Monday, July 27, 2009

Hester Basoeki Guest House, Bogor

We spent the day filming the Indonesian activities for the Trans 7 Homestay program at a guest house in West Bogor.

This would be a great place to take out of town guests to see what rural Indonesian life is like. The guest house arranges kampung (village) tours and other cultural things such as cooking classes, rice planting, garden tours and music recitals.

In the below collage, the girls are washing, then riding a water buffalo and playing Indonesian games with the Kampung kids
Below the girls are cooking traditional Indonesian cakes and making hot ginger drinks.

It was a long, hot day which didn't finish until nearly dark. My idea of relaxing in the car for a 2 hour trip home with the AC on full was unfortunately aborted when the driver decided to fall asleep with in 5 minutes of leaving the guest house, whilst driving the car with the kids and I inside. (This was the second time this had happened with this particular driver, it has happened to us before though, so I am extremly viligent)

I debated leaving him in Bogor, but had to take him, as I had no idea how to get home.

My head was about to explode with all the swear words you could imaging but couldn't say in front of the kids!

I can now drive all the way from west Bogor, through Bogor in peak hour traffic, on the toll way to Jakarta and through its peak hour traffic and get home.

On this Indonesian toll way, I discovered that trucks find head lights (in full dark) optional and a speed of any where between 35- 160 km/hr is acceptable.

It was a very scary drive, but adrenalin and maternal instinct can make anything possible.

Needless to say, we now have a new driver!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

wow... wonder why those drivers fell asleep so often...

Shannon said...

I hope you fired him. I now appreciate how lucky we were with Pak Haryono.

Jenny Quld said...

Hi John

I have no idea why, we've even had the car checked for dangerous fumes.

We found out our first driver was moonlighting as an ojak (motor cycle taxi driver) at night so was existing on no sleep, but the latest ex driver ...no idea!

Many have told us we are too boring lol, the six hour lunch time nap is too long.

Friends suggest that I schedule lots of activities and errands during the day while we are at work, or to keep a chiller of Redbull or such in the car!

Dear Shannon, did you every go to Pelabuhan Ratu, due south of Jakarta?
The driver fell asleep at 9.30am driving down the sheer cliff face road. One week later was the Bogor incidence, so the next day he was dismissed at the office.

I've only one other friend who has had a sleepy driver problem......