Pramono’s Papaya farm

Promono, who is a member in our Procurement team, owned a papaya farm near Rumbai. Someone in office told me that he is the biggest supplier of papayas for entire Pekanbaru region. He also owns three fruit shops, named “Pondok Papaya” around Rumbai.

We planned to visit his farm one day. Since it was quite far from camp, we went with Kurniawan’s car as he was going to visit papaya farm on some personal business.

We started around 10am on a Saturday morning. It was a long drive, on a very rough road. It was a mud road with lot of pot holes. In between, road was not visible & all we can see was water. We also crossed couple of wooden bridges, where there was no side walls & only one vehicle can cross at a time. Kurniawan had a hard time driving.

By the time we reach Papaya Farm, it was 11:00am. We had a warm welcome by the caretaker family of farm. They served us with banana’s, aqua & some local snacks. We enjoyed the treat & went for the tour of farm. Pramono guided us & also gave lot of information about papayas & its cultivation.

The hosts served us fresh papayas to eat. They also offered us few papayas to take home. It was a nice trip, thanks to Pramono & Iwan.

Please click the below link to see the slideshow:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/vinushetty/PramonosPapayaFarm/photo#s5194195680009861122

Or below link to see the pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/vinushetty/PramonosPapayaFarm

Friday Dinner @ Oleander 129

Every Friday night is the party time at Oleander 129. In fact this tradition started when we stayed in Somerset (Jakarta) itself. We used to call our Indian friends to Apt #1026 for dinner together. Vrushali cooks all the food by herself, except fish or chicken, which is done by me. All our guests also stayed in Somerset, so it was easy to co-ordinate. Our shopping for day to day cooking has been done from Carrefour, which was right across the road.

When we moved to Oleander in Rumbai, things started changing. We did not have easy access to some basic items, like vegetables, fish etc. Everything we had to buy from Pekanbaru during our weekend visit. The commissary inside camp had very limited supplies, especially for Indian cooking.

When Raju uncle came to stay in Camp (he moved to Indonesia from Kuwait in February 08), we started having a variety of food for our dinner. Aunty used to bring 2 – 3 tasty dishes every Friday.

Jackfruit & Monkeys

There was a jackfruit tree in my neighbor Mey’s (Oleander 130) backyard. The tree bears few young jackfruits too.





One day, while returning home for lunch, I saw a big monkey eating a raw jackfruit in the roof of my house. It must be from Mey’s jackfruit tree.

In afternoon, we discussed how to save jackfruits from monkeys. Friend Devi suggested covering the young jackfruits with a red color polythene bag, so that monkeys won’t touch them.

That evening I collected few red polythene bags from my house & Mey bring few from her's. We covered almost all Jackfruits.

Other day, I found a half eaten raw jackfruit in the road in front of my house. Later Mey informed me that few jackfruits inside red polythene bag have been disappeared.

Our trick did not work. Monkeys are smart.

Indonesian Wedding

During my entire stay in Indonesia, I attended only two Indonesian weddings. There were few weddings which I could not attend due to project activities. Some important ones I missed are – Robert’s wedding & Riska’s wedding. Both were my team members in Jakarta project. Another important one is Risna’s sisters wedding.


Interestingly, both the weddings I attended were in Rumbai. First one is Junaidi’s sister’s wedding. Junaidi was caretaker of Iksora 128, where we used to stay before. Vrush & Adi were not in Rumbai that time. I attended the wedding with Olly. It seems they invited me only for the reception. When we went there, the bride & groom were standing in a room & with gaudy cloths. Bride was looking very beautiful, with a crown in her head. The room also was decorated in similar fashion. I think it was a West Sumatra style wedding. Most of the women wearing kebaya & men with batik shirts. Outside, there was a buffet lunch. In a corner, there was a band, performing in a small stage. It was a lively show; a pretty girl singing with a good body movement, few people were dancing in front of the stage. It was hot outside, we quickly finished our lunch. I told Olly to hurry up & leave the place before someone invites me to sing “kuch kuch hota hai”.


















The other one was our maid, ibu Ema’s niece Rini’s wedding. We knew Rini personally since she was working in Commissary. This time Vrush & Adi were with me. There is nothing to explain more as everything went exactly same as above.



I am really looking forward to attend a complete Indonesian wedding (not just reception). Hopefully my wish will come true soon, when Risna gets married.

Spider in the backyard

Last evening I spotted something unusual in the pot where we planted chilly plant. When I had a closer look, it was a spider.








It had very long arms & was just hugging the pot from outside.




I just remembered, couple of months back, after coming from school, Adi started itching his thumb. When Vrush asked, he said a spider bite him when he was climbing the mount near school ground. We neglected it that time, however, later I came to know that spider bite can be dangerous too.

Backyard of Oleander 129

We could find almost all the required vegetables & spices here in Pekanbaru except two items: the curry leaves & coriander leaves. Curry leaves are not seen anywhere here, however, sometimes we could find corriander leaves in traditional market in Pekanbaru. Couple of times we bought Parsley leaves thinking that it is coriander. Both are so identical. Once we thought we will tell our maid (Ibu Ema) to bring coriander leaves since she know the place well. We often tell her to bring fresh grated coconut, which is not available in any supermarket. We showed her few coriander leaves previously we bought from traditional market & asked her to smell it so that she will not mistaken it for Parsley. She nodded her hed confidently that she could find it. Next morning, she came home with a big smile on her face & a big bunch of Parsley in her hand.

Tired with all these, we decided to grow corriander on our backyard. We knew that monkeys won't eat coriander leaf. I bought a bag of compost from Makro & spread it over in backyard & sow the fresh coriander seeds. Adi & Vrush watered it daily. I was confident, the seeds will sproute in 3-4 days & plants will evolve in the soil in a week. Nothing happened. Adi & Vrushed stopped watering after 15 days. We thought may be the seeds were too old.

I took this as a challenge & searched internet on how to grow coriander. It was easy & no different than what I did, except, some people suggested to sow the coriander after breaking it by gently rubbing by hand. It was interesting comment by one guy, that growing coriander in house will lead to unhappiness & fights in the family.

This time i tried to grow it again, as per the instructions from web & with brand new seeds. However, Vrush did not show much interest this time. She was happy there was no signs of coriander plants even after 10 days.

As our last try, I planted the fresh coriander plant which we bought from traditional market. It did not survive.

Finally we gave up our plan to grow coriander & decided to grow something else. Friend Mila sent some seeds of vegetables from Jakarta. We sowed them again in the same place. Unfortunately, it rained heavily that night & continued to rain for next 4 days. We thought everything washed away in the rainwater. To our surprise, we could see few small chilly & tomato plant emerging out of wet soil. We carefully took them out and planted in two different pots.

The plants grow fast as Adi watered them daily. The first flower in tomato plant was so exciting for him. Within few weeks, a smally chilly appeared in chilly plant too.

Durian - King of Fruits

Last week I bought a Durian from Pekanbaru. Although I heard a lot about this tastiest fruit of South East Asia from my Indonesian friends, never dared to eat because of its notorious smell. This time, I managed to convince Vrushali to bring home one, with a condition of not bring it to the living room.

A durian vendor in Jl. Sudirman, Pekanbaru.

Myself & Adi decided to open it & eat it in the kitchen.

Adi could not eat even one spoon of durian. He cried loud while eating as if someone beat him.

I could eat only half of it.

Vrushali did not come to kitchen till I clear everything.

The fruit was creamy and tasted like ice cream. Vrush said I smelt Durian till next day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian