From either route from the much-too-well-travelled Kemang Raya, on which my former otherwise excellent apartment fronted, and from which it leaked blazing sunrise sunlight and the amplified prayers of 5 (yes 5) neighborhood mosques five times every day, you will find this spectaculary unattractive gate with prominent address marker to three peaceful, very private, and utterly quiet villas.

Hmm... where's the security?

from the driveway into the kitchen, where Tura toils from 2 until 8, and cooks up a dream. I had to let my apartment staff go, as the villa was already famously well-handled. 'Twasn't easy, but it had to be done.

Out of the kitchen and through the dining room...

That's Joe out the patio doors on the ladder. he fixes everything, and it's best not to watch him do it.

There are fish under the clock at the back there. I hung some ocean waves in their corner -- trying to keep the fish happy.

out of the dining room, through the living room heading to a change of clothes through that sliding door in the back corner...

Guess who sleeps here. Gotta get new pillowcases. That's family on the wall...

And it's out to my corner office where all weekend, and most weekdays after work and after (or instead of) the gym, you'll find me on the top step of the blue, or in my corner office also pictured, living the rest of my life that isn't work.

The backyard looking unlived in. Rest assured, it's not.

No one who lives here lacks class. herb even keeps orchids growing by the pool...

I spy two folks getting way too much relaxation...

This is Dewi. She fronts a terrific rock'n'reggae band, and we've been dating for a little while now...

Roomie Herb takes everything much too seriously...

Folks of all types enjoy this game. Yani's on the left, friend of my mate Martin, nephew to the pictured Uncle Bob, and that's Rani standing. The ladies and Maya below are from the pub... walking distnacce to work for them after a poolside barbecue.

We're all here playing most every weekend...

Springtime on Java: The Malabar Tea Estate

Summer in Jakarta is at sea level, endlessly. I learned soon after returning from Brother Tom duties at John's wedding that springtime is in the mountains, forever. I headed out to the towns surrounding Bandung, Java's third city, and took my friend Maya with me. She's a waitress at D's Kemang, and many of us enjoy treating the staff to opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise. A hundred bucks a month doesn't get one very far, even if one doesn't have to feed a family on it. How different is the weather up here? As soon as I stopped sweating for the first time in ten months, Maya started shivering. And heading back on the train, when the dampness reappeared on my shirt as we neared Jakarta, there was an audible relieved sigh from the seat next to mine. Here we are before Maya got too chilly enjoying a pot of Malabar tea, lovely stuff, fresh into bags from the fields surrounding us. We stayed in comfortable bungalows with home cooked dinners and endless tea, and utter quiet...

A sunset stroll through the tea-leaves yielded this curious view of silver-lined clouds low on the horizon.

Behind our bungalow at sunset was this view... sun's down behind that gazebo-topped hill.

Just after sunrise it looked like this...

ho hum

Hard to describe what an oasis this place is. Completely off the the roads around town, 200,000 hectares of tea... temps in the 70ies, breezes all around...

Even a school in the teafields! It's not far from some lovely clean swimming pools watered by hot springs. Not a bad place to live a life.

A shrub-level view

And yet even through here Indonesian oil has to move. That silver snake twisting away into the distance is a pipeline.