Finally in Lombok!

26.10.11

We slept well last night and it was so hard to get up. But we had to get up

early again to be in Kuta, Bali for 5.30am for our final day of travel to Lombok.

It only took 15 minutes by taxi to get to Kuta, to the Perama office where

we had booked a shuttle to Kuta, Lombok.

So once again we got on a minibus! 2 hours later we were in Padang Bai, sat at

a little cafe, waiting to get on the ferry. This ferry was much bigger, another

car ferry. There were 2 upper decks on this boat. The middle deck had a lounge

area, where people wre sat in the dark watching the tv. There was also a little

tabled area, again with a tv and a small shop/snack bar. Then up on to the upper

deck, it was completely open with a few solid fixed benches and tables along the

sides and very little shade.

We spent the 5 hour journey dozing on our backpacks, following the shade around

and standing at the helm of the boat making the most of the sea breeze. For a

little while we were being accompanied by several dolphins, including a mother

and child. They kept darting across the front of the boat and then circling round

and leaping in and out of the wash of the ferry.

When we got off the ferry there was a Perama staff member there waiting for us and

he directed us to yet another mini bus! On this mini bus were a French couple who

were 7 months in to a 12 month trip. Before they left they had both been accountants

in Madrid. Exciting lives! We were expecting a 3 hour drive to Kuta and were busy

chatting. We were just explaining where we were staying when the driver asked

where we were staying. When we told him he told us we were there and stopped the

car!

We were finally home! We had read great reviews about this homestay, Mimpi Manis,

and we would not be disappointed! We were greeted warmly by Ilu who showed us our

rooms and made us a fruity drink. We had 1 of 2 rooms in a separate block adjacent to

the main house,each with their own terrace. There is also a little 2 storey

house for a family to rent and a small restaurant area to eat.

As soon as we'd had our welcome drinks Martin raided the owners vast collection

of DVDs they have for guests to borrow. A.s.a.p. we headed to our room for a cool

shower and bed, after 3 days of travel.

A few hours later Gemma, who owns Mimpi Manis, along with her husband Made, came to

introduce herself and to arrange our free Orientation tour for the next day. She

then offered us either a lift in to Kuta town or dinner from their menu so we

decided to have dinner here and an early night. The food was really good. We

tried a Nasi Campur for the first time which includes boiled rice and side

dishes of vegetables in a a tasty sauce, tempe and fried tofu. As we

were eating we had our first experience of the Prayer Call from the nearby mosque,

which is in the practise of letting children have a go! Their parents must be very

proud but to us all you can hear is wailing, shrieking children so loud that you

can't always concentrate on the conversation you are having. This takes place

twice in the early evening. But Lombok is a Muslim country and we had begun to get

used to hearing this in Java.After dinner it was time to fall asleep to a film or two.

Mount Bromo

25.10.11

The alarm went off at 3am and we scrambled around putting on as many layers as possible

and fell out the door to wait for our lift a couple of kms down the road to Cemara

Lewang, which of course was half an hour late! Anyway he dropped the four of us,

including Pierre and Charlotte, off at about 4.15am and it was still dark. We had then

opted to walk the few km's to the crater of Mt. Bromo and then climb up the crater

in time for sunrise. Willhem and co. had opted to pay more to be taken by jeep to a

viewpoint for sunrise and then to the foot of Mt.Bromo so they could climb it.

The first km was down hill on the road, it wound down in to a valley and we could barely

see 10 foot in front of us! All we saw and heard was the occasional motorbike driving

past trying to sell us a ride to the crater. As we got in to the valley we could see

the dark sihouette of what we assumed was Mt Bromo ahead of us and other hills surrounding

us. The walk across the valley was hard. We were walking on deep ash or sand and

there was quite a breeze. As it got lighter, everything took on a mellow grey/yellow

light. It felt like we were on another planet or in the midst of a desert some where.

There were rolling dunes ahead of us gently being absorbed in to Mount Bromo which

we realised was actually to the left of us. During the 35 minute walk across the valley

to the foot of Mt Bromo we must have only seen 2 or 3 mopeds, a man on horseback and of

course a few vendors when we got to the foot of the mountain!

We hadn't realised how hard the short walk to the base of the crater would be, but the last 500m took

us a long time as it was all up hill in deep sand. We were also facing the wind

that was constantly blowing sand in to our faces. However we had the excuse of stopping

to admire the increasingly light view behind us. Eventually we reached, what had been

described as steps to us, but were more of a sand slide! There must have been about

150 steps and they were a struggle and we were racing against the sunrise!

But we made it and it was definitely worth it! Now, we did get bit of a shock when we

reached the top. We had been told that when we reached the crater we could walk around

it. However when we reached the final step, there was barely room for the 4 of us at

the top. From the top step to the edge of the crater, and a disintegrating 2 foot

'safety' barrier, was about 6 feet! You could move left or right from the steps up hill

on very slippery ground if you were careful. But apart from the 10 foot of flimsy

fence as you arrived there was nothing to stop you falling in to the smoking crater!

It was quite sensational being perched precariously at the mouth of a volcano watching

it gently smoke below. The actual crater was probably only about 300 metres across.

The views from the crater were amazing, all the way across the undulating waves of

grey, brown dunes, creating striped patterns across the valley floor. It was quite

misty as the sun rose, which must have been bad news for people at the viewpoint

but actually created more atmosphere for us!

Pierre and Charlotte were a very interesting couple. Charlotte lived and worked in

Hue, Vietnam for a French equivalent of the British Council. She is the Director of

programmes there, so she organised the lessons etc. for mainly adult students, working

alongside local and French teachers. Pierre had been living there with her but now

was back in France. Before that she had worked in Ho Chi Minh, and she had also worked in

Senegal and Tanzania (i think it was). What a fascinating life! I'm quite jealous, but

I suppose my job can give me similar opportunities if that's what I choose.

The walk back to our pick up point was easier and absolutely stunning!

We got back to our hotel at about 7am. We had time for breakfast and a lovely hot

shower, which was needed as we covered in ash (my face was black!) and it was still

pretty chilly!

We were picked up by the minibus at 9.30am. This time our travel companions were

Willhem, ----, Charlotte and Pierre, the 5 Indonesian tourists and an English

guy called Tim, back to Probollingo.

At Probollingo, the group of Indonesians all got out as they were going on back to

Jogja. So we had 2 German girls join us instead, however we didn't get to chat to them

as much as they were in the front seats. The French ladies also rejoined us.

We drove another 3 hours to the harbour, Ketapang, mainly chatting to Tim. Tim was from

York, a Religious Studies/Philosophy teacher who had travelled extensively around Asia.

So we were quizing him for places to stay around Malaysia and Asia.

We were hurried off the bus as the ferry was waiting. Our driver introduced

us to another man who we were to follow. We walked through the harbour and up the

gang plank, being beeped at by cars following us on, then up the steep stairs (trying not

to fall backwards on to my backpack!). The deck was much like a ferry to the Isle of

Wight, but a litle worse for wear, with rows of plastic chairs.

As we chugged out of the harbour the sun was beginning to get low and clouds were

gathering over the volcano backing the harbour. It probably only took 40 minutes across

to Gilimanuk, Bali. However as we approached the harbour we seemed to drift/bob around

just looking at the harbour for about 20 minutes. But this was fine as we got to watch

the sunset, a beautiful pale orange.

Once off the boat and on another minibus it took us another 5 hours to get to Denpasar.

We were dropped off at a small bus station, where we all hopped in Bluebird taxis, which

had been recommended to us as being the most legitimate taxi to get - they will always

put the meter on. We took our taxi directly to the hotel we had booked, part of the Pop

chain. We were really excited about this hotel! We had paid a bit more, as we couldn't

find anything cheaper that the reviews said weren't dirty! The hotel was very bright

with white walls and then neon coloured furniture and feature walls. Our room was along

a corridor of multicoloured doors. Inside our room was so clean, the linen white and soft

and our nice hot shower was in a little pod! We were so happy. It was half past ten, but

before we could fall in to bed we made a quick outing to Circle K to get some roti for

tea! The bread here comes in rolls and is soft,white and sweet, often you can get it

with something inside, maybe with chocolate or banana or cheese. It's good!

Leaving Jogja, with 3 days until we get to Lombok!

24.10.11

We had spent quite a while debating on how we were going to get to Lombok. We

knew it would probably be cheapest to do it ourselves; booking each indivdual

bus journey seperately and directly from the bus station. But we knew this

would take more time and organisation. We also read that in Bali in particular

it was easy to get ripped off and there arelots of places posing as 'official' ticket

vendors etc. We'd also read that Perama were a very trustworthy company and had

a established website etc. Even though it was probably a bit more expensive,it was

also convenient because we could book it all in one go etc. So we had organised

a shuttle bus to Cemaro lewang, 1 nights accomodation there to see Mt Bromo then

a shuttle bus to Denpasar. From Denpasar we had arranged a shuttle with Perama

to Kuta, Lombok including the ferry.

So we began!

Today we made the long journey to the crater of Mount Bromo, leg 1 of the journey!

The minibus picked us up at 8am.

It seemed to take forever to get out of Jogja, picking up 5 holidaying

Indonesians along the way. Two hours in we began to relax and spread ourselves

across seats trying to get comfortable for the rest of the 9-11 hour journey we

had left, from central to eastern Java. But we must have jinxed it because 20

minutes later we pulled in to a hotel. There we picked up 5 very lovely ladies,

4 from France and 1 from Montreal. These ladies were on a 3 week trip, doing a

similar journey to us. One of the ladies, Martina, was sat next to Martin and

began chatting to us. She started off cautiously, speaking English to us. As the

journey went on she began to get more and more confident. Martin also started to

speak a little French to her. By the end of the day she was speaking rapid French

to us and Martin was suprising himself by mostly understanding and speaking French

back to her. I was very impressed! I, on the otherhand, was struggling to keep up

and not quite confident enough speaking, apart from the odd sentence or two. I

always find it frustrating that we meet the majority of people while on a journey because

it means I find it difficult to take part in conversations properly, as I have to

concentrate on the road ahead so I don't get sick. But it's nice to be able to

listen to others and join in occasionally!

The mini-bus was now completely full and felt quite cramped. 2 of the French ladies

were sat in the 1 and half seats in the front, which must have been very uncomfortable.

We were all suffering from numb-bum syndrome and the airconditioning wasn't working

so we were very happy when we pulled in for lunch about 5 hours in. Our Nasi Gorengs

(fried noodles with veg, egg and chicken; served with prawn crackers) weren't up to

much but at least we got to stretch our legs!

We arrived in Probillingo about 7.30pm. Where we all piled off the mini-bus and were

given our itineraries for the next day. We then all got on a different bus to be

taken to our accomodation in or near Cemora Lewang, between 1 and 2km from the

crater of our volcano. Unfortunately it was dark so we couldn't get our bearings

or enjoy the fantastic scenery as we climbed in to the mountains and through

the villages. This time I was in the 'death' seat which was probably a good thing

but quite scary, as we wound round and round!

An hour and a half later we arrived at our accomodation Sion view, which was pretty basic.

The plan was to get dinner asap and get to bed asap as it was nearly 10pm and we were

getting picked up at 3.30am to go and see the sunrise over Mount Bromo. On the way

out of our room we got chatting to Willem, from Holland who was travelling with

his friend, so we joined them for dinner at Yoshi's, along with a French

couple, Charlotte and Pierre. We all ordered our food together, 20 minutes later

everyones food arrived apart from mine and Martin's. Another 20 minutes later and

everyone had finished and our food hadn't arrived. When we asked they said of course

it's coming. 5 minutes later, Martin's mediocre soup arrived. We waited a few minutes,

still no food for me! I asked again, they'd obviously forgotten because another 15

minutes later and my food finally arrived!! So much for getting to bed quickly! And of

course when I pointed the problem out to them they didn't really see it as too much of

a problem!

However it was a really nice evening, chatting to our companions.

Yogyakarta- From South to North...To further South.

21.10.11

We started today with our free breakfast (Well not free but included in the price of the hotel)

and we were ready to go Exploring.

Our hotel is in the south of the city, on a road filled with 'mid range' accommodation called Prawirotaman. We were armed with a map we were given on check-in and 2 our flasks filled with already luke-warm water. We headed north (obviously) and quickly found ourselves on road names nowhere to be found on our map, however we knew which direction roughly to head and figured we'd be fine. We were busy comparing the city to other places we'd been and to India in general. It felt very different, the roads were smooth and had pavements, ones you could walk on at nearly all times and that weren't covered in rubbish and/or excrement (which is always a bonus!). Every few feet there was huge pots of shrubs and flowers, it felt a lot 'greener' than similar places in India. We began to notice many of the shops had bird cages hanging outside, I remembered reading somewhere something about song birds being prized possessions here.

Along the pavements there where vendors selling glass bottles of fuel and pouring them into motorbike tanks with a hosepipe. I guess access to Petrol stations isn't as common or easy as back home and the bikes have small engines, the guys selling the petrol seemed to be doing good business. There were lots of places making their trade through motorbike maintenance or similar.

We found our way through lots of little winding streets to places we could see on the map, but actually this pottering around, no real clue of where we were was the highlight of the day. We got to see lots of places you wouldn't bother to go looking for and we greeted warmly by the people, homes and businesses we walked past, with lots of people wanting to just say hello and wave as we walked past, with lots of smiles and giggles thrown in. Smiling seemed to be a lovely theme here, all in all it has to be the place we have been with the happiest looking people (possibly joint actually with the smiling and excited faces we saw in the slums in Pune).

So we made our way to the main street in of the town, which has markets and stalls everywhere, it is very popular with tourist and local students and also some of the markets looked to be doing very good business with the locals. This road leads from the area called Kraton (The sultans Palace and surroundings) up to the north towards the train station, we had missed seeing the palace on route up to this road as we had taken lots of little side roads. We walked up and down the best part of Malioboro road, although it is much the same as many similar roads in cities across south east Asia that we have seen. Now we headed back south but this time to find the Sultans Palace, which we promptly found a few minutes later at 12.20, only to find that today the palace shuts at 12.oo. No looking around there for us today but it was no drama as we can easily head back another day if needed.

We then went looking for the Water Castle, which was used by the Sultan to bath. Before we could find it a 'Guide' found us and showed us to the temple. He followed us in and when we explained we did not want a guide and could not pay for one, he said it was included in the price of the ticket and we would not have to pay. So we allowed him to show us around, he was very nice and quite informative as he ushered us around the Sultans water palace. This was built as a kind of playground fore the sultan, with 3 pools, sauna rooms, a tower that the sultan could watch his wives bathing from and underwater tunnels. There was even an underwater mosque. Much of the area is in ruins, a recent earthquake causing part of it to be inaccessible. Our guide actually lived in the grounds of the Castle. He took us around the narrow streets and showed us his home and the homes of his family members, most of which were employed by the current Sultan as he is. The current sultan has 1 wife and 5 children and one of his daughters had just got married. The royal wedding was held on the 18th October in Jogja, so we just missed it! Our 'guide' did take us to various Batik and puppet making emporiums, but there was no problem with us not buying anything.

From the Water Castle, we continued south along a wide, busy road hoping to find the Bird Market. The Bird Market is permanent and there are rows of small stalls/shops selling mainly birds in beautiful decorated cages. There were all sorts of birds, including huge cockerels, owls, ducks, pigeons, tiny songbirds, ducklings tied all kinds of weird and wonderful colours and more colourful parrot like birds. It was fascinating to walk around although quite upsetting at times, as the cages were usually tiny and quite often had large numbers of birds inside. There were also bats, lizards, ants, maggots and crickets on sale. At a couple of other stalls we came across gerbils, that were quite entertaining as they kept standing on their hind legs and then toppling over backwards!

By this point we were really quite tired and had been sweating buckets all day so we walked back to the hotel for a refreshing swim before going back to Via Via for another delicious meal!

Our first train journey in Indonesia.

20.10.11

This morning we had to tackle the buses to get to the train station. So we left at 6.30am to avoid rush hour, this was a good move! We potentially had 2 changes at progressively busier stations but at our first stop one of the conductors helped us out. He told us to wait to one side and he would tell us when a direct bus to Gambir came. He then let us get on the back of the bus after everyone had got off instead of with the crush of people at the front doors. This was good news as I would have struggles to get me and my backpack on safely. It was pretty rammed none-the-less and we were glad we only had a few stops.

At Gambir we had a wait of an hour an half which was fine as there was a plug socket so we could do some blog writing.

WE had booked ticket in Executive Class which we had debated on because it was so much more than Business Class. But we thought it would probably be worth the money if Martin was comfortable on a 8 hour journey. It was definitely worth it! We had plenty of space with reclining seats. There was aircon with a nice citrus scent pumped in every so often. There were TV screens playing Indonesian music videos with the odd Westlife/Alicia Keys/Foo Fights song chucked in, terrible slapstick comedy sketch shows and cheesy horror flicks. This was a bit odd considering there were several young children on the train. We had 2 waiters in the carriage who were constantly coming up and down the train with snacks and beverages for sale and we bought lunch off them. This was edible and served to us at the exact time they said it would be!

During the 8 hours we travelled about half the length of Java. We only travelled a few minutes at any one time without seeing some kind of settlement. For most of the journey it was overcast and the landscape was flat, mainly rice fields separated by trenches, some flooded, some bright green and some dry. Throughout the fields were dotted small shelters where workers could take shelter. Along the train tracks we saw many towns and villages, which generally seemed to be alot better off than some of the areas we past through in India. I don't remember seeing any apartment blocks apart from on leaving Jakarta, unlike India where the main well-off areas seem to be made up of apartment buildings. The roofs here were mainly pitched and a lot of the houses had beautiful teak doors and window-frames.

As we got further towards Jogja the sky became more overcast and there was a good few miles of torrential rain. The landscape became more mountainous and there were more trees. We arrived at Jogja about half an hour late at 5pm.

As we exited the train station we expected to get mobbed by taxi and rickshaw drivers. However to our suprise they were all stood patiently by their rickshaws smiling! We got in to a cycle rickshaw. The cycle rickshaws here are different to those in India. Instead of the bike pulling the rickshaw, here the bike is behind the rickshaw. We were cycled all the way through the middle of Jogja down the main road so we could get a good feel for the town. It is a young persons, being the educational capital of Java. The main street is full of stalls selling batik and is very lively. The hotel, Duta, we wanted to stay in is about 3 km away from the main street.

When we arrived there it was more expensive than we anticipated so Martin went for a hunt around the other hotels as there were loads nearby. The cheapest we could find was about £1 less than Duta and wasn't as nice. So we took the room at Duta, the first room on this trip without it's own bathroom. But the hotel itself is so worth it. The rooms are arranged around a small but beautiful pool, that has a 12 foot waterfall that trickles in to it. The whole hotel is beautiful with lots of communal space and each room has seating on a balcony. You also get free wifi and breakfast so I would recommend this place!

This evening we went to find the ViaVia restaurant up the road. This is a worldwide chain of restaurants that puts its profits back in to the local community. The food was amazing! Another recommendation!

First impressions of Jakarta

18.10.11

We were sad to be leaving Singapore this morning but looking forward to coming back in

1 month time and to our month in Indonesia.

It took under 2 hours to fly to

Jakarta and we had arranged to be picked up from the airport by a taxi and taken

straight to our accomodation, which we had booked in advance.

The first thing that struck us about Jakarta was the traffic. We were on huge

trunk roads, with 3/4 lanes (they made their own lanes!) and they were overloaded.

We also noticed a system of bus lanes, with shelters in the middle of the

carriageway, people stepped off the shelter about 3 foot off the ground on to

buses. The shelters were connected by walkways across the manic roads and

down the middle of the carriageways were wide, filthy canals, strewn with

rubbish. We had read that Jakarta was very large, with no real centre and

notoriously difficult to get around on foot and what

we were seeing confirmed this.

It took us about an hour to get to our appartment block where we were met by the

notorious William. This was an ordinary residential

unit with 32 floors, there were 3 other identical blocks with a pool complex in

the centre. We were in a condo on the 16th floor, with a small kitchen/lounge,

2 bedrooms and a bathroom. We could see the amazing pool down below, it appeared

to be almost olympic size, with a moat like pool around it and surrounded

by paths and raised flower beds; very picturesque.

We wanted to buy a sim card so William very helpfully took us to a store in the

basement and helped us to buy one. There was also a supermarket so we

picked up a few bits for a snacky lunch, before we headed down to the pool.

There were lots of children in the moat and other more serious swimmers in the

pool. I realised that my bikini wasn't going to be appropriate, as many of the

women were wearing shorts and t-shirts to swim, so I didn't get in.

Later that afternoon we ventured to the mall which was only 5 minutes away.

Again it was very grand, housing a 5 star hotel, cinema and Fun-Land! There

must have been about 50 restaurants aswell, most of which seemed to be doing

good business. We decided to get dinner in the food hall. It was interesting

trying to decipher what was on offer, we had no idea what the dishes were

and there was little English spoken. So we pointed to couple of photos on the

menu and hoped for the best! I ended up with a Gado Gado, a cold vegetable salad, served

with a boiled egg and covered (swimming) in peanut sauce. It was very tasty

but the sauce got a bit much. Martin had something similar but it was a

noodle salad in the same sauce.

Afterwards we went to check out the cinema. The normal seats cost around £2 each.

There was also a Velvet cinema, where seats were like matresses with pillows

and a small table so you could lounge. These seats cost a tenner. We

decided to come back tomorrow night to watch a film as we were tired. So

we went back to the apartment, watched a film in our lounge, novelty, and sampled

some local largers, Bintang (cost 10,000 rupiah or about 70 pence) and Anker,

which were very pleasant!