Wednesday 30 July 2008

27 - 30 July 2008: Goodbye Indonesia – hello India!

On our last few days in Indonesia, we travelled to Bandung and stayed with a family we'd met on Gunung Rinjani in Lombok. Mark and Yanti very kindly put us up for two nights. Their two sons – Lawrence (13) and Berton (7) – were rather good at the card game Uno and repeatedly beat Andy.

On Monday, Lawrence and Jacko the dog took us on a lovely walk over the hills. On the way, we passed the caves of Gua Pakar, dug out by the Japanese during World War II for use as ammunition stores. We also stopped off at Mark and Yanti's cattle farm where they keep around 19 cows.



We had lunch in Lembang which is home to a racecourse with some fine racehorses. This took Jen back in time to her riding days, as the brown horse in the picture reminded her of one of the family's horses, Windom Peak.




During Tuesday we flew from Jakarta to Mumbai (Bombay) via Hong Kong (where we'll be returning in December). Hong Kong airport was very impressive and modern – and so clean! Passengers walk through a gate which checks the body temperature in case of SARS. The flights were uneventful, apart from flying around some huge clouds over central India which were illuminated from within by large electrical storms. The clouds were almost at the height we were flying at.

Today, we are resting after the flights and staying in the Chembur district of Mumbai. It's +27°C, overcast and humid, but no monsoon rain yet today. Tomorrow, we'll head to the central district of Fort and Churchgate. The last seven weeks in Indonesia had prepared us well for a country like India, so there's been no culture shocks so far. The internet is really fast here in Mumbai, so we may be able to Skype again.

Curry Count: 2 Delhi Belly Count: 0.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Look forward to sopeaking to you again soon

Love
Mum & Dad

Anonymous said...

Hello from Hong Kong!

I did not realise that you will be passing by. We are just about to leave Hong Kong (3rd of August), so we could have arranged a coffee meeting in Hong Kong airport;-)

Looking forward to see you in December.

Neringa