The Haircut

Looking back at my last two posts and some of the comments, I think I’m coming across as overly negative on the place. But, I don’t mean to be. I really just wanted to point out the weakness of local building codes and maybe comment on why some regulation is a good idea. We’re really pretty happy and feel reasonable safe.

I got a haircut a while back at a nearby shopping mall. Another expat sent me there. He told me they were used to foreigners and could understand English. Oh, and they use fresh razor blades with each customer. I’d been there a few times, but on my most recent visit I think I sat in the chair of the master.

I’m not sure about the language ability. I think he understood “short”, but nothing else. It was a quiet haircut and he did a pretty good job with the actual cut.

The amazing part was the massage afterward. Part of the package at this place and many barbers here, is the massage after. It’s just a chair massage of the neck and shoulders.

Now, I’ve had only a few massages, but none quite like this. This guy worked me over from behind my ears to the middle of my back. Deep tissue does not describe it. He was trying to give me a breast exam through my shoulder blades.

At the end he takes a towel and wraps it around my neck, followed by his arms. Being in a small degree of pain, I’m not really aware of what he’s doing. The he whispers something that must have been “Relax!” and then RIP!. pop...pop..pop..pop...pop. I came out of the chair wondering what just happened. Nearly all the vertebrae in my neck cracked.

Then he moved around to the other side to do the same thing, but now of course, I’m aware of what is going on and I prepare myself. “Please don’t hurt, please don’t hurt, please don’t hurt!” Sure enough, my neck cracked again. I felt half an inch taller and a great deal of energy was radiating up and down my spine.

As a finishing touch, he plucked the skin between my eyebrows and slapped his hand and I felt a last pop at the top of my head. I swear some chi dribbled down my chin.

All this for 10 bucks.

Jakarta Burning

I was coming back from the airport last week and one of the highway flyovers launches traffic into the air and sweeps south toward the city.  As we made the turn there was a solid plume of black rising into the sky.  From afar, it looked like an entire city block was burning.  I wondered about some terrorist incident as we’re all conditioned to do, I guess.  

One thing about Jakarta is they haven’t really gotten into the whole 24 hour news cycle. You can’t flip on the radio and hear second by second coverage.  TV crews aren’t out scouring a neighborhood for the edentulous of the world so they may garble a statement into a microphone.  

I asked the cabbie what was going on.  “Looks like a fire.” he said. Yep.

I read in the paper a day or two later that it was a fairly large apartment/housing area that caught fire.  It was a pretty densely populated area.  The fire started via short circuit, they thought and quickly swept through the complex. This happens quite commonly.  In some places during rainstorms, water drains out the outlets in the walls and onto the floor.  

Fire trucks couldn’t get close enough, because of the narrow streets and there are no hydrants, so they used an old fashioned bucket brigade to pull water out of the river to help fight the blaze. Given the condition of the water who knows if they helped or hindered their cause.

3000 people were left homeless. 1200 homes were destroyed. It is that densely populated. Do keep in mind that the homes were maybe the size of a dining room. 

Perhaps miraculously, only one 18 year old man lost his life.  A lot of people lost everything.  But perhaps sadder than being made homeless by a fire, I read where one man gathered his property and all his remaining belongings and sold the lot for $23 dollars and left town.  Yes, he left town with nothing but $23.00.

Four days later, we were riding to work and we came upon a 20 story building that was a total inferno right there on the city’s main street.  Flames licking up the side of the building.  Glass and metal tumbling to the ground.  There were fire trucks there and lots of people craning their necks to the sky, but no apparent water was being sprayed that we could see.  It looked like a total loss.

Many locals speculate that because it was a government building, the fire was arson in an attempt to cover up some sort of corruption. Corruption has been big in the news here lately.  The newspapers wouldn’t speculate.  The fire spread it seems, because the pump that was supposed to supply the sprinklers was broken that day, so no water flowed.  

I’m told by a colleague who watched from across the street, that they tried to extend their ladder as high as it would go and spray water, but it wouldn’t reach.  Then they tried to spray water from the building next door but it couldn’t reach.  25 fire trucks were on the site at one time and they fought this blaze for 18 hours before they got it under control.

The city of Jakarta has vowed to step up inspections of fire safety systems, saying that building owners have been far too slack for far too long.  The crackdown will begin immediately and those that are found in violation will receive a sticker.

Said sticker will be required to be placed on the front door to serve as a warning to those who may rent or use the building that the premises are not safe from fire.

Sigh….

All the talk of lack of fire safety has reinforced a fear in our youngest.  “I am terrified that something dreadful will happen to one of us and we are going to be totally screwed and we’ll die wherever we fall. I mean we're living on the ring of fire!"

Indeed all week, everywhere I go, I've found my eyes drifting upwards looking hopefully for sprinklers or fire extinguishers only to to be disappointed.  I’ve seen long hallways with an exit only at one end. Our dog searches in vain for a fire hydrant on the street. All the stuff that we sort of take for granted and ignore. None of it is there.

To be sure, I’m gonna start looking for that sticker.  

(Photos courtesy of Jakarta Globe and Jakarta Post)

Special Orders Do Upset Us.

In an odd turn of events, I found myself home alone for the weekend.  Both the spouse and offspring were away.

I wandered out into the evening in search of a meal.  Along the way I came upon two mormons.  Doing a mission trip here must have been required for some bad misdeed back at Uncle Brigham’s. I can’t imagine how hard that must be.  Fearing my own conversion, I didn’t stop to ask.  

I also saw three men relieving themselves.  Jakarta doesn’t have a lot of street lamps, so there are lots of shadows to hide in.  Just watch where you walk. That puddle may not be leftover from the rain.

Eventually I found a place called “Three Buns-Burgers and Heads”. I had only a limited idea what this meant until I asked and found out that the place is run by a group who also runs some restaurants called "PotatoHeads" 

Anyway, the set-up of the place is kind of funny .  There is a food truck out front that serves no purpose other than to handle cash and give workers a place to check their cell phones. Inside, on a series of very high risers, is the seating area.  Imagine, if you will a restaurant designed like the old “Q-bert” video game with tables and steps rising randomly and steeply around the room.  That’s this place.  Honestly, it is an alcoholics nightmare.  It was a quiet night when I was there, but I can only imagine women in heels cascading down to the ground floor in the wee hours of the morning.

There was a large grid of 36 numbers on the wall. Every so often a few numbers would light up. I asked what this was and was told it's a Bingo game. "Are people playing bingo now?" "Yes"

I looked around. No one was playing bingo.

I picked out a burger and then asked for the house fries.  The bartender started upselling me on the “Naughty fries” which looked good except for the beef chili.  I told him I didn’t really want the chili and I asked if I could have the fries without.  “Sure”, he said.  “Or, maybe you can have the chili on the side?”  

“All right. Naughty fries with chili on the side.”  

My burger came quickly along with my fries. The fries were simply and totally slathered in beef chili.

It reminded me of how hard it is to get substitutions here.  

For whatever reason, people here are fanatical about the cleanliness of their cars.  My own 10 year old car is simply flawless having been washed or wiped down twice a day.  My driver arrives in the morning and he wipes the car free of any dust that may have gathered in the closed garage over night. If we drive in the rain, he wipes down the car.  If he’s bored, he washes and waxes the car.  

Car wash/detail shops are tucked in neighborhoods all over.  A clean car is a big, big thing.

But, if you go to a car wash you have to do the whole detail.  We’ve had friends who are in a hurry and just want to rinse off the car.

“No, sorry, mister. Can’t do that”  

“Why not?”

“It’s not what we do.”

“What if I pay for a detail, but you stop after you rinse off the car?”

“No”

“But you’ll do less work and make the same amount of money?

“That wouldn’t be right.”

<scratch, scratch, scratch>

The same thing goes for pizza.  A friend wanted a cheese pizza, but it wasn’t on the menu, so they asked them to make one, but they wouldn’t because it wasn’t on the menu. They asked for the simplest pizza they had, which was maybe a margarita pizza.  They asked for a margarita pizza with only the cheese,  even agreeing to pay the higher price.  Alas, they ended up ordering a pizza and picking off everything but the cheese.

The bartender at the Three Buns told me that their format changed.  It used to be that people came to the restaurant and placed and paid for their order at the food truck and then went to sit down to wait, but people didn’t like that concept.  “Why are we paying for food at a nice restaurant when we haven’t eaten it yet?”  

The bartender said, that prepay concept may work in New York or London, but this is Indonesia. We do it our own way.  Indeed, they do.

Generations in the Year of the Goat

Secret Asian Man returned to his roots for a long weekend.  It was Chinese New year and Hong Kong seemed like the place to be, so the Mrs. and Miss and I packed up and headed north.

Here is something you don’t hear a lot of 16 year olds say.  “Wow.  It’s so nice to see infrastructure that works.  Look at all these sidewalks and lane markings and street signs and look at all the people following the rules!“

It’s about that time in our stay in our new home when we start seeing all the faults there.  Some of the ugliness and illogicality of living in Jakarta is becoming apparent.  That’s part of culture shock.

Hong Kong, for four days was not that ugly.  But it used to be.  When I was there as a child, there were still rickshaws and push carts in the street and the city was choked with diesel exhaust.  People lived on boats right in the harbor, chucking their trash overboard.  It was gritty and organic place.

40 years on the boat people have moved elsewhere.  Maybe into the myriad high rise communities or to other more distant harbors.   The streets are largely reserved for mass transit vehicles or taxis.  There  is far less trash floating in the water.

 

And still the building continues.  New bridges and buildings are going in.  A new highway from China is coming. It will be interesting to see what further changes come in the next 2 or 3 decades.

Already there are cheap flights and trains and ferries from China.  Many come just to do their shopping. One can spot them by the large rolling suitcases they tote around town

The Apple stores in Hong Kong exceed sales figures for Apple stores around the world.  Mostly, they sell to mainland Chinese.  I walked into an Apple store just 2 minutes after opening and there was a line out the door for people wanting to get an Iphone 6 four months after its introduction.  I’m amazed that they can keep them in stock.

 

I guess they make them nearby in China, so they’re easy to get.  They have Apple stores in China.  Shanghai has 3 stores, but still they come into this Special Region.  I’m told the average Chinese is worried about getting an authentic product and they think that if they get a product in Hong Kong there is less chance of it being counterfeit.  If they take it back home and sell it along with their Hong Kong receipt, they can command a premium when they resell it.  This is a weird bit of irony, since China is a leader in copied products.

Read on for a travel tip for when you go to Hong Kong.  

One of the highlights we did was going out to Lantau Island to see the second largest Buddha statue.

It is bronze and 34 meters tall.  It is run by a local Buddhist monastery.  Years ago, you had to take a ferry and then a kidney-bruising bus ride up the mountain to the monastery.   In true capitalist fashion, it is now much easier to get to.  There is a metro stop nearby and you can hop on a miles long cable car that winds up the mountain and drops you off near the Buddha’s pad.  For a fee you can climb the 246 steps and see him up close then stroll back down to the monastery for a sumptuous all-vegetarian feast.  There’s a temple for praying.  Of course, there are also gift shops and ice cream and movies and all that jazz.

It may not sound inviting, but you should go see it.  And if you go, here’s the tip.  Spring for the VIP pass.  Your gondola will be glass bottomed which is a pretty cool perk, but better yet, you get to skip the hour’s long queue to get up and down the mountain.  Seriously, it is worth the money to save your time for other things. An added bonus for us was a trip through and old fishing village and a boat trip near the Pearl River Delta to see some White Dolphins. You can thank me later for the tip.

Here’s another tip.

Don’t go during the Lunar New Year if you want to shop.  Many shops and business close down or scale back, so you’ll miss out on some of the energy of the city.  That said, if you go a little beforehand you can get some pretty good deals.

Other things to see may include the New Year’s parade and fireworks and the flower market which is like a state fair, only distilled and then condensed as throngs gather to buy symbolic flowers and plants in anticipation of the coming year of the goat or sheep.

The main reason we went was to see family.  My sibling and their family agreed to a rendezvous with some Aunts, Uncles and cousins who live in Hong Kong.  We’ve been back and forth several times since we were kids. It is always nice to catch up.  The meals we share are always a highlight even though there can be language barriers.  Someone is always around to say a prayer or translate some family folklore.  There is always a photo opportunity.

 

This is a photo of some tiny daffodils in an arrangement that is prevalent around the city.  You see it all over the place on hotel counters and restaurant bars and on family coffee tables.  It must be a seasonal thing and I didn’t get an explanation for the symbolism, but I’m sure there is. There is so much symbolism and superstition here.

 

Now here is an old family photo.  The younger kids are my grandfather and great aunt along with their parents, my great-grand parents.  Now, I know you’re looking at the dapper jacket and hat that my grandfather is wearing, but take a look at the table and the arrangement of daffodils just like the photo I took last week.

 

This photo was taken some 100 years ago which means that some lunar new year a century ago my family was gathering for a meal and some stories and photos, and now a century later, we’re still able to carry that tradition forward.

I would like an outfit like that, though.  Maybe, next trip.

 Happy New Year!

Australia Digested

Wrapped up a two week trip to Australia.

Flying down to Perth I scored a window seat and found the landscape far more interesting than the movies.   Just miles and miles of nothingness.  Rarely, you can see a road or a track scratched into the land like a line on a fresh bought Etch-a-Sketch.   Yes,  Aborigines have been here for 100,000 years,  but even given all that time,  they wouldn’t have time to see everything.  Surely, there are places here where no human has set foot.

 

Perth at night

And then rising up out of the ground are the cities of Perth and Freemantle with populations of well over a million people.  Perth is described as the most isolated capitol city in the world.  Yet, here it is clean and bustling and incredibly expensive.  Part of the cost is in the isolation, but also, the until recently, boom in mining has brought incredible amounts of money to the area.

Money and men.  Popped into a pub and found the gender ratio to be, 10 men to every woman. Maybe the ladies hang out elsewhere or maybe the 30 dollars I paid for sub-par fish and chips and a beer wasn’t enough to draw them in.

 

The entire downtown area is wired for free wi-fi and free busses circulate the city as well.  While I was there the Fringe Festival, an alternative arts fest was going on.  Maybe because the city is on the edge of the world, its Fringe Fest has become one of the world’s largest with multiple plays, performances and exhibits.

My Jakarta-honed skill of stopping traffic with the outstretched palm of my hand is rendered nearly useless and only serves to cause cars to honk and policemen to snark, “Hey, wait for the little red man to turn green before you cross.”

A week in after a few days in Sydney feeling under the weather, I took the weekend to drive the coast from Sydney to Melbourne about 1100 km.  I had 2+ days to do it.

Pastoral scene on the road to Melbourne

The drive is great.  Rolling country side. Lots of cows and sheep and trees and fields. The towns on the way are all small. This is the least direct way of going to Melbourne.  The hotels along the way are all motor inns like many in the US from days of old where you drive through a little gate and pull up outside your room.  Your window looks out over the parking lot.  The two I found were mostly clean. The owners were nice.  They had a mini fridge.  One had a sign that said, “Please don’t clean your fish in the sink.”  I was thankful for that.

The first night I checked-in and the woman gave me my key and a small bottle of cold liquid.  I looked at it totally perplexed. “It’s milk!”

“Oh,… how quaint!”  I thought maybe the area was known for its milk and maybe this was some local Aussie way of getting me off to sleep.

The second night, 400 km away, a woman offered me milk again, but then added that it was for my coffee or tea.  Ah. Of course. It all made sense. 

Melbourne along the Yarra river

My first time in Melbourne.  I think it is my new favorite city.  I used to think that Sydney was pretty great, but Melbourne has got it going on.  Though established later, it feels older than Sydney. There is more charm.  And not grimy Paris charm, but well-designed, well-aged character.  The Arts district has several  cool museums.  The botanic gardens look great.  There is food galore.  Lots of free wifi about town and a new free tram system as long as you stay in a certain area.

 

There is still a vibrant Chinatown and it is not just chatzkes,  Chinese take-out and massage parlours.  It’s actually encroaching on the Greek district.  The Greek diaspora back in the 70’s brought thousands of Greeks to Australia.  This community though doesn’t seem as vibrant, though with all the problems in Greece now, maybe it will pick up again.  The focus in this town, and indeed, throughout Australia, is China.  Chinese museum exhibits, performing arts, economic conferences. It is all looking to Beijing.

Inflatable Nude Model Drawing class at local museum

Mind you, the weather was perfect and that definitely played a role in my good time, but if you’re looking for a neat city to go explore, put Melbourne at the top of your list.

Canberra is different.  You fly around to all these squeaky clean, bustling cities and then you hit Canberra and it’s like falling into a time warp.  Carved out of the mountains between Sydney and Melbourne, Canberra is really a series of planned towns surrounding the parliament and government buildings. There isn’t much of a central city, but there is a ton of green space and parklands around. Like they put in all the public spaces and are waiting for the rest of the city to join them.  It’s all part of the grand plan, I guess.

Years ago, to get countries to build their embassies in middle of nowhere, they granted them all land if they agreed to build their embassies in the style of their native architecture.  So, wandering around one section of the town is like wandering EPCOT without the throngs of tourists and smoked turkey legs.

Overall, it’s a pretty sleepy little town, though there are a good number of places to eat.

There are some good hikes just outside of town and even in town.  I’ve been to Australia 5 times and this is the first time, I've seen kangaroos in the wild, just lying around the city park.  Actually, they don’t behave much differently than the ones I’ve seen in the zoos. Roo carcasses litter the motorways each morning.  Flocks of lorikeets and cockatoos and parrots as common as cardinals and blue jays back home seem more of the novelty.

Brisbane was my final stop.  Swung by to see an old school roommate and his family.  It is always nice to be able to feel like you picked up a conversation after being away for 5 or 10 years.   I was in Brisbane about 17 years ago and the city I arrived in this time was totally unrecognizable from  previous.  High rises and tunnels and bridges.  It was amazing to see how this place had grown.  And like most of the other places there is so much being done to get people outside and away from their cars.  We took in a couple of museums and spent some time at local swimming pool all of which were well cared for and totally free of charge.

I saw this sign.  It displays the Aussies tendancy to shorten the names of things.  Boatsman become boaties, Firemen become Fireys.  McDonald's becomes Macca's.

The equivalent to Burger King is Hungry Jacks.  I used to know the reason why but aside from the name, it is the exact same place.  Home of the Whopper.  I stopped in for a quick bite.  I got a value meal, but I wanted just water instead of soda.  I was told that there would be a seventy five cent charge for water.  The woman behind the counter said quickly.  "I know, it doesn't make sense, but it's not a prank. I don't know why it is."  Thankfully, a small soda here is still accurately small.

They haven't succumbed fully yet to the Supersize wave, though maybe it is coming.  7/11 was advertising their new slurpee size called....... The Expandinator.  For all day slurping!

Neighborhood Digest

We’ve moved to our forever home and have been exploring the new neighborhood.  Here are some things that I’ve learned.

I think I mentioned how street addresses often don’t make a lick of sense.  Stroll down a typical street and see the house address change randomly from #2 to #26 to #81 to #7.  It makes getting anywhere in a cab or by walking just maddening as you never really know how close you are to your final destination.  

We think we discovered why.  It seems that house numbers aren’t set up according to any sort of grid or plat.  Duh.  It seems house numbers are assigned based on the order they were constructed on a street.  So, #1 was the first house on the street, #2 the second house built and so on, no matter if #2 is actually seven lots away.

It sort of makes sense in a short-sighted, ordinal sort of way, but no sense from a city planning view.

There is a kicker, too.  If you tear down a house and rebuild a new house or even significantly remodel a house, you get a new address.  So, say our forever home used to be #3, but it was gutted and rebuilt on the exact floor plan.  Our new house number may be #34.

 Here is something you don’t see back home.  This is a Secret Asian Man image of a man at a mall scrubbing the curb of the entrance by hand.  Not hosing it off. Not sweeping, but scrubbing with a scrub brush.  The difference between how private and public spaces are treated is remarkable.  

Walking the dog early the other morning, it must have been trash burning day.  We walked past 6 or 7 small unattended fires burning in the gutters.  Leaves, branches, plastic bags, cups, all the detritus of a city wafting into the morning air.  The ashes blowing down the street, adding to the grime.  Probably soiling the curbs of the mall, who knows?

This is likely the saddest thing that I’ve faced in a long time.  This is Bonita.  She is a macaque monkey who lives on a platform in the park nearby. She belongs to the family on the far side of the park.  She is fed a good amount of food and they seem to look after her, but it is still a pretty sorry existence.  

A few dinner time conversations have been held about how to spring the monkey.  None of the scenarios end well for us, or the monkey, so we walk by this suffering daily.  I’d like to befriend the neighbors to get the full story and I’ve asked our house staff to find out all they can.  I guess we’ve got some time

I’m told of an even sadder activity.  A few years ago, it was all the rage to take these monkeys and chain them little toy cars, dressed up in clothes.  The owners would then cut the eyes and the backs out of a baby doll head and fit them over the monkey head and then train the monkey to roam around a park begging for money.  This, to me, is just the epitome of creepy.  I’m not sure if people pay for the novelty or to make the scary, monkey-baby go away.  I’m told they cracked down and banned this, so it is not as common anymore.  I don’t have my own image, but here is what I’m talking about.

Maybe, that was how Bonita started out? Maybe, that was how our neighbors got their big house.  On the backs of Bonita and her friends.  

We drove by her the other day.  Mrs. S.A.M. said, “That monkey looks so sad.”

Our driver said, “Yes. I think it because she not have a friend.”

Yeah, that could be it. It could also be that she’s chained by the neck to a pole in the middle of a city of millions.

Appeasing the Gods

Once upon a time, on big island on a bigger ocean there were two lovers who wed. One’s name started with the letters T-E-N-G….  The other’s ended with the letters G-A-R. Their full names were lost to time or at least lost in the translation between my guide Benny and me.

The names are important in that these two came together to form the Tenggar clan in east Java. 

The two tried for years and years to have a child but they were unable. They prayed very hard to the god in Mt. Bromo and their prayers were answered with a son.  In fact, they were answered further with 24 more children in the span of their years.  

Sometime after the birth of their 25th child, the god came to them and asked them to give thanks by sacrificing one of their children to the volcano atop Mt. Bromo.  Though they were grateful for their answered prayers, people being people, they were unable to part with any of their children.  

Their refusal angered the mountain god greatly and the god being a god, went all Kaiser Sosei on them, laying waste to their settlement and killing all twenty-five of the kids.  

S.A.M returned to Surabaya and after the work was done took a trip to Mt. Bromo about 4 hours from Surabaya.  The goal was to see the sunrise which entailed leaving the hotel at midnight and enduring a rather uncomfortable car ride up to a base at Penanjakan. The roads are not made for smooth travel or sleeping in a car. There are lots of starts and stops and bobs and weaves. In Penanjakan we switched to a 4x4 for a trip across the lava sands and up the other side of the crater about 1500 meters above the lava field.

For a quasi-car geek, this is a great place to come because all the 4X4s are vintage Toyota Land Cruisers from the 70s.  This must be where they come to be put out to pasture. There are hundreds of them in varied states of repair. Some looked complete. Others like mine look good from the outside but the inside is lacking dashboard lights and working speedometers and working seat belts.  

Benny apologized for the deficiency, but reassured me that I was safe.  “You’ll be fine, because the driver is my friend!” And he gave him a big old hug.  And off we raced into the night along with hundreds of other motorcycles and 4wd trucks.

At the bottom of the mountain , I was encouraged because I saw clear skies and stars up above. We arrived at the top of the main crater at about 4 am.  In true, Indonesian fashion, because this is a major tourist destination, there are food vendors set up and doing a booming business even at 3:30 am  We stepped inside a stall and pulled up a bench and grabbed fried bananas and hot ginger tea, served family style to any takers.  It seemed nearly all the local tourists were feverishly smoking cigarettes in preparation for the big climb later.  Me, I just breathed when I could.  

45 minutes before sunrise we made our way a short distance to the sunrise viewing area.  As the day dawned, though it was clear that we were only going to see fog and mist.  5 hours of dozing in the back of a car for nothing.

Back down to the crater floor and across to the center where a new cone rises.  This is the active portion of the Mt Bromo.  There’s a 2 km hike and then 245 stairs that lead up to the crater rim. There is an option to skip the hike and hire one of the hundreds of ponies to take you up to the stairs.  I felt like a walk and the small ponies looked rather ridiculous carting around some of the larger people.  

The people and the horses use the same trail and it seemed heavily trafficked. It did make me wonder how a culture that dislikes dog partly out of concern that dogs poop everywhere, can hike through sand infused with horse dung in a pair of flip flops.  It don’t make no sense.

There is a Hindu temple near the base of the mountain. It is run by the Tenggar clan. Every year on the 1st of August they hold a sacrifice ritual. They’ve moved beyond humans, though.  Apparently the god is okay now with freshly killed animals and vegetables. They haul the whole buffet up the steps and hurl it into the crater.

There are some resourceful folks who climb down into the crater and catch all the bounty falling out of the sky. I suppose tourists aren’t going to want to look down into a crater full of decaying carcasses and rotting vegetation. But it makes me wonder if they don’t know about their god’s anger problem.  This taunting just seems like a disaster waiting to happen.  

Speaking of disasters that are slowly unfolding. Long time readers may recall the Lupindo mud eruption that I spoke about the last time I was here.  We stopped by on the way home. This is a video I took standing on 35 feet of mud that has been oozing out of the ground after a fracking accident in 2006.  The damage extends to square miles of toxic, stinking mud that oozing out of the ground at a rate of 10,000 cubic meters per day. It is projected to keep flowing for the next 50 years.

Most all the people in the buried settlements are gone.  My driver tells me this is a place where the lady boys hang out at night. During the day a few remaining folks hang on waiting for some sort of settlement.  It is such a depressing place.  

Talk about a group of people who could benefit from some ritual sacrifice.