Blogs from Indonesia, Asia - page 11

We took a bus and a bus and a ferry to get to Lovina, and it dropped us off just when we'd been told it would. But due to the time differnce, 4:30am felt like 3:30am. Only Indomart was open. We all (6 of us, including myself and the Dutchman) sat on a curb to decide what to do. Luckily for us, a man came by on a motorbike and called a friend who had a hotel nearby. Within half an hour we were all tucked into clean beds and sound asleep. The Dutchman and I made our way to the hotel on the beach I'd already made a reservation at. Since it's not busy season we were hoping he could get a room, too. We were in luck--there was an opening and it was even ... read more

Orangutan: Tick! After waiting an hour at the feeding platform, no takers for bananas and milk so hitched onto a 3 hour trek further and higher into the rainforest. Still no luck after 2 hours when an extraordinary 20 year old 'gentleman of the trees' swung languidly across our path and elegantly snaffled a banana! He then continued some acrobatics for about 20 minutes before getting bored with us and swinging away into the canopy. Amazing! A hard act to follow really. It was followed by the appearence of 5 Thomas leaf monkeys ( we were told) with the most amazing faces and also partial to bananas like me. They peel them very deftly unlike me. That was yesterday. This is today. After 140 km ride , the last 45 going uphill from 50 to 1400m ... read more

Yesterday I took a van ride for 14 hours from Yogyakarta to the foot of Mount Bromo, an active volcano in eastern Java. It's 2,329 metres tall, so not the tallest, but certainly one of the most visited. I made friends with a Dutchman along the way and we chatted for much of the ride. We arrived at our hotel around 9pm. Somehow we (having booked the same place) were at one hotel and everyone else was further up the mountain. We paid more. We found out later that our hotel was far better, being clean, and having luxuries like hot water, warm blankets, onsight restaurant, and locatable staff. We were up at 3:30am for our 3:40 pick-up time. One person in our group was late or overslept, but our jeep driver refused to leave him ... read more

If you ever need to take the Pelni ferry to Medan from Bedan in Sumatra you just have to upgrade to 2nd class. The standard, though very cheap economy class is seriously unappealing. 2000 souls with baggage and kids, a 24 hour journey with appalling toilets ( floating floaters, need I type more) and dormitories to, well, avoid really. I'm now in Medan at the upper end of Sumatra. Just had a chest xray at the request of Australian immigration office, cost 10 pounds for the film, a report and a CDRom! Amazing. Especially as , having gone and got it, the Ozzies, blessem' have decided I don't need the bloody thing! Actually it's quite reassuring to see a nice normal CXR about 40 years after I had the last one. Meanwhile, I'm off to the ... read more

A perfect holiday allows one to simply do as one pleases. My first day here was one of those days. I slept in until 9, listening to the sounds of the birds. I enjoyed breakfast on my hotel's veranda and then set out to look for a journal and scarf. I walked down Malioboro Street and saw lots of purses, wallets, shoes, shirts, and skirts I would never wear. Block after block, and nothing I was looking for! Finally, I wandered into a mall and found a stationery store tucked in the back. I found a pretty notebook with a batik cover for about 1 USD which should work fine. After sipping on freshly squeezed orange juice, I failed to find a scarf, or at least one that isn't meant to be a Muslim head covering. ... read more

Bali Way of Life tour at our 14 Night gems of Southeast Asia cruise on celebrity Millennium. We were tended into Benoa harbor, where the tour bus was waiting. First stop was at a silver smithy in Celuk - the silver smithy was not so interesting, but it was very interesting to see the property and how the rich houses are decorated. We continued to Bangli where we visited a Hindu temple - here they were getting ready for a big ceremony next weekand the temple was being dressed up for the celebrationwith plenty of decorating. Everybody entering the temple are required to wear a sarong . After the temple we drove to Penglipuran, where we visited a traditional Hindu village where we had free time to wander around the village. The local people were very ... read more

Tendering process in Benoa, Bali at the 14 night Gems of Southeast Asia cruise on Celebrity Millennium. Tendering time from the Millennium into Benoa harbor was approx. 40 mins and in order to get all the passengers ashore in a timely matter, Celebrity had made arrangements with local companies and 2 large boats were doing the tendering in addition to the Millennium lifeboat tenders. The local captains on the two large boats were not experienced with tendering and did have some problems getting alongside the Millennium. Also the sea was quite choppy. In the early afternoon we took a tender into Benoa - a trip of about 30 minutes - here we took a taxi to Kuta a seaside resort on the southeast coast - we walked around town a few hours and then at the ... read more

Bali--Day 2 Royal Family Temple, Lake Temple and Sea temple Today the wind had dyed down so we went to a calm beach in the morning doing some jogging. It was early but the beach was very pretty. The waves were impressive. The beach indeed lived to its fame and some people were making offerings to the sea already. After 10 am we were on the car of a private driver. At $50 a day he would take us around for 10 hours. The road trip was exciting. Bali is the only place where so many temples can be seen everywhere. Along the road you see so many magnificient temples, some belong to individual family, others belong to the villages. I was told that each village has three temples and they are quite large. The front ... read more