INDONESIA!!!! Part 1

Hellooooooooo,
We made it and we love it. The food is AMAZING, or enak as they say here. I am stuffing my face on all the local delicacies and my stomach is coping a treat, which is good news. We're in Jakarta at the mo, staying with Ragil's parents. The flooding has receded a lot, although traces remain - we passed a bunch of shelters the other day, people just sitting around waiting for their homes to dry out. There's a fair bit of mud and rubbish around too, but the pictures I saw on the internet a few weeks ago do not resemble what I am seeing at all.
I am having a really fab time. I was expecting to feel 'different' and to experience culture shock. I have been shocked by a few sights but apart from the odd stare and smiles at me, I don't notice our differences at all.
So the sights that have shocked include seeing a guy walking along with a pet monkey, the sheer vastness of Jakarta and the ridiculous traffic - the amount, the size of the roads - either ridiculously narrow, or crazily wide, with no road markings in sight. Everyone rides on mopeds here which means driving is a complete nightmare as bikes come at you from all angles. The lack of lanes on the main roads also mean that people drive pretty much however they want. It's pretty tiring being a passenger so I feel bad for Ragil when he's behind the wheel.
It is hard to describe what Jakarta is like but it is totally different to anything I have ever seen before. The density, the number of people and the size are all super large. The structure of the city is also pretty strange to me - not really much planning to be seen, or maybe that's just the way it looks to me.
I was scared of the wildlife before we arrived, but only lizards to be seen and they are fairly cute really, plus they eat mosquitos :)
We are planning on heading to Yogyakarta on friday and have just booked our flights, not with Adam Air... It's pretty cheap but fingers crossed it'll be fine. In Yogya we are staying in a hotel and I am very much looking forward to the warm shower/bath. I feel really happy here and in Ragil's house but after 4 days, I still have serious issues with the cold shower...
Erm, what else. The heat - well, it is pretty hot. About 32 degrees so nice and sweaty, but at night it's more like 20 degrees and lovely to sit outside in.
Sleeping habits - jetlag wasn't much of a problem but my sleep is still somewhat interrupted. At 4am every morning I am awoken by arabic bellowing out of the neighbourhood loud speakers, calling people to prayer. It sucks. It's like a neighbourhood alarm clock set to a ridiculous hour that it is impossible to avoid. I have usually just gotten back to sleep when the next noise starts - the bells/shouting/musical notes of the local 'takeaway service'. This is people walking the streets pushing pushcarts which are basically mini-restaurants. They offer everything from tofu to porridge to household brooms. Would be a good service if it wasn't so loud - they work from about 7am to about 11pm and every 10 mins or so between these hours you can here one go past. Anyway, enough complaining. It is all part of the parcel.
I am having a fab fab time and the irritating nighttime noises are but a small price to pay.
Ok, time to say farewell. Hope everyone is well. You can stop worrying about me now, cos it is ACE.
Hugs xx