Golden dragon

Not a new feature of my photo journal, but a nice welcome back to the Bandung insect world. This tiny scrap of car park land in front of Boy's house presented four different types of butterfly, two types of dragonfly and an array of exotic paper wasps, all within ten minutes. Not the best of dragon shots, but all the little beasty offered me, sometimes you just don't get a choice. To think how I strained to find blip material in the UK, but I did not fail though.

Journey to Bandung - part 3

Boy was a charming host, a friend of fifteen years. He has his own hairdressing salon and like most of my Indonesian friends, is gay. Times are hard in Indonesia and money is tight for Boy, but he has been smart enough to buy his own house and is secure, even if he cannot go to the bar every night like he used to.

The next day, after a purchased breakfast of lontong and coffee, Boy went on a hunt for a taxi. It took an hour or so as his location is not brilliant for taxis. While he was taxi hunting, I introduced myself to the neighbors and shot some insects, including the above dragonfly. I shot some portraits of the neighbors, but the 105mm lens did not lend itself to this function and I got the framing wrong, more practice required.

The $6.00 taxi ride across Bandung went reasonably well, horrendous traffic accepted as normal. The neighbors all came out to greet me and I picked up the keys. I opened the doors and a train wreck hit me. Tessa had moved a lot of stuff out of the house, as I was not expected back for over a year. The rats had moved in and the house smelled of stale urine and they had sprinkled handfuls of black sultanas everywhere.

Two hours of floor washing and disinfecting later, Tessa arrived with a truck with my stuff. She had pawned my motorbike as I was not expected so soon and I had to pay to get it back. I was angry at first but soon calmed down, understanding her situation. But the people who took the bike had wrecked it, all kinds of funny noises coming from the engine and electrical faults have to be fixed.

Everything else was working, but so many small things were missing, like washing powder, dish washing liquid, plastic jugs, coffee and sugar containers, can opener, linen basket and a lot more I suspect, none of it important but it all has to be replaced.

Next job was to wash the bed linen, as the sprinkling of dried sultanas indicated. I carefully plugged in the washing machine, remembering that the rats made this their home last time. Sure enough, there was a loud crack sound and a green flame emanated from the back of the machine, closely followed by a panicked rat the size of a meatloaf. Another job for tomorrow.

At least the electricity was working, but the stop cock on the water tank had seized and the tank soon drained. The landlords odd job boy came over and soon had that working again. The house is now looking close to normal, but so much work and shopping to do. At least the computer is working, but the new camera equipment with the associated increase in file sizes is just too much for the ageing dinosaur and so a new computer is now essential equipment for my plan. A desk top I think.

Looking forward to my first blip safari tomorrow, the jobs will have to wait.

Dave