Wow................. it's been some time but here goes.
Life in Indonesia has many surprises - a few of those being Rats, Bats & Cats!
Lets start with cats. If you know anything about me you know that I love cats. In fact I do think that I must have been a cat in my former life. Jakarta is covered with cats but they are not the nice cuddly soft ones that you have in mind. These cats are mean, skinny, fat, diseased, and scared of the rats. Still, I do love them but keep my distance. Moving on to bats. There are millions of bats. They come out at dusk and swoop down low in my back yard. At time, they have been known to fly down low in the middle of the night and set off my alarm system which wakes up the guards, us and the neighbors! The only advantage to the bats is that they eat the mosquitoes - which are in abundance here. In the picture Jake is at the bird market with a big bat in a cage.
Rats............. the rats have decided to take up living at The Best Western. While ALL of you are invited to come visit (very long plane ride - not sure worth the effort) the rats do not have the same invitation. Night after night we are woken up by the running rats that are in the attic and crawl spaces of the house. Enough! This week we have had many cages set - day 1 produced 1 very large rat. Day 2 we had 4 rats in one cage, day 3 a dead rat from the poison. Of course we were assured that the rats were gone as the workers have sealed all the openings but alas we still hear the pitter patter of the rats but they are now smart enough to avoid the traps. Never fear another opening was found and has now been sealed so hopefully the rats are history!
