Day 106 - an even lazier day in Bogor with a trip to a silk farm - Unfinished Business

August 14, 2023

Day 106 - an even lazier day in Bogor with a trip to a silk farm

I'm afraid folks that I will be struggling to entertain you today. My hope is that I can pull you in with silk and get you hooked on more tales of traffic chaos. But first, another story to show that cycling is easy, whilst anything involving the internet can stop you in your tracks.

Daisy suggested that I wait until this morning to book air tickets. That, I did, and decided to book one-way tickets to Singapore and back to get a combination with satisfactory times. I checked the price of the outward ticket and then the return and paid for the latter. I then went to pay for the ticket to Singapore and the bank rejected the payment. By getting one-way tickets I had exceeded the suspicious activity meter, even though I had registered my travel with the bank. The advice was to use another credit card. I didn't have one. I contacted Cora and used her card; it was rejected. Daisy stepped in and saved the day. Life was so much easier.................

After that substantial waste of time, we visited a silk farm that was probably 20 km away. It was a very slow trip thanks to the narrow mountain road and a critical number of vehicles.

Any health professional would have been excited by a public health facility.

Daisy says she pays 35,000 rp a month, which means she can visit a clinic and hospital, etc. This is the minimal care and if you can't afford it then you go to the head of the district and apply for government aid. This runs on a quota so you may miss out.

We finally arrived at a substantial estate with impressive gardens and what appeared to be an empty house. Traveling from here into Bogor, which we did later in the day, is a nightmare.

Hints of former glory in a dried up pond with two islands.

We did an excellent tour with a worker at the farm, who was clearly taken by our interest in the place. Yan answered all of our questions on a wide range of topics. This means that I can drown you in snippets of information about producing silk.

Let's start with some larvae. Unfortunately, this farm produces batches of silk and so now they have 14-day-old larvae only. These are 4th instars that are going through their final moult to become a 5th instar. They do not feed at this stage.

Jan was impressed that we did not scream in horror at this sight. Instead, we both found it fascinating.

At the bottom of the photograph there are bright white larvae that have finished or almost finished moulting. Most of the others are just starting.

So, where do the larvae come from? Two weeks ago they were eggs just hatching and those eggs came from a government agency. Apparently, the government controls silkworm breeding.

The eggs come in this packet. The farm raises 20,000 at a time but starts with 25,000 eggs.

So, what do they eat? Many know that silkworm larvae feed on mulberry leaves. In fact, before leaving ANU, I was starting to study the chemistry of mulberry leaves with the idea of doing some research on silkworms.

Mulberries pruned so that there is a constant supply of young leaves that are easy to harvest.

They grow a wide variety of mulberries - a sensible decision to ensure that the larvae get their nutritional requirements.

The production of leaves is the limiting factor in the production of silk. A batch of 20,000 larvae chomp through 1200 kg of leaves in the 30 days it takes to go from egg to pupa. The farm would like local farmers to supply leaves but there are no takers.

So, the larvae enter their next stage of metamorphosis - pupation, when they spin the silk cocoon in which the larva transitions to a moth. It's important to put an end to their life before they emerge and break the silk thread. 20,000 cocoons weigh 25 kg but yield about 1.5 kg of silk.

Cocoons are placed in the sun to kill the developing moths. There's nothing like being cooked slowly.

Workers remove defective cocoons. Occasionally, two cocoons get entangled into one.

It's now time to process the silk from the cocoons into silk suitable for weaving.

The cocoons are placed in hot water and a single strand of silk is wound onto spools.

Single strands being combined to give triple strand that is then spun.

It's then time to produce the warp and the weft for weaving.

My bike of the day! There are two spinning wheels in every bicycle. Those on recumbent trikes get three and I'm sure they will tell you that.

The woven silk is then sent for printing before being turned into articles of clothing.

Perhaps it's worth mentioning that the process at this farm is uneconomical. Thus, they run these little tours and so forth, but you'd have to do much more to bring it into the black.

The trouble with doing anything in Bogor is that you will spend most of your day in traffic. That's what we did today. Here are some more photos of the chaos, most taken by sticking a phone out of the bemo window.

Buskers jump on and off the bemo. It's rather amusing.

Here's the singer in the duo - he was good!

To that I say, keep your eyes open and you will see! Keep your mind open and .......

Daisy and I finished the day at a restaurant that specialises in fish cooked in bamboo. They use Toraja chillies from Sulawesi! Daisy was impressed at my tolerance. It was relaxing to sit out the back in relative quiet.

Daisy and I in our bamboo shelter. It was away from the road and peaceful.

And, now, for my truck of the day. And before you rise up in protest, I'm only trying to document my journey.

Good one F Boy. Daisy thinks that it's probably the result of watching Hollywood films with limited understanding.

Another thing to document my journey is recent news in Indonesia. A fellow has been arrested for hanging an Indonesian flag around the neck of his dog. The problem here is the dog - bad animal no. 2 in Islam. People regularly decorate buffalo and cattle in the flag. A celebrity lawyer with a great name, Hotman Paris Hutapan, has stepped in with a great line "Where’s the criminal element?”

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