Selogriyo Valley, Java, Indonesia

Java during the rainy season feels like Garden Eden, teeming with colourful life, plants, birds, butterflies. Here are pictures of Selogriyo valley, on the slopes of the vulcano Mt Sumbing. The soil is so fertile that farmers have four rice harvests per year. Rice paddies are interspersed with banana trees, chili and tomato patches and Cassava trees. We saw rice in all stages of growth.

                                    scaly-breasted munia - apparently a pest in rice fields although very pretty and busy building its nest

                                        for this huge butterfly I did not need my macro lens but the tele zoom!


At the end of the valley lies a small derelict Hindu temple where we hiked. But every paradise has its flaws. During the monsoon rains it happens that this pretty temple is carried away, washed away to a lower level and has to be carried up again and rebuilt. That's why it is carrying a girth around its belly, to keep it from slipping away.

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