On a recent trip an mountainous area of East Java, while traversing a rocky, forest path, I discovered a new mode of transportation . It's called the Indonesian mountain luge - at least that's what I called it. But this is no sport, no attempt to add a new event to the 2008 Summer Olympics. Instead this is matter of survival. Poor families without jobs hike up into the government-owned, mountain forest areas to gather sticks and small logs to sell as firewood, necessary for cooking when you're too poor to buy propane or other kinds of gas. Lawfully, only already fallen sticks and fallen logs can be gathered, although when people are desperate to make a living, sometimes they "help" the sticks and logs fall. To bring this wood into the small city below, low-tech luge-carts are hand-built, complete with hand-breaks. The ride down-hill is exhilarating, but not so smooth. Rocky paths, a wood seat, and the absence of suspension systems make the ride a tail-bone-buster.
