But Java is a big island with only a few fast roads, so from the airport to the area we wanted to visit was a four hour drive. The only decent hotel was in a town called Tulungagung, famous for three things.. 1. The world's largest cigarette factory which we drove past for quite a while. 2.  The beautiful marble and onyx mined locally - our hotel was made of the stuff from top to bottom. 3. It's cheap here.. the hotel is less than £25 a night including an excellent breakfast buffet. We ate out at the Steak Barn restaurant for four people including steak for £15.. 

Bondan who speaks the local language had done the groundwork, he had discovered the place a while back and already made some contacts. So we could just take it to the next level and do the business. 

From the hotel to the village was still quite a drive.. but as we arrived you could see it was geared for business.. the Stone business.. huge stone lions, showrooms full of every kind of statue.. small and large workshops. We spent two days exploring getting to know the locals
and discovered that quite a lot of production is made for export to the USA, Australia and some European companies.  Friendly people.. one guy with a beautiful showroom and a well organised warehouse with a container loading dock even offered to consolidate orders and load them in his warehouse, no problem if we buy from the competition.  Later he told us that his grand-father had been one of ten sons that all got into the stone craft business, the second generation of those ten sons now made up most of the businesses in town.  Each one specialising one particular stone craft. Stone Birthday Numbers

From huge Buddha statues to every type of stone soap dish, to bathroom basins made from huge river stones..  they even make jewellery from onyx beads.. so lots of possibilities. Gemstone Bracelets