I am writing this from Jambi, in Sumatra, where I am training ZSL field staff over a couple of days.
Last week was a typical week at work: normal office hours, then either a massage or cinema, and still a good gym attendance and diet following.
I went to see The Avengers in 3D at the cinema, with Laura and a group of her friends / work colleagues. I think everyone really enjoyed it, I thought it was fun and packed with action and good CGI / 3D. Thor is still pretty boring, only matched by Captain America, but Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man) and The Hulk saved the day with great character performances.
I had a traditional massage which was given to me by a force of nature, a rather scary woman in ther 50s who looks like an ex Javelin Thrower. Saying that, the massage was very good and I shall return very soon!
At the week-end we went out in Jakarta, to a roof top bar (top of FX shopping mall, called Prive), to a jazz cafe (Black Cat), and to a bar club in a mainly white expat area. By then I had many G&T's and other cocktails (our diet allows for Gin and Vodka, best diet in the world) and can't quite remember the name of the bar. I do remember going to Mc Donald's past 3am (which is not on our diet allowance list), and returning home at 4.30...
Otherwise we found a great little pool in a lodge next to Laura's where I spent time on both Sat and Sun. Still pretty white for being in a sunny country, I blame it on work and ZSL.
As mentioned I flew to Jambi with ZSL on Monday for a couple of days of training people on Excel. I have learnt how to do conditional drop downs, which was the highlight of my week. How sad.
Jambi apparently has little to offer from what I heard, and I will not have time to explore it. The weather is certainly hotter and stickier than in Bogor, and I miss Bogor's daily rain falls!
I stayed in hotel Ratu, which has given me a Fawlty Tower experience (bed not made, toilet broken, no toilet tissue, light that won't switch off, finally for being moved to a room which was over a karaoke box which apparently goes until 2am, so moved back to original room, with a succession of staff coming to fix things one thing at a time...).
I am off to Lombok tomorrow with Laura's flatmate Abi, where we will be joining a group of expat hikers to climb Mount Rinjani, the 2nd highest volcano in Indonesia, at 3726m. The hike is over 3 days, with 2 nights (before and after) on the beach. Very excited although as I thought Merapi was hard, this is apparently much harder. But we have porters and cooks, so I am confident I can at least enjoy that experience...