We were up bright and early on our last morning in Singapore to head off with our bags on our backs to tackle the Singapore Underground at rush hour. We got a few strange looks...and a few rather unappreciative ones when we all squeezed onto an already “snug” carriage with all our bags! We arrived at the Harbour Front and went and checked in our bags then waited around for a short time before getting on the ferry that was bringing us to the island of Batam...our first stop in Indonesia. I had a very odd experience where we arrived in Indonesia before we left Singapore. We left Singapore at 8.22 according to the clock at the ferry port...and arrived in Batam at 8.17 as per their clock! Indonesia is an hour behind Singapore so it was pretty cool to see that we arrived before we left...real life time travel!!! We then sorted out our visas and then piled into taxis to take us to our hotel. The day was spent doing not very much as Batam is a place with not very much! The most exciting thing we did was venture down to the super market to get supplies for the adventure we were to embark upon the following day! That night we decided to do the easiest thing and stay at the hotel for dinner...which turned out to be somewhat of a nightmare for some people. We all turned up ordered our food...and one by one the dishes came out. In a painfully slow way and in no order whatsoever!! Dee and Andy ordered their food together, Andy was served within 15 minutes, and Dee was left waiting! Some of us had ordered before them and hadn’t been served. After about 2 hours sitting at the table most of us had been fed. Kev had been the first to order and after most the rest of us were fed, he was told that they didn’t have Lemon Chicken, Dee was faced with the same problem...so they both changed their order to Sweet and Sour chicken, a dish that they knew that had cause some of the other guys had already ordered it. About 20 minutes after this after a couple more dishes were brought out the waiter returned to tell Dee and Kev that there was no chicken left!! At this stage our group had been sitting in the restaurant (the only people there!!!) for nearly 3 hours! So Dee and Kev cut their losses and went out to find somewhere else to eat. When Dee went to pay for her drink the waiter explained to her the reason service was so slow....you’re going to love this! When we placed our order the waiter wrote each individual order down on a separate bill and handed them to the chef one by one, when he was finished with one dish the waiter would give him the next order “so that the chef wouldn’t get confused”!!! Dee came out and told us this and we all sat there flabbergasted!! Definitely the oddest run restaurant I have come across on the whole trip! What type of place has a chef that can only handle one dish at a time...this was made slightly more flummoxing as some of us had ordered the same dish, such and the Sweet and Sour, so would it not have made more sense for the waiter to give in all 4 orders for that dish at the same time and save the chef, and us, some time!! Anyway very shortly after that we all left for our rooms as it was coming up to about 11 at this stage anyway!!
The following day was the beginning of another epic trip...I’ve talked before about our 28 hour bus trip. Today we were embarking upon a 30 hour ferry ride to the island of Java!! So we got up, sorted our stuff out and put everything we would need to the top of our bags (sleeping liners, pyjamas, wash stuff) and had our food supplies in hand too. Rachel had warned us that although food is supplied by the ferry it was fish head curry so if we didn’t feel like tasting the local delicacy to bring some supplies. So we all boarded the ferry with crackers, cheese and a large amount of pot noodles!! Thankfully the ferry was only delayed by about an hour or so...an hour which I slept through! When we got on the ferry it was slightly nightmarish! We had all our bags with us and assigned bunks so we had to go on the hunt for those. One ship worker took pity on us and brought us to our bunks but seemed to circle back around and took us to a different deck, pointed to a row of beds and told us we were there. We looked at the number and said no we aren’t and went back down to where we thought we were supposed to be. Turns out the ship worker had walked by our bunks but there were already people on them and a large amount of shouting going on so he walked us past them. We went back down and found someone else who shooed 20 people out of our bunks. They didn’t seem to appreciate it and we gathered a rather large crowd as they stood and stared at us, one for being the only white people on a massive ferry and two for booting people out of the beds they were already quite comfortable in!!! We got ourselves settled as comfortably as we could and started to take in our surroundings! The ship was pretty big and the decks were pretty much totally open with no dividing walls with rows and rows of beds from one end to the other. When the ferry did set off we all passed the first few hours by reading, watching movies or sleeping! Our dinner consisted of pot noodle in surprise flavours as we haven’t yet mastered the Indonesian language. Dinner was an upgrade on last year Rachel said as instead of just a fish head in the curry and rice this year passengers got a whole fish to themselves! I did NOT indulge (surprise surprise) but a couple of the guys did and said it wasn’t that bad. I took their word for it and tucked into my Pot Noodle. Some people fell asleep fairly easy while others (like me) struggled to sleep in part because of the snoring and in part because I was just wide awake...possibly due to the fact that I knew there was cockroaches crawling around and all that was between me and them was a thin silk sleeping bag liner!! We had noticed the cockroaches as soon as we got on the ferry. Granted they weren’t as big as the ones we have seen in various places, these ones were minute in comparison but it still is a slight deterrent from sleep when you know that they are creeping about beneath your mattress and pop up every now and then and creep up the piece of wood that is right by your head! Made for some good entertainment for the locals when I squealed a couple of times when there was one right by my head...a little kid was my hero cause he just scooped one or two of them up with his hand when he saw my jump 5 feet away from the head of my bed!!! I did get a couple of hours sleep though but everyone got very loud at about 6am so it wasn’t a great sleep in the end!! I plugged in my IPod and tried to ignore everything going on about me and gave up at about 8 and got up and got dressed. There was a bit of excitement that morning when we saw 3 workers go down the stairs right beside us with fire extinguishing equipment in their hands. Now throughout the journey the captain had made numerous announcements but of course we didn’t understand a word of any of it!! So when this happened and an announcement was made once again we were in the dark so we told ourselves it was just a drill....and then the fire alarm started going off!! We had a look at the picture notices and decided it was just a drill...until the alarm pattern changed slightly, and then minutes later two guys came around to tell us all where our life jackets were, how to put them on and to show us where the whistle was located on them!!! We all just sat there for awhile and observed the locals, as none of them seemed too worried or didn’t seem to be making a mad dash for the doors we sat tight and eventually the alarm stopped and everyone went back about their business...not that anyone was doing anything too exciting before that!! The day again was spent reading and watching movies with a few naps thrown in for good measure. We also managed to catch an amazing sunset from the boat that evening. We sat out on the barriers for about an hour watching it and taking it all in. Then once it was dark we went back inside to wait around until we docked. A couple of hours later an announcement was made and everyone cheered, we all perked up and a few locals said “one hour” to us and we took that to mean one hour from docking. In reality it was probably another two hours...and it definitely felt like that as we all just wanted to get the hell off of the boat at that stage! We did eventually dock and got plagued by porters wanting to carry our bags (thanks but I’ve carried it this bloody far around the world, I think I can managed to get it off a ferry, thanks very much!) and taxi drivers wanting to bring us to hotels. We did eventually get taxis sorted and hopped into them. I was on one with Dee, Andy and Bui and when the driver turned on the engine the radio started hopping with full on rave music!! We all started laughing and started pulling a few “stack the shelves” type moves...to which the locals looking in the window got a great laugh out of!! We presumed the driver would turn the music down now that he had passengers in his car...we were sadly mistaken!! It stayed just as loud and after a few minutes when the novelty had worn off I remember Rachel had said the taxi drive was about 45 minutes long! I broke the news to the others and we settles ourselves in for a rave on the way to the hotel!! I’m not joking when I say this dude was close to his 60s if not already in them and his head was bopping away to the beat of the music and his hand would join in every now and then! It was actually quite good fun to watch...except for when he was too busy dancing to take a corner at a normal speed!! We made it to the hostel uninjured, aside from slightly sensitive ears, and then we got our rooms sorted. It wasn’t exactly luxury but the rooms had a fan and a bed so I was happy enough with that. We headed out for some very quick food and then headed to bed. We could see a few mosquitoes in the room so I slept in my liner, despite the heat and it turned out to be a god send as the following morning I woke up with bed bug bites all over my arms and shoulders!! I even got one greedy bug that bit me on the very tip of my nose! So our first day in Jakarta did not get off to a great start. The day continued to get worse when I got bad news from home and that on top of the bed bugs suddenly made Jakarta one of the worst places on the trip!! We spent the day walking around a few shopping centres that were absolutely huge and full of Louis Vuitton and the likes of that and then headed back to the hostel to try sort out a room. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately they didn’t have any more rooms so we grabbed our bags and moved to a different place that thankfully was bed bug free!! Day 2 in Jakarta wasn’t a whole lot better but I did give it a chance to change my perceptions of it by going for a walk to the National Monument. The Monument itself was really nice and was in the middle of a lovely park but getting there I took my life into my hands as they don’t really like footpaths and they do like 5 lane roads so trying to get from A to B means dodging a lot of traffic! I did have one very nice army dude help me across a road at one stage, he just swanned out into the middle of the road, stopped all the traffic and told me to “have a very nice day, miss”!!!
The next day was an early start for us all as we headed to Yogycarta (pronounced Yogikarta of Jogja to the locals) the train journey was good fun and it was nice to be on a different mode of transport. On the trip now we have done planes, trains numerous different types of automobiles and a couple of ferries for good measure!! I didn’t use the toilet on the train but some of the others told me that the toilet consisted of a hole in the floor of the train where whatever you did just dropped out onto the tracks. Can’t exactly be environmentally friendly I’m sure but at least the train didn’t get smelly!!! When we arrived in Jogja we headed to the hotel sorted rooms and then went in the hunt for a TV with the rugby on it. Turns out Indonesia isn’t that bothered with rugby so it took us a couple of attempts...and when we did it was pretty crap reception that kept jumping and had no commentary to listen to!! Later that evening we went to meet Supy, a local tour guide who had lots of stuff available for us to do! I was actually really excited as it had been awhile since we had been somewhere that had stuff to keep us entertained! We all listened, signed up to different things and then ended up in bed very early that evening as the following day our day began at 4am!!
Our first full day in Jogja was pretty cool. We got picked up at 4am to go up to Mount Merapi to watch sunrise. It was about an hours drive and then we had to walk for about 20 minutes up to the view point to watch the sun come up behind the volcano. As with Punhill our hope for an amazing sunrise was dampened as we climbed higher and the clouds descended upon us. We stood and waited and then before we knew it, it was bright out and there was no sunrise to be scene. However when the sky did brighten it gave me a chance to take in my surroundings and some of the cloud did start to clear so we could see down the mountain which is when I could start to see the destruction. Merapi had erupted in 2006 killing 2 people, but it erupted again in 2010 killing 250 people and causing 90% destruction of the surrounding area. Where the view point was, was a village called Kinahrejo but due to the eruption the village was completely destroyed. When the cloud lifted we started to see where some houses were being rebuilt but the most obvious thing to see was the trees. All the trees were bent clean in two at the base and completely charred. We were told that Merapi doesn’t erupt with lava but has scalding hot mud and once it gains momentum it moves at an astonishing 400km per hour, so there is absolutely no chance to escape it. As I explored some more I realised we were standing in the ruins of houses. There were odd shoes all over the place and broken crockery. We could see clothes half buried and I even came across a dresser that was buried in ash up to the top of its legs. There were still the remains of some walls and in one place I found a while tiles platform that used to be someone’s bathroom. It was heart breaking to see it and to come to the realisation that these people are left with nothing when the volcano erupts. Outside one of the coffee huts there was, well I suppose a shrine type thing where the locals had gathered some of the things that they found among the ruins. There was a melted stereo, a couple of motorbike helmets, a plastic crate with melted coke bottles in it and a gas lantern. All these items were melted and burned and it just brought it home even more exactly how hot the mud is. We did managed to get a very brief glimpse of Merapi when the clouds cleared momentarily and the sun shone down on it, we all took a very quick pictured and were satisfied that that was probably as good as we were going to get so we headed back down to the vans. The next stop was Kraton, the Sultan’s Palace. Only a few of us decided to go here so the vans split up and off we headed. We got dropped off at what we thought was the palace and headed in to have a look around. A tour guide joined us and explained everything to us...not that there was a lot to explain. What he showed us I can only describe as a glorified gazebo and I found it hard to believe that this was where the Sultan actually lived of did anything. Compared to some of the palaces we have seen, such as Bangkok and Phnom Penh, this one would have been less than a garden shed compared to them, there was even corrugated iron on part of the roof!!! The guide gave us a number of different facts, including how many sons each Sultan had had during their rein; here is a small run down of the figures (and bear in mind it is just the sons that are counted, we have no idea how many daughters they each had!!). The 4th sultan had 6 wives and 18 sons. The 5th Sultan had 5 wives and 9 sons, 6th had 6 wives 20 sons, 8th had 13 wives and 41 sons. 9th had 5 wives and 22 sons while the present Sultan (the 10th) has only 1 wife and 5 daughters. As he has no sons when he dies the sultancy will be passed onto his younger brother as a woman cannot be sultan. You may have noticed I missed Sultan number 7 and that’s because the guide was very proud of telling us his figures...and we were quite shocked hearing them!! This dude had FORTY wives and 78 sons!!! Found it kinda hard to get my head around those figures but there ya go!! The guide eventually explained to us that this was just where the Sultan did some ceremonial things and that he in fact lived behind a big white wall...so we saw the gate to the palace and then the tour seemed to be over. Or so we thought! Instead the guide took us on a little walk outside and brought us to a batik workshop. Batik is the traditional art of Indonesia and is done using wax. We got a little demonstration and then of course they tried to get us to buy something. Once they realised that wasn’t going to happen we headed back towards the palace, for the guide to tell us if we had more time that if we walked around the corner we could see the rest of the palace!! We stood there and checked a couple of times over if we were understanding him right and walked around the corner to eventually find the place we were supposed to have been dropped in the first place!! We only had about half an hour left before we had to meet the driver again so we quickly made the decision to go in and see what we could find. It was slightly more impressive than the first place but again nothing compared to the palaces we have seen. There were lots of different exhibitions to look at but due to our limited time we didn’t really stay very long at them, so we wandered around quickly. We were on our way out when we passed a larger outdoor platform and noticed a lot of locals all dressed up and positioning themselves around different instruments. We stopped for a minute to see what was going on and got a little taste of traditional music and singing. It was a bit weird and sounded like a choir of high pitched little girls more so that maturing Indonesian women!! We headed back to the hotel not long after that and a nap was in store for me before chilling out for the rest of the day.
The following day was yet another early start with pick up from the hotel at 5am. We were headed to Borobudur Temple to watch sunrise. However as we gathered at the hotel we all noticed that the sun was already rising so figured that the temple wasn’t that far away....it was an hour away so we observed an ok sunrise from the window of the van. When we arrived at the temple we saw a sign that said it didn’t open until 6 so we were never actually going to catch sunrise so that was slightly annoying as most of us would have gone for sunset instead. However it was not a wasted trip as we got a really good guide who gave us a lot of information of the temple. When we went in we first all had to put sarongs on us. This is something that only used to be done to people with short shirts or shorts on, but recently the Buddhist community had insisted that all visitors to the temple wear it to preserve the traditional and culture of the religion. As we walked up towards the temple our guide told us that when restoration work on the temple began in 1973, the government decided to create a park around the temple to help preserve it...and then he told us in order to do this the government had uprooted a whole village, including our guide’s home. He told us his house used to be situated right where the entrance building to the park was. We were all slightly stunned that this guy had been uprooted and could point out where his house was and not seem too upset about it!! Anyway as we walked towards the temple he told us that Borobudur was the largest Buddhist Temple in the world and it is 300 years older than Angkor Wat. I was quite stunned at this as we had all seen Angkor Wat and knew that it was pretty bloody old!! And I have to say I found it so much more stunning and beautiful than Angkor Wat. The Temple is built from 2 million pieces of rock from Mount Merapi and there are 505 statues throughout the temple that are carved from one piece of stone each. It was absolutely huge. Buddhists who come to worship at the temple start at the east gate and walk the whole circumference in a clockwise direction. They do this for the 10 levels of the temple. On the first level after every 3 steps they must stop and kiss the ground making the first walk around the temple pretty hard work. There is also carved pictures the whole way around the temple that tell stories that the Buddhists must read to learn the teachings of their religion. Once a worshiper has walked the whole way around all 10 levels they will have walked 5km!! Our guide explained a number of the carvings along the way and it was really interesting to see the interpretations and what they are supposed to represent and teach Buddhists. The guide also told us that the steps towards the bottom of the temple are quite large and steep but as you climb closer to the top the steps aren’t as steep and are smaller. This apparently is a metaphor for life itself. Our guide told us that the steps symbolise the trip to heaven and how hard it is to get there. The carvings on the walls are also harder to interpret as one climbs up the temple. As a worshipper gets closer to the top of the temple the steps aren’t as steep. This according to the guide means that like the carvings, life gets harder as we got along but if one understands life lessons they ultimately will have an easier assent to heaven, while if they don’t fully understand the lessons earlier in life they will never proceed to the next level and therefore never reach Nirvana. It seemed quite nice symbolism for the Buddhist way of life I thought. Our guide left us on the 7th level to go and explore the top 3 levels ourselves and it was here that a couple of security guards became our educators by showing and explaining pictures from the last clean up after the last eruption of mount Merapi. The temple was covered in ash and over 2,000 volunteers helped to clean up but first sweeping and trowelling away the worst of the ash. They then used power water hoses to remove the last of the ash to clean it up properly. The temple is quite high with very steep steps and to get the buckets of ash they collected down from the top levels they formed a chain of people and passed the buckets the whole way town to waiting trucks for it to be transported away. The pictures were really cool to look at and it was nice to think that so many people had worked together to clean up the temple and keep it looking amazing.
When we were finished at Borobudur it was back in the bus to head to Prambanan temple. This is the largest Hindu temple in the world. It was much less impressive than Borobudur. UNESCO has listed it as a World Heritage Site but as of yet they have not been able to invest very much money in it, so it is still very much in ruins. The construction of Prambanan began in 856 AD. It was destroyed in an earthquake in the 16 century and restoration began in 1930 and is still begin restored today. The main temple to Shiva is closed to the public as it has been structurally damaged in a number of earthquakes so it is unsafe until UNESCO restores it properly. We did get to go into a couple of the smaller temples but I was enjoying this temple much less than the last, possibly in part to the fact that I couldn’t understand a lot of what the guide was saying. Though at this temple the government had also decided to build a park so uprooted a whole village!! The temple was absolutely huge and the carvings were very intricate on it but again there was scaffolding and railings around a lot of them so it was hard to fully appreciate them. The guide also told us that there was little overland train we could get to bring us to the 3 other temples within the park. We all got very excited at the prospect of a little train (think Dublin Zoo!!!) and we hopped on it to go check out the other temples. The first two we weren’t actually sure if they were the temples we were supposed to be looking at as they were really just piles of rubble but when we got to the third one we knew that yes the piles of rubble were the 2 other temples, though they looked so small I would call them shrines before I’d call them a temple! Anyway the 3rd temple, Sewu Temple, was pretty cool so the train stopped for 5 minutes to let us have a look. Sewu Temple is a Buddhist Temple and has a large temple surrounded by 240 smaller temples. Again most of them were destroyed making the Temple much shorter that it should have been. We headed back then to the minivan and spent the rest of the day chilling out once again, though I was slightly productive and got accommodation booked for the first week in Sydney (thanks Rhona!!)
After the disappointment of the non sunrise at Merapi and Punhill all those months ago and then Borobudur not working out I had pretty much given up on getting a lovely sunrise somewhere spectacular!! In Jogja, Supy (the tour guide) told us about a trip we could do to Mount Bromo for sunrise and to go see the crater of the volcano. I had pretty much ruled myself out thinking that I couldn’t take any more disappointment but when we were on Merapi and talking about Bromo Rhona and 3 words that made me go “oh shit” and knew that I had to give it a go! And those words were “third time lucky”!! And so those 3 little words pretty much made up my mind and I decided to give it one last go! So for the 4th day in a row I was up extremely early to get a mini bus to a village just down from Mount Bromo where we were going to spend the night. 6 of us decided to do this trip while everyone else did one last night bus and headed to Bali. The journey to Bromo was fairly uneventful and we arrived at our hotel at about 9 that evening. None of us were particularly hungry and with a 3.30 (yes make that FIVE mornings in a row!!!) start the next day we hit the hay fairly early!! If we had any fear that we were going to sleep in we needn’t have worried as at 3.30 on the dot our door was hammered down to tell us to wake up! We all put on long trousers, long sleeves, socks, fleeces and wind sheeters and headed out into the cold brisk air of 2,300 metres. We piled into jeeps and headed up the steep hill to the view point at 2,706 metres where we were going to watch sunrise from. When the jeep stopped we had a small bit of a surprise when we discovered we had to walk to the rest of the way to the viewpoint, which was a very steep, windy climb. But we all made it up and made it up for sunrise! Yep that’s right, we got sunrise!! And it was amazing. It made up for all the disappointment of the other ones we had tried and it was in the most magical setting. At one side of the view point was the sun coming up and at the other side was a view out over the 3 volcanoes, Mount Batok (2,440m), Mount Bromo (2,392 M) and Mount Semeru (a staggering 3,676m). It was absolutely stunning. I could try for pages and pages to try and explain what it was like and what it felt like but I would never be able to do it any justice and make you understand just how amazing it was. Even the (250!!!) pictures that I took don’t capture how beautiful it was. They make a pretty good attempt at it but they still don’t do it any justice! To look out over the volcanoes with a sheet of perfectly still cloud covering the ground and these 3 amazing mountains rising up out of it was mesmerising. And when the sun started to get higher there was a pinky, orange glow cast over the cloud making it luck completely different and even more magical. We stood there for ages watching the clouds and colours changing, not wanting to a miss a thing. Eventually we realised we couldn’t stand there forever and we headed back down to the jeep. Of course we stopped to take numerous more pictures along the way and as always it took us about a quarter of the time to get back down as it did going up! When we got back down we then headed over to Mount Bromo itself to climb up to the crater. Again it was another steep climb, made all the more difficult by the thick sand and ash that covered the ground making it difficult to walk in. As we walked from the jeep across the flat before we started to climb, I noticed what I thought was some kind of mirage. Out of the mist I could see the outline of a temple and then when I looked around there was suddenly a volcano right beside me!! So that might give you an idea of how thick this mist was that I practically walked into a bloody volcano!! We kept walking anyway and then the mist cleared and we saw where we were supposed to go...and once again it was a steep climb, but helped somewhat by steps up the really, really steep part. We kept walking and hit the steps and they may have been more of a hindrance as they were covered in ash so we had to step very carefully. When we got to the top though, it was amazing. The crater was absolutely huge! I can’t even give an estimate as to what size it was all I can say is that standing at the edge of it I couldn’t fit the whole thing into my camera! And standing at the edge was a bit scary too. At its worst it was about 2 feet wide with a steep drop on either side...one side was down the way we came up which was scary but at least if we fell and went that way we wouldn’t die!! The other side was straight down into the crater itself and if I went that way there was nothing that was going to stop me getting up close and personal with the smoking hole!! I was kind of surprised that it was actually smoking but it was cool to see it too and to actually understand that it is an active volcano. We had a bit of a morbid moment and wondered if anyone had ever fallen in so when we got to the internet later we looked into it and although we couldn’t find numbers we found out that people had fallen in. In fact the website stated that there are regular sacrifices to the volcano and many times a year human sacrifices when over eager tourists fall into the crater!! And I can understand why, most people there (including myself) had a backpack and as it was so narrow that when you tried to go by someone without pushing them to their death you generally ended up bopping someone else behind you with a bag!! Needless to say I didn’t spend very long up there...enough time to get a few pictures and take it all in and then get the hell out of there before I didn’t come back down from Bromo!!! It was an amazing experience though and once again it’s been one of the highlights of my trip. It was amazing and seeing the sky change as the sun came up across the clouds and mist was absolutely magical. We headed back to the hotel then and had a shower (they had told us the night before we would have time to have a shower after the trip and we thought that was very considerate of them but then with the amount of dust and ash we realised it was actually a necessity!!!) and breakfast. Then it was back in mini vans to go to Probolinggo and then get on a bigger bus that was going to bring us to Bali. The journey wasn’t all that interesting, two things of note happened. One just before we got on the ferry to take us from Java to Bali we stopped to take on a delivery...of freaking FISH!!! So we all got stuck with a rather unpleasant smell for the remainder of the journey...and the bus guys knew it as they were spraying air freshener into the air conditioner machine!!! The second thing was the ferry itself. We got on it expecting it to be about 15 minutes long and as we could see how close Bali was but we seemed to head towards it...and then stop the engine and float about for about an hour. We got very disoriented as we just drifted and the boat kept turning so in the end we couldn’t see which side was Bali and which was Java as it got really dark! We entertained ourselves though by first watching the sunset over the volcanoes and then getting a pot noodle and having dinner sitting up at the front of the boat! The boat did eventually dock and we got back on the bus and drove to Denpasar in Bali. From there we got taxis sorted and headed to Kuta where we were staying for the few days we were in Bali. When we found the hotel we found out that everyone else was out but after such a long day those of us who did the Bromo trip pretty much found our rooms and crashed!
I slept till 1pm the next day and when I got up my day consisted of having lunch and chilling out at the hotel. And this pretty much sums up most of the few days in Bali. I mixed it up every now and then by going down to the beach to watch sunset one night and by doing a little bit of shopping too but Kuta is kinda like the Aussie Magaluf with bars and clubs everywhere and beach bound people throughout the day. After overlanding, as much as I enjoyed being stationary for 6 days I also wasn’t really in the mood for a beach holiday type thing! On our 5th day there we all headed out on a day trip that involved cycling 22km through Bali. It was a really fun day, though at the start it was marred once again by cloud which blocked our view of yet another volcano!!! We were driven up the hill and stopped off in a coffee plantation where some people sampled Lewak Coffee. This is the coffee where they feed coffee beans to a little racoon looking animal. This animal can’t digest the beans so poops them out. They are then collected and roasted and Bob's your uncle there’s your coffee bean!!! We then drove further up the mountain to a viewpoint for the volcano (non-existent view once again) and then we hopped on our bikes and started our cycle. In all honesty it wasn’t that hard work!! I don’t think I touched my pedals for the first 5 or 6 km as it was all downhill and the only thing I had to do was use my breaks to make sure I didn’t take flight!! There were some pretty hairy hills and I was just glad I wasn’t having to cycle up them!! I was having a few issues with my breaks though so how I didn’t crash into someone I have no idea! Seeing Bali like this was really nice. As I said all I had experienced was the holiday resort but this was a million miles away from that! As I was on a bike it was kinda hard to take pictures, what I really needed was a video camera on top of my helmet to take it all in! The first thing we came across in a village was women walking to a temple to give their offerings. However the day we did the cycle was a particular festival in the Hindu religion so the offerings were very elaborate. We saw women walking with the offering pot on top of their heads but it was amazingly ornate. They were about 2 feet high and made of all different kinds of fruits and rice cakes and had lots of decorations on them. And if that was picturesque enough the village itself was all decorated using natural things such as bamboo and grasses. We also came across some people decorating the entrance to a temple again using bamboo and grass but they twisted it and wound it beautifully making the most intricate decorations. We also passed an old man sitting at the side of the road making massive kites out of little sticks and black bags for a group of excited children who then realised them off into the air and passed a million paddy fields...one of which was covered in a load of ducks who seemed to be enjoying splashing around in the waterlogged field!!! It was little things like this that made the trip for me. But I also enjoyed freewheeling down steep hills and going round corners only to discover that there were 5 more twisting corners before the road levelled out and I was actually able to slow down properly!!! We also stopped at a traditional Balinese house where we met the family who lived there. The houses are completely self contained with one building with 2 or 3 rooms in it for each family (the son and his wife and kids) and then another building with the kitchen in it which was where the grandparents of the family slept. Then outside was a pig and cockerels...fighting cockerels to be exact. They asked if we wanted a demonstration which we all quickly but politely declined. Cock fighting is one was that they make some extra money. If their bird wins they get the money that was bet on the fight and they get to keep the losing bird. Out behind the houses was a long field which was where they grew all their food and crops including avocado, coconuts and things like corn and rice. They also had 4 cows but as they are sacred it the Hindu religion they aren’t milked or bred for meat and are instead used for their dung which is made into cow pats and used to fuel the fire where they cook their food and get heat from. The families are so self contained that when they build their houses they also build a small temple out the back within its own walls and this is where they bury their dead too, so the families are independent from birth to death. It was pretty cool to see the house and how they live and to meet the 90 year old granny who sat in front of us washing her teeth with leaves and the children who ranged in age from about 5 to 12. After 22km we put the bikes back on the vans and were driven the rest of the way back...which was just as well as the roads started to get pretty hairy and went up and down which I’m not sure I could have handled!!!
That night was Rachel’s last night with us before we took our flight to Darwin the next day so when we got back from the biking we all went and got ourselves ready for dinner and then headed out. We had a lovely meal with some great company and then headed to a Reggae bar for a few drinks before moving on to a night club. This night club offered free drinks with VIP passes from 10 to 11 and girls got an extra half hour! We all went in and headed to get a drink...I couldn’t even finish mine!! I’m not sure if they were just laced with alcohol or if they just genuinely tasted manky but I ended up taking a couple of sips and putting my cup down (yes, this trip has ruined my tolerance to drink for those of you who are wondering what has happened to me!!!) Still had an absolutely brilliant night though and headed in to the dance floor...only for us all to end up on the stage/podium area dancing with scantily clad dancers (one of which we are nearly certain was a lady boy!!!) it was great fun though and we bopped and raved the night away till the wee hours when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer!!!
And so this is where blog number 18 ends...and also where the start of the end begins. We leave for Darwin later tonight and then we are officially in our last country. Still can’t quite comprehend exactly how quick the whole trip has gone. I have extremely mixed feelings about it being the end...very excited to be getting to a new country and looking forward to all the adventures that await me once I get to Sydney...but also not looking forward to this part of my adventure being over and saying goodbye to everyone. It’s very odd to think that I am not going to see everyone every day!! And it’s going to be even weirder not having Rachel there every day to look after us but also just to hang out with us. But that’s how it goes, a trip like this was always going to be hard to say goodbye to...but luckily I have two weeks left and am feeling sad enough about the trip ending already to really enjoy everything Australia is going to throw at me...including the two weeks of bush camping we are about to embark upon!!! I have to say (and never thought that I would say this!!) but I can’t wait to get into my tent and get back to basics and cooking dinner over a camp fire!! I really have missed that part of the trip and the adventure and to do it in Australia in the middle of the Outback is going to be an amazing way to spend two weeks! Here’s hoping for plenty of clear skies to see that stars, and most importantly the moon J so if I disappear for the next two weeks you all know now that I am literally in the middle of nowhere but I will be keeping up to date on my blog so I will be able to fill you all in once I hit Sydney and get back to civilisation!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment