Blogs from Indonesia, Asia - page 15

It is time to say goodbye to the Swallow House, but before we leave we get to have another wonderful breakfast on the patio served by Uly. This time it was the fruit, with black rice and little mini-rice cakes. I also realized that I hadn't really posted any pictures of the guesthouse, so most of the pics on this blog are from the Swallow House (not the Nike Villas). We had time for a last dip in the pool, before packing up, saying our good-byes to Wayan, Uly and Coco the cat. Luckily, they were able to haul our bags on the motorbike down the path to the road, where are driver was waiting to take us to Sanur. The mileage to Sanur is only 20 miles, but the traffic in the various little villages ... read more

Today is Friday and we have been at the Swallow Guest House since Monday. I wasn’t sure how we would do with the slow pace, spotty wifi and rural setting, but it has been a nice change from our normally crazy life. The quiet countryside, where the only sounds are the roosters crowing, the odd sounding frogs croaking (there are several types and they all sound weird!) and the occasional motor scooter on the little path create a very serene setting. Our days of coffee on the patio, reading, writing, sleeping and swimming are a sure cure to any blood pressure issues and Ken has slept better than he has in years. Our only activity for the day is to head back into Ubud, get some more cash (this time 2.5 million rupiah=$180) which should last ... read more

Today we are doing some sightseeing with Wayan, but before we get started, we are treated to a wonderful breakfast from Uly delivered right to our porch. The food consisted of fresh local fruit including dragon fruit with beautiful bright purple flesh, along side a very different version of banana pancakes. As you can see from the picture, it is more like a dumpling with a banana covered in a green dough, which is colored by a local leaf (ground up and put in the dough). All were very yummy and a nice healthy way to start the day! Our first stop with Wayan was to the Tirta Empul Water Temple, where a spring is bubbling up from the ground. It then feeds water spouts in a pool where people come to get cleansed by the ... read more

We left Yogyakarta at 9am by train. Getting train tickets in Indonesia is pretty straightforward once you know how the system works. Kereta Api, the indonesia railway, has a website where you can easily book the train you want. However, many international credit cards are not accepted there. So we booked the train tickets easily on traveloka.com. You can chose between ekonomi class (lowest), bisnis class (middle), eksekutif (most expensive one) on normal trains. You pay the ticket by credit card and will be sent a confirmation. With the confirmation, just show up at the train station 1 hour before departure, scan the code on the confirmation at one of the machines and your final ticket will be printed. Easy, quick and really straightforward. We chose bisnis class for our trip from Yogyakarta to Probolinggo. And ... read more

We arrived with Air Asia early evening in Yogyakarta International Airport. Getting the free visa on arrival for 30 days (which can not be extended) was easy. No questions, no comments we did not even have to show our ticket of transport out of the country. We gave the customs our passports, without looking we got the stamps - that was it. It just started to pour down when we wanted to leave the airport. A real tropical thunderstorm. Problem with the storm: no WIFI which meant no grab car for us. But as we did not want to wait in the middle of really annoying taxi drivers we went through it and found a taxi driver with an ok price. Not as cheap as grab but still quite good. So we took the taxi and ... read more