Slaughter On Ten Avenues

Friday, October 26. A national two-day holiday started today here in Indonesia. We were told by an American couple at breakfast that it's called Idul Fitri, a holiday celebration marking the end of Ramadan. So when we went out to explore the center of Bukittinggi, especially the famous market here, we found everything closed. That was disappointing. There's wasn't even traffic on the streets. And that was weird considering how frantic traffic is almost around the clock.

A few words about photos in this blog. Rather, the lack of them. I'm posting as often as I can but only from an app on my iPhone. Not at the Google Blogspot site on the web. Indonesia blocks lots of sites, perhaps the blogsite is another one. That's a whole other story. The app lets me post text and headlines, that's it. I'll edit in photos when we return.

Back to today. Marty lined up a nice guy to drive us around. We visited all the notable sites in the vicinity. But some, that usually allow people to enter, were closed. That didn't spoil our day, because in making a giant circuit around Bukittinggi we got to see a slice of Indonesian life and countryside that we'd miss any other way. But there was one thing I didn't need to see on our circuit. For some reason, on this holiday, animals are slaughtered in public, seemingly everywhere. Water buffalo, cows, goats, and god knows what else. I mean kill the animals in front of a crowd, then do all the butchering necessary for the watchers to take home and eat the meat. I thought I'd puke. Not Marty. He stopped the car. Practically jumped out while it was still moving and got as close as possible to get the best possible photos.

We're off now to dinner. I'm eating vegetarian.