Chemistry lessons in rural Java (Indonesia)
I was with a newfound friend at a shopping mall in Surakarta. We had met earlier at a tourism conference and decided to skip some dull sessions for an adventure. My friend was from Jakarta and was impressing upon me how connected young Indonesians are on social media. To demonstrate, she posted a message on Twitter asking the locals to recommend something interesting for us to see. Soon enough, two local teens showed up at the mall on motorbikes.
We rode with them outside the town to see an alcohol brewing setup. I was worried that the owner, an elderly lady, might not be happy with a foreigner randomly showing up. However, she was eager to show me around, with the only condition being that we do not take photos of her or her staff. We were allowed to take photos of the equipment. We guessed that her operation was illegal.
To thank her, I bought a small bottle of her home-brew. Back at the hotel, when the manager saw the bottle, he immediately knew where I had been. He joked that the stuff was so potent it could drive a space rocket.