After we dropped Riley off at the school we headed to the local market where everyone buys most of their food. This place was crazy. It had tiny little isles and everything you can imagine. It was filthy, stinky and just plain crazy. The chicken for dinner that night was still alive when we were at the market that afternoon. The Indonesians like their food fresh and you just don't get any fresher than that. In fact, most of them don't even have a fridge and microwaves were unheard of until about a year ago.

These are some of the fruits of Indonesia. This first picture is one of Jim's favorites. I believe the fruit is called Durian or something like that. He said if the fruit isn't ripe it tastes like Kerosene. It sure didn't have a pleasant smell. But i am told that when it is cooked into pastries it tastes wonderful. I didn't ever try any. The fruit is very hard on the outside. In fact, they tie the fruit to the limbs of the tree while it is still growing. They said that if the fruit were to fall on a person below the spikes would easily go through someone's skull. I think I would do everything possible to avoid those trees.


This is another of Jim's favorites. It looks like a strawberry, but nothing like it. It is called snake fruit. The skin looks like the scales of a snake. The skin is hard and tough, but easy to remove from the fruit inside. The fruit is a little bit sweet, but I don't know how to describe the flavor. The texture is more of an apple, but smooth, not juicy.


This was some random guy in the market. He saw me taking pictures and kept saying, "Shoot Me." So I did.


These are Dragon fruit. They are VERY GOOD! In the Mornings, Eli (Jim's sister in law) would make us dragon fruit juice and it was very sweet, pink and just plain yummy.

Bananas and more bananas, oh and a couple of pinapples.






This is one of the entrances to the market. It has the widest isle in the place. You can actually move right here without being stepped on or stepping on someone else.

This was a shop in the market where they sold clothing. There were quite a few of them. You should have seen the ones with all the shoes. I will see if I actually got a picture of those.

This was just outside the market. They have many ways of transportation. You can see the motorcycle....those things outnumber cars at least 10 - 1. They are EVERYWHERE! And they drive wherever they like. There are very few stop signs and signals, and even then they are treated as optional. I am telling you, I have never seen driving like that in my life and it would be the one thing that would keep me from going back.  I had to sit behind the driver all the time so I never saw what was coming at us.

Another shot of some of the transportation, including the horse and buggy. I never did get to ride on one of those, but Riley did. They also have what are called baby taxi's. They are these little vans and they stick about 20 people in them. CRAZY!!!! People litterally hang off the sides. Oh, and it isn't uncommon to see a family of four or five on a motorcycle.


After our trip to the market and school we visited a place called Bandung SuperMal (nope, it isn't a typo) They call it BSM for short. It is a HUGE mall that includes a small amusement park. The mall reminds me of Tyson's Corner in Virginia, but with an amuesment park inside. There was a roller coaster, merry-go-round, Swing, canoes, bumper cars, ferris wheel and a few others, plus games galore. The girls had a great time. Here you can see them in the little canoes that they had to paddle along in.


This one shows the swing ride and the coaster going by. You can't see it because of the swings, but Riley, Amelia and I are all on the coaster.


These are actually little rides that the kids can go on. They are so funny.


You can see they also like American food (although it certainly didn't taste American to me.) CFC is the same as our KFC.... although they had those too. You can also see the A&W back there on the left.


This little guy is called a Chi-Choc (Sounds like Chee Chock) They call it this because that is the sound it makes. They are EVERYWHERE, including in the houses. They are good though and eat the flies and misquitoes. I wish he would have eaten a few more in our house. They really liked to snack on Riley and I.
Well, that is the end of Day one in Indonesia. The next post will show some of our trip to Borobudor where there is a HUGE Buddhist Temple that is one of the 7 wonders of the world. It was a 10 hour drive and then after that we made an 8 hour drive to Pangandaran Beach - it was a VERY long day. But full of great things.