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...