Up in the hills in the centre of Java, two to three hours out of Jakarta, through rice paddies and fruit trees lies the city of Bandung. Its much nicer than Jakarta, though its still hazy and polluted (whether this is self-generated or just gets blown in from Jakarta down below I don't know, probably a bit of both). There are more trees though, which makes it better. Bandung is the home of LIPI, the Indonesian Centre for Sciences (or similar translation of the acronym) and where our Indonesian contacts work. Its also where we store a lot of gear for fieldwork. So we took the trip up to LIPI to sort through the field-gear, through some things away, check what we had and prepare everything for shipping to the field-sites. This field-work has a lot of equipment I can tell you that!
An interesting bridge for all you engineers out there - the arch is upside-down!
The Geoteknologi Department
Once the gear was sorted we took an excursion to the top of a mountain, which was shut due to clouds, despite the trees looking all misty and atmospheric and rather cool. So we went to the local waterfalls, which were interesting, but not particularly nice. They smelt a bit funny, were a bit too foamy and the water was just the wrong colour. Even up here, this part of the world is polluted. And its a shame because otherwise this place might have been quite pretty.
Well, pretty if they also got rid of all the concrete structures around the place too which made the whole area look not unlike a badly designed Rivendell.
Just not the colour waterfalls should be if they desire to be in the picturesque category
Nice-ish
Not that the place was all bad, the two restaurants we visited for lunch and dinner were very good. Proper Indonesian fare. Very tasty. And there was a thunderstorm on the way back, which did help clear the air somewhat.
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