Solo’s little “pabriks”

This story was posted under the categories: Big Asia Trip, Indonesia, Places

After enjoying the art of doing nothing in Bali the last couple of days it is time to start travelling back to Jakarta. As we did not want to fly (why fly and go fast if you can do it slow , we decided to travel back over land and make a stopover in Solo.

There is not much to see in the center of Solo so we took a guide to show us around the suburbs and their local handicrafts “pabriks”.
Akus (our guide) joined us on a cycling tour to discover several handicrafts.

He showed us how people make “traditional” batik, by using stamps. Batik is a method of dying fabric using wax to create a pattern.

We went to a little stall where they produce tofu. In fact it is a world of difference to see how they produce food here… Nobody is wondering about hygiene or rules or whatever. In front they were rebuilding the house, as they produced large amounts of tofu in the next room. After pulvering the soyabeans, the milk is cooked for 40 minutes. Then they add lemon to obtain a sort of “kwark”. This kwark is put in cheesecoton and is dried for an hour. How easy it can be!

Afterwards we went to a Krupukpabrik. Read: another small house were a family produces Casavakrupuk. In fact they make krupuk out of almost everything here, you can find it from casava, rice, shrimps, wheat, …

We visited a little Arak-brewery (arak is one of the local alcohols made of sugarcane), watched a husband and his wife producing roof tiles, visited a bakery and a Gamelanfactory.
After melting Copper and Tin in very hot ashes for more than 5 hours they make the very popular balinese gongs. After the gong is finished they polish it to give it the shiny look we all know.

 I was really suprised how easy you can make tempe (fermented soyabean, a popular meatsubstitute in indonesia). They soak the soyabeans for 2 hours, then they are steamed and mixed with a sort of baking powder and that’s it… 12 hours later the fermentation did his work and a funghi grew inbetween the soyabeans and forms a sort of cake. Here in Indonesia they serve fried tempe with almost everything.

After seeing the productionprocess, we’re not sure if we still want to eat all of this …