Last Day in Bandung - Moving On!

Last evening was a very special evening with a wonderful dinner & talk with Bert Boland our new Dutch friend!  Oh what a blessing it was to meet Bert and hear his heart for Indonesia!  He was born here and left at the age of 10 when his parents moved back to Holland.  Nevertheless he has always had a love & burden for his homeland and here he is!  He has written a book - The Strangers on the Street and he was ever so kind to share a copy with us....thank you Bert - Hartelijk dank! We felt we had known one another for years - !  The 3 of us talked and talked and the time went by... ...way to fast!

This morning after breakfast we headed to the Train Station - to get a ticket for tomorrow morning  8 am departure from Bandung to Kroya. - the station we have to get out on to visit go see the town of  Pukworerto Purwokerto /Banyumas where my father grew up with his siblings and parents on the sugar plantation.  He was sent to Holland at an age of 13 yrs if I recall.to get the further education.

Nick's mother was born in Banyumas - would you believe it?  Gosh our parents coincidentally lived in close proximity from one another! Pretty neat huh?

It is a 5 hour train ride and then another 1 hr train ride to the town of Purwokerto - on a smaller intercity train.  We plan to stay there just 2 days and then head on down to Yogyakarta - where Indonesia is famous for it's silver.

Walking along the street - you have to be so aware of things - the sidewalks are not always clean and often broken up..

We walked for several miles and saw some construction - and we always stand in awe of the men working!  Making a pilar and standing up there balanced on a piece of wood - no helmet - gloves - working in rubber boots - and yet the work gets done!

 Again the scaffolds used - for us that seems so dangerous!  The guys waved so friendly to us!

 I muscled my arms and meant to tell them they are hard workers...they smiled a BIG grin!

We came to the "Stasion Bandung" and had to pull a number and waited an hour for our number to be called - it was a busy place!  Time to cool down from our long walk!

Did a little shopping at the grocery store and the young kids tried their English on us...and they were

making drinks with the blender - so they put a contraption together for us with some green leaves, and some fruit too and in the meantime chatted with us...so of course we wanted a picture of their sweet faces!

 The little shopping area have these trees that are so pretty - I call them canopy trees...aren't they pretty?  Just love them...and in this hot weather it is so nice to have them to keep things cool!

          A very fine leave they have...and the trunk of the tree is also very smooth clean and straight looking!

 Our hotel has a office for life insurance - so Nico said - hey take a picture!  Yes Nick -it's a  "INDO LIFE"   we are experiencing here in  Indonesia! ha!

For our last evening here at our hotel, we decided to eat here again...because this sweet Chef "Tony" prepared for us Gado-Gado especially for us - (not on the menu!) it is a delicious vegetable dish with that wonderful spicy peanut sauce on it! Oh My!  YUM!!!!!

Isn't Tony cute?!!!! He was so friendly and just stood there and chatted with us for quite a while after dinner!

 

Gado Gado 

                               Gado-Gado Ingredients (click to see recipe!)