HIGH in Mountains Hole in Road and Driving over Planks in Indonesia

 On March 12 of 2021, Blogger friend Helen wrote: Mountains To Climb on which I left her a comment about our Indonesian experience...

Well, on July 2nd of 1990 we were driving up to the Dieng Plateau at our usual time at 6:00 AM but half way we got stuck... 

Frequently after heavy tropical rains during the wet monsoon, entire parts of the mountain got washed away by HUGE landslides. Mud and rocks covering the little villages and destroying everything in its path.

At Dieng there also was a Geothermal Field and one of the Pertamina trucks had to hook off its defect trailer and that was now blocking the road.

Half way up the mountain, you can see the sharp curve of this hairpin bent and up it goes...

It is me, standing with the driver behind our Toyota Super Kijang.

There were NO guard rails and at some spots you could look straight down into a deep chasm with villages below in the valley. Talking about some 8,000 ft high or over 2,400 m.

When we finally got beside the stuck Pertamina trailer, Pieter said, should we not get out of the car...? 

There was a huge hole in the mountain and part of the road was washed down... I was on the chasm side and looking down into a HOLE that would fit my entire home town of Horst in The Netherlands!

OR we had to step over the seat's back and exit through the back door... we both sat in the back of the car.

All of a sudden I said firmly: 'Don't MOVE!' As I saw an idiot making gestures with his hands to our driver who sat in front of me on the right side of the car (driving left!)... Come slowly forward, bend a bit to the other side and sure enough we were moving over some planks they'd placed over the gaping hole!!!

We miraculously made it across that gaping hole, the planks held us.

One thing I know for sure that we both have a Guardian Angel and one that has worked overtime during several of our adventurous years!

Here is such a mini landslide... and not into the deepest chasm but still dangerous!

The Toyota Super Kijang is going to pass over that bridge you see to the right...

Pieter took this photo from a height, he always loved to hike up for a better vantage point.

Would you trust the structure of that bridge...?!

On December 18, 1991 one of the trucks that transported the casing soil bags up to the Dieng area's mushroom farms, got off the road. That caused one person his death and three others injured.

How in the world would they manage to remove that truck... and look at all the soil it scraped off from those terraces.

Once we saw a mini bus in a ravine and that caused like 18 death and a baby got thrown out and did not get found... Tragedy and it makes one shiver!

People over there, live such hard lives and who is looking out for them?

Here you can see the back door of the Toyota Super Kijang, as we approach another location at Lake Merdada, with some 300 mushroom growing sheds and little homes where the families lived.

It is actually a caldera... filled by water over time.

Again, all those terraces on the mountain side.

That also causes lots of erosion as the trees are gone.

Some technical problem, and our driver is sitting behind the car... 

Me in my seat and this very Toyota Super Kijang does not even have a door on the right passenger sight.

On July 10, 1991 when I wanted to come down with my driver (Pieter had been working on the construction of a certain Unit and did not join me going up) there was an accident and the road got blocked by a truck; 2 deaths... So we had to go all the way around via little villages (dessas) over unpaved roads. My driver Ribut found it amusing that in those dessas, people came running up to our car while calling: Ibu Vedder! (Mrs. Vedder). Do they know you, he asked, to which I replied they have to be some of my over one thousand harvesters that know me...

If you want to have a feeling of how climbing up to that height with deep 'open' chasms, this is a good video. Keep in mind that over the years lots of guard rail has been placed... 

Touring ke Dieng Wonosobo- lihatlah sejuta keindahan sepanjang perjalanan terutama baian ahir

Previous post:

{Dieng Plateau Indonesia - Where We Worked} | view the other 2 volcanoes...

My 4th Consulting Trip to India after HUGE Landslide | the worst LANDSLIDE we ever saw...

Tea Plantations Halfway from Yogyakarta to the Dieng Area, Indonesia

Pieter happily smiling while standing on a real tea plantation!

More in detail of these tea plants with the mountain view...

To the left you also see the Flamboyant tree bloom.

Pieter at tea plantation in December 1986 in the Kledung Pass area with Mount Sindoro, Java's 2nd highest volcano partly hidden in the clouds.

Here they are working on the tea plantation, hand picking the younger leaves. 

And more young Flamboyant trees blooming.

Don't you love this fertile land that is also called the 'Emerald Belt' as it is right on the Equator and so lush and green.

Have you ever been on any tea plantation?

Previous post:

{Dieng Plateau Indonesia - Where We Worked} | view the other 2 volcanoes...

The Stonebreaker in Indonesia and Pieter's Paternal Grandmother's Name

 Husband Pieter's Paternal Grandmother was named Steenbreker or in English Stonebreaker.

This is what we both witnessed when passing by on our way from Yogyakarta to the Dieng area in Central Java, where we lived and worked.

For years we have observed this; rather painful for watching such hard labor!

All we learned from our travels and living and working in Indonesia or India, to NEVER EVER COMPLAIN!

Just search the Internet for the art work by French Gustave Courbet 'The Stone Breakers 1849'

That gives us a good perspective of the era.

Cor Jesu, victima peccatorum - Latin

Sacred Heart of Jesus victim for our sins - English

Johanna Christina Steenbreker, Pieter's Paternal Grandmother...

One wonders where they got their name from, some generations back!