Anniversary vacation on Gili Air

Sunset

Sunset off the south part of the island... We walked the circumference of the island in less than 2 hrs...  That's Bali in the distance...

Again, sunset off the south part of the island, Bali in the background.

Crazy shell, still inhabited.  Some kid was hurling large chunks of dead coral at it, in attempt to break it open and look at the creature inside.

Breakfast with a view... Fruit salad (fresh papaya, pineapple, and banana or watermelon), toast with butter and jam, and Lombok coffee.  Mmmmm.

Local kids playing in the waves...

Where we enjoyed many of our meals throughout the week...

Sunrise

My temporary footprint.

Hotel greenery at sunrise, our hut in the background.

One of many interesting shells strewn across the sand.

Low tide.

We took a boat similar to this one from Lombok to Gili Air.  (After 2 plane rides, a 1 km walk, a 45 min. bus ride, a 2 hr wait and many, many price negotiations!)

View of East Java from the plane.

Srunung Gunung

A few shots from a village in Central Java where we visited a friend a few weeks ago...

beautiful Indonesia...  A view of the desa (countryside), complete with palm trees and rice paddies.  I'm ashamed to say that this view is becoming "normal," so I occasionally have to stop and remember what unique beauty I'm surrounded by on a daily basis!

Flowers for tea... These will be dried (see below) to make a tea that has a light, fruity taste.

The dried flowers for tea are on the upper right.  At the bottom are drying mushrooms, and I'm not sure what's in the upper left...

Weekend in Jogjakarta

silver is mined in Central Java, and we had the opportunity to visit a jewelry store where the jewelry is actually made on-location. this is a near-finished ring...

the gamelan is a traditional Javanese musical "instrument" (or, collection of gongs, really) that requires many people to play

a chandelier at the sultan's palace

every afternoon at the sultan's palace, someone sings traditional Javanese songs.  if you zoom in on the picture, you can see the Javanese script he's singing from...

Language class "field trip"!

did you know that bananas grow "upside down"?   new to us!  and sometimes people cook and eat the large red flower hangin' under these green bananas

this spider (about the size of Major's palm!) was eating breakfast when we passed by and snapped his picture

transport via river.  we briefly walked through a community where these river boats are made, often by family-owned and -run businesses.

mud farming? ... groups of men fill the boats with the fertile mud from this river; others fill the baskets and load them onto men's heads; those men walk up the bank and drop off the mud in a holding area, where it waits to be loaded onto trucks and shipped to other, less-fertile areas of the island.

coffee cherries ripening on the bush.  ironically, Java is a huge exporter of coffee, but most people here drink instant coffee.  hmmm

like hot?  try these peppers, served "on the side" of several dishes... small bite of pepper, large bite of food

many, many foods are fried.  here we see a "sampler" platter at a cafe near the coffee plantation we visited.  fried cassava, fried banana (yum!), and fried veggies

duck herding?  actually, yes.  the herder is hidden behind the vehicles, but will take these ducks to feed in a certain area off the road...  is that the ugly duckling I see there in the middle?  he looks a little different...

Intro to Indo...

man fishing the waters off Java's north shore, near Japara

rice, rice and more rice!

Japara, Java

this little guy was waiting for his dew to dry before attempting flight, outside our room

ancient Hindu temples near Badungan, Central Java

a friend enjoying the hot springs near the temples

skinks are about as common here as squirrels are in Oregon...

rambutan ("rambut" = hair)... hence "hairy fruit"

a mobile tire being patched along the road from Banyutowo to Japara, Central Java

sunset at some fishponds near Banyutowo, Central Java