Here’s What One Million, One Hundred Twenty Six Thousand Rupiahs (that's Ru 1,126,000.00) Look Like……

…..I can finally say I’ve carried a million around in my billfold. Makes me feel kind of like a drug dealer.

We finished up our first week of work today—actually two 2-Day training programs and all went very well. We have three excellent translators but frankly, most of the students speak more than passable English. The training facility is typical of corporate settings—I’ve seen them all over the world now—but more than adequate for what we’re doing.

The training vehicles are a really small model of Toyota that I’ve never seen before and although they are cramped inside, they get the job done. They drive on the left side of the road in Indonesia so the steering wheel is on what we would call the “passenger side.” By now I don’t have a lot of problems with left-side driving except that I keep reaching to the wrong side to put my seat belt on and use my windshield wipers instead of my turn indicators. I rarely try to get into a taxi behind the steering wheel anymore.

The hotel is more than adequate and we eat breakfast and dinner there but lunches are catered in and are definitely “local fare.” The attached photo shows a typical meal—everything revolves around rice here (as in most of Asia). The pouches contain sauteed sauces and usually an entrée—chicken or fish most of the time. Most of the sauces are pepper-based and so hot Westerners can’t eat them. I still believe Thai peppers are the hottest but many of these will literally jerk your head back if you bite into them. They are “hot” to the point they make jalapenos seem mild. You have to throw out all personal diets and cautions here and the three of us, Australian and Texans, have been pretty cautious about eating these meals. I generally don’t eat raw vegetables or salads outside the hotel but I have been eating these with no problems yet. The salad has a pouch of dark, thick brown sauce that does taste somewhat like peanuts and I’ve been using it on the salad as well as the rice. When they have chicken and it looks well-cooked I will eat that too but not the fish. The other Texan ate the fish the first day and was throwing up for two days. You just never know when you’re eating the local fare…….I’ve been sick twice on these overseas trips and it ain’t fun….. Maybe I’ve finally developed some level of tolerance by now—the sun-dried Tilapia in Kenya was a major test for me.

The local transportation here is typically Asian—thousands of small motorcycles, small mini-bus taxis, tuk-tuks (small three-wheel motorcycles used as taxis), and typical taxis. I’ve ridden all of them so I probably won’t try the local transit on this trip.

We have the weekend off and start a new five-day program Monday. If we can arrange it, we’re going to try to rent a taxi Saturday and see some of the city……..