, chicken pieces, fried shrimp cracker bits, and a variety of leaves. We were famished and the Basko proved nourishing and tasty.  From there, we spent a few minutes inspecting the offerings of the grocery store.

Refueled, we exited the mall to find the rain had once again stopped.

The remainder of the wheel followed the pattern of the first half, with a cocktail of scheduled and unscheduled (rain-related) waypoints. One of which was at a stand that appeared to deal in traditional sexual remedies, and elixirs. The fellow spoke little English, but seemed thrilled to have us post up there for a bit.

With the rain continuing into the night, we opted for dinner at a nearby cafe, frequented it seemed, exclusively by foreigners, and covered with the same gecko-themed artwork as the Setia Kawan. The food was just fine, and they played Brazilian and Cuban music very loudly throughout the entire ordeal. We wiled away the rest of the evening reading about rice production on the WikiReader and discussing the fantastic possibilities associated with a South American/Caribbean wheeling. For that, however, I guess you, dear reader, will just have to stay tuned.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Asia, Indonesia, Pictures, Scott, Video, Wheeling, Woody. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.