One afternoon, Heidi, Mallory, and I went with my Mom & Dad to a place called Taman Mini Indonesia. It is a big park here in Jakarta with a bunch of stuff from each of the islands and regions from around Indonesia. They have buildings showing the architechture from each area. Above is a house typical of the style from the Padang area in Sumatra. Below is a Batak house from northern Sumatra. One of the homes had some water around the outside of it. I saw something swimming in it, and at first I thought it was a rat. As I got closer, I realized it was a bat. I couldn't believe my eyes, but we actually ended up seeing 3 or 4 more bats swimming in the water. It was pretty creepy, though -- we couldn't go in the house because there were too many bats in the roof. It was so loud from all of the noise from the bats, and I cannot begin to describe the smell. But, seeing the bats swimming in the water there was a first for me.
This is a photo of Mom & Dad in front of some homes from the Tana Toraja area of central/southern Sulawesi. Each of the cultures is so different from the others.
