Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta (Yogya) is a hot and busy city famous for its Batik artists and Sultan palaces.  We have spent three days in the city and try to get up as early as possible to beat the heat that arrives as early as ten transforming us from enthusiastic sightseers to blobs of useless flesh.  We have no pool at our hotel but splurged for some air-com which is just what we need to cool off for a few hours every day.

The city has a lot to offer and we have seen most by foot, Batik artists, an old water castle used by the Sultan and Yogya’s elite, street food stalls galore and many markets.  We went to visit the Sultan’s palaces and having visited two already in Solo we went in with the intention of turning down anyone who offered to be our guide and just have a quick look around.  After paying for our tickets and entering the palace we heard a voice “I am your guide” we weren’t sure who had said it and then a petite 5’0”, 79 year old Indonesian lady walked between us and gave us stern jesters to follow, needless to say we did get a guide.  She walked very slow and introduced each hand railing to us as her best friend as we waited for her to slowly get up and down any stairs. Half the tour we learned about the palace and the other half we were brought up to speed about all that was happening with her children and about her husband’s passing several years ago.  She cracked several jokes most with a punch line that involved Colin falling in love with her and leaving me to stay in Yogya with her forever. Ended up being a great tour!

This morning was another early one as we headed out at 5am for the Buddhist temple of Borobudur.  Worn down by the heat Colin and I did little research into the temple before going and signed up on a whim so when we got to the temple and the morning mist lifted we were floored by what we saw.  At huge 1200 year old temple situated on a hill with each and every last inch of it covered in detailed stone carvings.  We walked around wide-eyed (suddenly very awake at 6am), the temple can see up to 90,000 visitor/day in the high season but we estimate that today there was no more than 80 people - making it that much more special.  Still in awe we hopped back in our van and headed to another temple, Prambanan, which is a mix of a Buddhist and Hindu temple.  While it was equally impressive our enthusiasm waned as the heat set in and once back in the city we retreated to our little oasis of cool air. 

Malang and Solo

Our first taste of the big city life on the Java Island of Indonesia was Malang. The city is home to 3 Universities and it is buzzing. It is off the main tourist “trail” so we found ourselves immersed within the locals (although 8” taller). We loved it as there were no tourist busses, hotels or restaurants to be found. Our hotel was probably one of the best hotels in the world around 1965, but with no upgrades, new furniture or changes it must have quickly fallen off the list. We experienced a great taste of Muslim culture as they wouldn’t give us a room with a queen bed because we couldn’t prove we were married with a marriage certificate, so we enjoyed side by side single beds!

We toured the city by foot, quickly realizing Java has some serious “traffic volume” compared to Bali. Scooter, Scooter, Scooter, Motorbike, Horse and Buggy, Scooter, Car, Bicycle, Scooter – NonStop. We put on a few miles in search of pedestrian overpasses to safely cross the streets. On our journey we walked  down “Millionaire Street” which is a bit out of place as there are dozens of homes built by the Dutch Colonialists in the early 1900’s, but have since been taken over by locals. Another benefit of eating with the locals is no “tourist prices” at the restaurants. $4.00 gets you a couple of fruit shakes, spring roll appetizer, and 2 main courses (Includes taxes and tip). Pretty good deal eh?

The journey continued to Solo via a 7 hour train ride. The city was left behind in the modern-ification of most Indonesian cities. We toured the local markets, and 2 different King Palaces. At night we enjoyed eating dinner in the streets; literally as you order your food from the food cart, they toss you a piece of carpet. You sit in the middle of the street waiting for your food to arrive. (No traffic aloud during dinner time!). Later in the evening we attended a theater show and caught part of an outdoor concert as it was a national holiday.

 We retired in the evening to the best & worst hotel we have stayed at the entire trip. The courtyard and entry was one of the most beautiful we had ever seen. In fact the hotel was given UNSECO world heritage site designation. Inside the rooms however was a bit different, no sink or mirror in the bathroom, pail of water to flush the toilet with, no sheets or bed-frame (Just a dirty old mattress on the floor. BUT – in the 39 degree heat it made up for all of that by having Air Conditioning! We used our trusty “sheet bags” and called it good.

COLIN

Back to Bali and beyond

Our flight back to Bali was quick, smooth and smoking free!  We headed to the sleepy tourist town of Sanur where we walked the long beach boardwalk and sat for several hours people watching as it was a Sunday and locals were out with their families. We had a great streak of luck and stumbled upon a Sunday food market that served up a great lunch and we discovered the joys of Indonesian sweets most involving some kind of mixture of coconut, rice and palm sugar. 

Apparently fishing here is a dangerous sport... 

From Sanur we made the slow and windy trip to the mountain town of Munduk.   Munduk is situated high up on a mountain top with views one way over the rice paddies and the ocean to the other.  There are only a couple hotels and just a scattering of tourists and we enjoyed experiencing the town that survives mainly on its farming of things such as rice, cloves and fruit.  We visited a great waterfall down a slippery path and on our second day hired a guide who navigated us through the rice paddies and hundreds of little paths to a tree that reminded us both of the Home Tree from Avatar, it was over 700 years old and families used to live in it.  It never fails that when Colin and I are huffing and puffing, hunched over, sweat getting into our eyes every time we blink, the local guides just walk along as if they’re just out for a leisurely stroll and almost board with our slow pace, our apologies to the board hiking guides around the world.  We really enjoyed the quietness of Munduk and its refreshing cool mountain air. 

Seeing as we have just over a week left in Indonesia we decided to start making our way to Java.  We left quiet Munduck and spent the next 13hrs enroute to Bromo National Park.  Our travels included a car, a ferry (that traveled the first half of the trip at 4km/hr and must have thought that was way too fast as we slowed to a good 1km/hr for the second half) a bus and a mini bus.  While our trip was long we met lots of fun locals, mainly those our age who wanted to know all about our travels and gave us helpful advice and tips for travel.  We arrived pretty tired at Bromo at 9pm and the got up at 3am in the morning to catch the sunrise over the volcanoes around.  Only one slight problem, clouds and therefore no sunrise, or at least not a very spectacular one, we did however have a great hike and just before we boarded our little bus back to town the skies cleared and we had a fabulous view of the crater within an even larger carter that is Bromo.

Always a sign of a good hike

noodles!!!!!!!

Our view at Sunrise

It got a little better

Bromo

Lombok, Indonesia

Our journey back to Gili Island to wait out the rough seas was an interesting adventure to say the least. We had booked our shuttle bus ride to the Harbor along with our boat ticket the previous day. They rushed us up the coast to the Harbor which happened to be closed, with all the boats landed around the peninsula out of the wind. 

We “mud bogged” our way through the bush to get to the shoreline where the boats now resided. We were suddenly engulfed by total and complete chaos. There were shuttle busses stuck in the mud everywhere, 100’s of tourists and their luggage abandoned all over the place, and locals relentlessly running, yelling, screaming all around as if they were in the New York Stock Exchange pits! The tourists had arrived from Gili earlier in the morning expecting to catch bigger boats to Bali. One problem being the bigger boats were not coming as the sea was too rough to get there. We took one look at the little wooden fishing boat they had reserved for us, and noticing the raging sea - No Thanks! We hitched the first ride we could find back into town to the nearest travel agency to book a flight back to Bali.

Knowing we wouldn’t have to get on the sea, we were able to watch the wind storm from the safety of our hotel. The wind was howling, knocking over trees and signs producing monster waves slamming into shore. We enjoyed some pizza and watched the waves splash up onto the resort grounds. This also proved to be a good time to empty the large ant colony out of Renee’s backpack which she had unknowingly carried around on your back for a couple days. We estimated Renee had become the mother of 200 or more of the little guys.

Tomorrow we make the short flight from Lombok back to Bali. According to our travel agent “By the time you sit in your seat and light your cigarette, you have landed in Bali.”  Apparently I need to go buy some smokes before they let me fly to Bali.

On a side note, I wanted to share a comment from our tour guide “Gana” from Lombok. He had just finished telling Renee and I that it is legal for a man to have 4 wives at once. Renee and I asked him if he has any wives. His response in a thick Indonesian accent was   “I will start looking shortly, mainly using my smooth talking skills. If that doesn’t work I will use my spear gun, and if that doesn’t work I have a BIG net!” So that apparently is how you get yourself 4 wives in Lombok?!...haha

COLIN