Celurit and an Arit Bendo (?)

[A. G. Maisey]

Sidoarjo?

Hope you missed the Mud Flood.

Got a lot of family in Malang, & I used to stay in Malang and go down to Surabaya by bus & wander around the markets & wharves, it was a couple of hours down & back, a good day out, but the mud put an end to that. Interfered badly with krupuk supply for a while too --- minor thing the krupuk, but pretty inconvenient for many people.

They've got the tollway in place now, so the journey time is pretty much back to what it used to be, but that mud looks like its there forever. We all believed it was caused by the gas drilling, but apparently some scientists have now determined that it was actually triggered by an earthquake that occurred some distance away. In recent years there seems to have been a lot of these mud eruptions all over Jawa --- maybe not so much in West Jawa/Sunda, but certainly in East Jawa & Jawa Tengah.

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Sidoarjo?

Hope you missed the Mud Flood.

Got a lot of family in Malang, & I used to stay in Malang and go down to Surabaya by bus & wander around the markets & wharves, it was a couple of hours down & back, a good day out, but the mud put an end to that. Interfered badly with krupuk supply for a while too --- minor thing the krupuk, but pretty inconvenient for many people.

They've got the tollway in place now, so the journey time is pretty much back to what it used to be, but that mud looks like its there forever. We all believed it was caused by the gas drilling, but apparently some scientists have now determined that it was actually triggered by an earthquake that occurred some distance away. In recent years there seems to have been a lot of these mud eruptions all over Jawa --- maybe not so much in West Jawa/Sunda, but certainly in East Jawa & Jawa Tengah.

It was the reason to sell the house in the perumahan and move to Bali. I wasn't to East Java anymore since the mud flood arise but was there many times before.
Malang was the city where I met Wofgang Spielmann the first time, long ago, in 1992.

Regards,
Detlef

[A. G. Maisey]

Don't know if you've been back to Malang recently Detlef, but all that area has changed a lot in recent years. Used to be a nice little town, a bit elite, quiet, cool, a bit classy with echoes of the late colonial era --- like Toko Oen.

And the old market before some idiot thought it was a good idea to knock the old market down and build a modern edifice that the old traditional sellers could not afford to trade in.

Kamikaze becaks flying down Jln. Semeru, I used to get off at the top of the hill, they scared me sh*tless.

Anyway, all that oldtime stuff has gone, these days its wall to wall traffic jams. They've built an enormous mesjid there and since then the whole character of the place has disappeared.

I still need to visit from time to time, but I escape ASAP.

Even 1992 it was still OK, but the further back you go, the nicer it was. I was there first in about 1970 & frequently from about 1974. I loved the place. But no more.

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Don't know if you've been back to Malang recently Detlef, but all that area has changed a lot in recent years. Used to be a nice little town, a bit elite, quiet, cool, a bit classy with echoes of the late colonial era --- like Toko Oen.

And the old market before some idiot thought it was a good idea to knock the old market down and build a modern edifice that the old traditional sellers could not afford to trade in.

Kamikaze becaks flying down Jln. Semeru, I used to get off at the top of the hill, they scared me sh*tless.

Anyway, all that oldtime stuff has gone, these days its wall to wall traffic jams. They've built an enormous mesjid there and since then the whole character of the place has disappeared.

I still need to visit from time to time, but I escape ASAP.

Even 1992 it was still OK, but the further back you go, the nicer it was. I was there first in about 1970 & frequently from about 1974. I loved the place. But no more.

No Alan, my visit there in 1992 was the only one. I have a very good memory of Malang, I felt very well there.
But do you know places where Indonesia has not changed a lot? At my first visit to Halmahera it was clean from plastic waste, two years later it was visible everywhere.

Best regards,
Detlef

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes, everything has changed everywhere, but some places have handled it better than other places.

Malang gets a "FAIL" mark.

One place that has changed really bad, bad, badly is South Bali. They have problems there that I sincerely doubt will ever be able to be fixed.

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

One place that has changed really bad, bad, badly is South Bali. They have problems there that I sincerely doubt will ever be able to be fixed.

Agree complete with you!