Lions and tigers and Beans, oh my

This week we drove to Bandung, the capital city of West Java, and checked out the sights. We stayed for two nights and yesterday went trekking (um...OK, driving) up to the crater of a nearby volcano. The view was gorgeous, though the sulfur and other lovely gasses in the clouds of steam the mountain was barfing up didn't smell terribly nice. We got some nice photos before seeking refuge from aggressive hawkers by ducking back into our car and driving off.

Today, on the drive back (about a 3ish hour drive in decent traffic) we stopped at Taman Safari, a drive-through zoo park we'd heard good things about.

Outside of the park's gates, we were met by several children offering to sell us bunches of carrots. We bought a few kilos and went on in. We were met almost immediately by an eager bunch of zebras. The animals at the park are well-trained to realize that car=carrots, and they aren't shy about demanding food. Our car was covered in a nice layer of zebra nose smears in about five minutes' time.

After the zebras, we met some over-zealous llamas and deer, who quicky diminished our carrot supply. We also tossed a few carrots to a tank of hippos, who swam up to the edge of their enclosure and opened their big mouths eagerly. I've included some photos of a zebra and hippo begging for carrots.

We then drove through areas where we were strongly encouraged to keep the doors locked and windows up. The first enclosure featured several lions lounging around. The big cats watched our car disinterestedly, occasionally yawning. Still, they were roaming quite freely about, which was exciting.

The next enclosure had about half a dozenorange and black tigers, who were considerably more active than the lions. We paused to try to take a photo through our windshield when our driver, Supardi, exclaimed, "Ah, Mister!!!" and gestured toward the rear of the car. There was a big, white Siberian tiger, checking out our rear right tire. Only in the souvenir shop parking lot did we realize that the tiger had actually taken a small, dainty bite out of our mudflap. A tiger bit my car! One never knows what will happen on any given day in Indonesia...

After checking out some cheetahs and hyperactive orangutans, we made our way to the "Baby Zoo" and souvenir shop. At the souvenir shop I picked up a monkey keychain, a stuffed lion for our wee baby friend, Leo, and a pink, sparkly fuzzy pen for our friend Steve. (He was, if you remember, the nice person who gave me durian candy...one nice gift deserves another. I will insist he keeps this pen prominently displayed on his desk at school.)

We wandered into the Baby Zoo, where we'd been told we could get our photos taken with baby animals. The only available animal, it turns out, was a half-grown lion cub who was NOT happy about the photo op. Travis got his photo taken first (see above), but by the time it was my turn I had decided not to go. It just didn't seem right that the poor lion, who wasn't really a baby anymore and whose relatives were roaming their own huge enclosure absolutely free, should be chained and hauled around as a tourist trap. Poor thing. But I did pat it on the nose, which was cool.

We returned home at about 6 this evening, and were anxious to see our own little wild cat. Beans usually greets us at the door and yells at us for a good five minutes, chewing us out thoroughly for being gone for SO LONG. (This happens whether we've been gone for a week, a day or 10 minutes.)

We heard the usual, "Mrow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow..." of him running down the stairs, but when he reached us he stopped dead in his tracks and promptly swelled to at least three times his normal size. He sniffed at Travis' shorts and his ears went flat against his head.

Beans smelled the other kitty.

He usually doesn't mind when we've been at other friends' houses and have petted their cats. I guess there's a bit of a difference between Lucky and Thor, though, and a half-grown lion.

Poor Beans. Instead of comforting him, we laughed until tears ran down our faces and then took some pictures of him-one of which we have posted here for your own amusement. It took a good 30 minutes for his tail to return to its normal size, and only after we'd changed clothes and thoroughly scrubbed our hands would he even dare to approach us.

He's still being rather aloof, punishing us for leaving him and then coming home smelling like another cat. He'll get over it, though. Once he's forgiven us we'll take him outside and let him sniff our car and see the bite marks on the mudflap. He'll love that.

Oh, um, in honor of our car's harrowing experience today, we have decided to name it (the car) Roy. :)