August 2000 - Bogor, West Java, Indonesia Bogor is known as the "City of Rain" and has set the world record with 320 days of rain recorded in one year.  We stayed at the Wisma Ramayana Guesthouse where we had our own private patio upon which we were served fresh tea every time we returned to our room.  We hired a guide from the guesthouse to give us a tour of the surrounding area.  He took us to a gong factory where they make instruments for the gamelan (traditional Javanese music) orchestra and a cracker factory.  Both of these "factories" were located in private houses in a small village and were family owned and run.  The gongsmiths have been plying their trade for 13 generations.  We then trekked up Gunung Salak (2211 metres) and bathed in clear blue water fed by the mountain's beautiful waterfall and took bamboo showers in the hot springs on the other side of the mountain.  We ended our day with a delicious Sundanese (West Javanese) lunch high atop the mountain.

This was our first time seeing large rice paddy fields.  This is the quinteessential southeast asian landscape and it took our breath away.  No matter how many times we were to see rice paddies, we never ceased to be awed by their geometric beauty.

We spent the next day with an English teacher and his students.  We helped them with their English and they taught us Indonesian.  After spending the morning in the Botanical Gardens tasting many Sundanese foods, we were invited to the teacher's kampung (village) for dinner.  It was the freshest chicken we have ever eaten.  The chicken was slaughtered halal style in keeping with Muslim law.  We then helped to cook it over an open fire near the village's quiet lake while our new friends played the guitar and sang songs.

The sky is rarely blue in Bogor.  Due to the massive amounts of rainfall it receives, Bogor is the best area for agricultue in West Java.

A farmer plowing his fields at the base of Gunung Salak.

The Javanese use the wet-rice growing method.  Although this method allows for two harvests a year, it relies heavily upon manual labor and mutual cooperation.

A local rice farmer giving us a big smile as she beats the rice from the chaff.

Karen poses with a group of English language students at the Bogor Botanical Gardens.  We spent several days with this gang practicing their English and our Bahasa Indonesian.

A street vendor selling pork satay, grilled skewers of port dipped in a traditional Indonesian peanut sauce.  The perfect, quick and inexpensive snack.

A shallow clear blue pool at the base of a waterfall.  The water was freezing but it looked too pure not to take at least a short swim.

A view from the forested hills surrounding the city of Bogor.

One of the many streams we crossed as we walked to the top of Salak Mountain.

Standing at the base of another waterfall on Gunung Salak.

Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world so, naturally, there are many mosques in each village and city.  The meuzzin at each mosque calls the faithful to prayer via a loudspeaker five times a day.  He recites verses from the Koran as dictated by Muslim law although nowadays, recorded versions are quickly replacing human voices.  In Bogor, where many mosques are located in the valley, the sound of dozens of meuzzins' voices intermingling and overlapping each other fill the city with an eerie yet hypnotic sound.  The closeset thing that we can liken this sound to are the scenes in Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odessey, when the humans discover the black obelisk - many ethereal voices moaning and singing long, drawn out notes.  It is something strait out of a Portishead song.

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