Indonesia

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This is a rather old travel jornal, but id like to store all my travel strories at one place, so i copied and pasted the text from my homepage


Airplane Sydney-Denpasar

Good bye Australia... It is somehow weird, i´m not really that sad. It was a very special time and I will miss all my friends I made over there.

Right now the Australian Outback is passing by below me and with every second people that begun to mean a lot to me get more distant.

However now there are new exciting things ahead of me. In about 4.5 hours I´ll be in Indonesia. I have to admit I´m a little bit nervous about the brothers picking me up from the airport. Hopefully we´ll recognize each other? The international brotherhood is a true blessing.

My main worry at the time is my ATM card... will Indonesian ATM Machines accept it?

Only 4 more hours... I´m still waiting for this great sadness, but somehow I don´t allow myself to think about the farewell... As soon as I start thinking of it my head blocks this at once...

Landing approach to Bali!!! The island is not even in sight and already I´m having tummy probs... A good sign? The weather is supposed to be great, 29 degrees...

The adventure is ahead!!



Hotel room, Kuta, Bali


This evening reminds me of my first night in Australia that i spent all alone in the appartment. Right now I feel really lonely, people that begun to mean a lot to me are scattered to all points of the compass....

It is extremely warm and I´m all alone on a bamboo bed in a jail-like "cell". Color peels off the walls an I´m watching it getting moldy. The door doesnt look very trustworthy and the "bath" is A CLASSIC!! (A water hose with cold water in a tyled room)

I´m already looking forward to the sunrise. I feel a bit eerie at the moment. I dont trust the people here. It is a struggle to go shopping and it is not even possible to take a proper walk. From all sides people yell "Very cheap souveniers" "Helloooooooooo!!!" "Hey baby where you going?" "Transport verrry cheap!!!" while people especially men get literally obstrusive breathing dirty invites after you.

Since the witnesses didnt pick me up from the airport I had to decide what to do and got a taxi to the closest town next to the airport - Kuta. After buing myself a SIM card (very funny to discuss mobile functions with someone who doesnt speak english ) that finally appeared not to work for overseas communication i went for an excessive price by taxi to Kuta. I dont like this place! Very touristy and the locals here are a bit appalling. Tomorrow I will leave this place! Will check with some backpackers here where to go next.

Since I arrived here I went to an internet cafe, got money exchanged (by the way my ATM card works!!), went for a lovely dinner and watched the sunset at the beach which was STUNNING. Made a poor attempt to call my family while having a lonely dinner but the connection lasted only for 1 minute. Anyway Either I will spend the rest of my trip crying about what happened or I will make the best out of it.. so I prefer the second option. Nicola everything will be alright...

Hotel Room, Ubud, Bali

It is 6.30am and I´m still in bed. Very soon there is gonna happen a ritual homicide as 2 cocks have been crowing for 2 hours full of ardency directly in front of my window!!! This is no normal cock-a-doodle-do but rather sounds like a mad pig running amok. The plan was to sleep in this morning as I will have a 15 hour bus ride over night today but as long as those 2 feathered creatures are on suicide mission (I´m gonna decapitate them!!) this won´t be possible!! Waaaahhh

Yesterday I arrived in Ubud, the art and culture capital of Bali (A short note: An old husky indonesian granny is communicating with the spirit world in Bahasa Indonesia. I just wanna sleep!!)

This town differs big time from Kuta. People still approch you on the streets (trrransport - Transporrrt, Sarrrrong verrrr-ry cheap") but far not as penetrant so it is fine. Quite interesting town! I was able to bargain the taxi fee down from Kuta to Ubud to 3 US $ (not too bad for an 1 hour drive i guess!?)

Previous experiences taught me not to leave the choice of a hotel up to a taxi driver (I suspect they got deals with a cousin or a friend who they got a deal with - "you bring me 10 tourists and I pay you 15%")

So I asked the taxi driver to drop me at the information desk where i asked for a hotel in a certain price category (always tell them about ur exact idea of the price) (at the time I´m travelling with 45 kg luggage as I was supposed to leave most of it with the witnesses who were gonna pick me up from the airport......)

At the info desk there were a few young guys with their motocycles and I asked them for a cheap place to stay. They were really helpful! One of them put my overdimensional suitcase on his motocycle (it must have weighed twice as much as himself...) and brought me to this really special place (looks like a temple - very cool here! ). Afterwards he brought me to that place where i was able to book a bus ticket for my trip to Central Java tomorrow (I´m gonna shoot myself... the trip is gonna take 15 hours, i´ll arrive at 8 in the morning in Yogjakarta )

This spontaneous helpfullness here is really amazing

Over day I visited the holy monkey forest where the first monkey i took a photo of attacked me!!!!


He tore my sarong and bit in it agian and again. Another monkey stole my water bottle (in this weather i carry one around with me all the time)

In the evening I visited a balinese dance festivalthat was so spectacular. In the end one of the dancers even danced on fire without burning his feet!!

Hotel Room, Yogjakarta, Central Java

I begin to feel a bit like in a comedy. Someone obviously doesnt like me to get some welldeserved sleep. Last night I spent behind an insane busdriver and was hoping to get some sleep in the hotel. First the hotel owner negotiated shrilly the price for a night with some other visitors. That went on for half an hour. Now prayers for ALLAH are pealing from rattling mosque speakers into every corner of the city. Well, I´ll get up now, get some breakfast and will check out the city. Oh yeah!!

Yesterday at 2.30pm the bus was supposed to leave from Ubung Busterminal in Denpasar. Whereever I looked, there were only dark brown people. Most tourists here probably only travel by plane, thats why i seem to be the only tourist (let alone european person - additionally the only white female one) here.

The bus trip was a crack up, never experienced some- or anything like that!!!!!

The bus left in the late afternoon from Ubung Busterminal in Denpasar/Bali. On the way to the harbor we crossed palmtree forests, rice fields, saw small villages until we finally arrived at the harbor. I was surprised to see how close Java is to Bali and watched a stunning sunset behind a big volcano on Java side.

Until we finally managed to get onto the ferry it was already late at night. While the bus was waiting for boarding the ferry beggars entered the bus, played guitar and asked everybody to give them some money afterwards. Also diverse street sellers offered us roasted bananas, peanuts and different sorts of drinks and snacks.

Finally the bus entered the inside of the ferry and everybody was supposed to leave the bus and go upstairs to the passenger area. I went upstairs, leaned onto the railing and watched the dark horizon while feeling the warm, humid and salty air on my face. It got late and later and again I felt a little bit errie when i noticed that i was the alien on the ferry. I said a short prayer and a few moments later the greatest thing happened: A young woman approached me. After introducing herself she asked me to join her and her brother as I looked quite lonely and lost to her. She was around my age and lived in Jakarta where she worked as a secretary, thats why her english was so well. (We are still in touch by email until today) At least I wasnt alone anymore and it really felt like my prayer was heard...

It was already around 11.30 at night when the ferry landed at Java port where everybody was supposed to get back onto their buses.

About 10 km behind the port our bus suddenly was stopped by a group of guys with sheets wrapped around their faces so only the eyes were visible. After a first shock moment they turned out to be harmless construction workers doing roadworks who asked the busdriver to hold on for a bit or they wanted road toll - whatever at least they let us pass.

At a bit after midnight we stopped at motorway restaurant and were handed out food coupons. The departure time was announced in indonesian (thanks to that one guy who spoke a bit english i had a translator for that)

The restaurant was a big hall with neon lamps (what a cosy atmosphere haha) and food was put onto a kind of buffet. One of the waiters spoke quite well english and helped me to figure out what food each one actually was. After eating i decided to return to the bus early and try to sleep a bit before my chaotic indonesian busgroup would return ;-)

Suddenly I felt someone besides me and when I looked up i recognized that waiter from the restaurant had taken down a seat right next to me. He had the whitest teeth ever that were shining in the dark and had a very boyish, cute face, dont think he was older than 20. He formed his lips for a kiss and when i looked puzzled at him he asked me "dooooo yooouu wantt ttto kiss meee?" I was lost for words but he even topped it by saying "i want mixxxed childrrrren" I wasn't able to say anything but laughed and asked him to leave immediately. He only left after I kept on ignoring him by just closing my eyes and telling him i wanna sleep now.

After a few minutes the bus was packed again and we headed towards Yogyakarta. The driver continued his insane driving manners and I did my best to disconnect and close my eyes imagining im somewere else.

In Indonesia people dont care if someone is heading towards you on the other lane, they just overtake no matter what. In regards of lanes the rule is : Make 3 out of 1.

Just for fun, a few parts out of the american consular info sheet

"Driving at night can be extremely dangerous outside of major urban areas. Drivers often refuse to use their lights, and most rural roads are unlit. Sometimes, residents in rural areas use road surfaces as public gathering areas, congregating on them after dark. At least one American citizen was involved in a fatal accident when his car hit a group lying on an unlit stretch of road (note from me: WHAT THE HECK WERE THEY DOING THERE!?)."

"Generally, awareness of road safety awareness is very low in Indonesia, although it is increasing. Buses and trucks are often dangerously overloaded and tend to travel at high speeds. Most roads outside major urban areas have a single lane of traffic in each direction, making passing dangerous. Most Indonesian drivers do not maintain a safe following distance in a manner familiar to U.S. drivers and tend to pass or maneuver with considerably less margin for error than in the United States. Although traffic in Indonesia moves on the left side of the road, drivers tend to pass on both sides and may use the shoulder for this purpose. It is common for drivers to create extra lanes regardless of the lane markings painted on the roads. Throughout the country, motor vehicles share the roads with other forms of transportation such as bicycle pedicabs, horse and ox carts, and pushcarts."

here a few more personal experiences

Never did I see so many motocycles, used by up to 4 headed families at the same time, red traffic lights are being ignored, and instead of brakes people use the horn. The whole thing gets spiced up by a chaos of rikshas, bikes and market stalls on wheels. At night it is nothing exceptional to see people riding their bike or motocycle on the middle of the road without lights. Always be prepared for construction sites appearing out of the blue in the middle of nowhere. If traffic comes from the other side while u try to overtake...well tough luck. Either u brake or the other one has to, otherwise u just drive into the bush.

Thats how i spent those 15 hours on the bus and after 2 punctures my "f-u-n-n-y" indonesian bus group and me finally arrived in Yogyakarta.

The next surprise was that i lost my Indo language guide. People outside Bali dont speak english very well so the chaos broke out again. A guy from my bus did his best to help me and so we managed somehow to tell the taxi driver what i wanted. This time I was too tired to let him drop me somewhere, i just asked him to bring me to any budget hotel.

My first impression of Yogya was a bit scary. I didnt see any white people, it was a quite big culture shock (this is my first time in a real nonwestern country.. and circumstances forced me to travel all by myself) . In this moment I thought "i´ll return to Bali" Fortunately the city looked more friendly than the suburbs we passed first and i finally found a cute small hotel with lush trees and bushes around not too far away from the main shopping road. Once I arrived the hotel owner gave me a cup of "welcome" tea, sat down with me and asked me what i was gonna see during my stay in Yogyakarta. He helped me organizing and planning 2 big trips i´m gonna do during the next 2 days (note 2 years later: he only ripped me off lol. Now I know). Tomorrow I´ll have to get up very early at already at 4 a.m. for being at BOROBUDUR ("temple of the hill", a big Buddhist Monument from the 9th century, one of the world wonders.


Hotel Room, yogyakarta, Central Java


I just returned from a trip around town and I feel like I really like this place.

At first I went shopping for increadibly cheap on the Jalan Malioboro. The first thing I found was this beautiful sarong for ~1 euro, then i bought several souvenirs, got bamboozled in an artistic centre though, ...

I returned to the hotel, had a siesta, went back into town and hired a riksha for an hour! That was fun! That old man (65 years old, man i felt bad that he had to kick the pedals while i was sitting comfortably...) spoke surprisingly well english and he told me about his life and his family. He´s working hard every day to get about 3 US$ per day in order to feed his family and to support his two boys. (I already know next time I´ll bring a bit more money so he can take a holiday for a couple of weeks, I am just a poor backpacker myself who has a tight budget at the time, he probavbly wanted to rip me off anyway like almost everybody here)

Anyway, he first took me to the sultans palace. I had a look, took a few pictures and then he went with me to the local market and showed me how locals bargain in bahasa indonesia, their language. That was fun!!! AFterwards he dropped me back at my hotel and i gave him a few extra rupiahs so he could relax the next day in regards of money and work

Today I found this AWESOME street cooker who has the best indo food ever. I doubt the hygiene wouldnt meet european standards but it is extremely yummy even though I stick mainly to vegetarian foods and chicken breast(i dont trust the meat here).


Later on I went to the internetcafe around the corner which is a really nice one with a cool atmosphere and Bob marley music. Just the computers are the slowest I´ve ever seen. For opening an ordinary e-mail it takes about 8 minutes (they got about 6 computers connected to one 56k modem)



Hotel room, Yogya, CJ

Right now it is 3.35 in the morning and again someone doesnt like me to sleep... The mu'azzin is making his adhan or prayer call which is LOUDLY hearable in every corner of the city. Muslims got 5 formal prayer calls every day,

Fajr (pre-dawn): This prayer starts off the day with the remembrance of God; it is performed before sunrise.

Dhuhr (noon): After the day's work has begun, one breaks shortly after noon to again remember God and seek His guidance.

'Asr (afternoon): In the late afternoon, people are usually busy wrapping up the day's work, getting kids home from school, etc. It is an important time to take a few minutes to remember God and the greater meaning of our lives.

Maghrib (sunset): Just after the sun goes down, Muslims remember God again as the day begins to come to a close.

'Isha (evening): Before retiring for the night, Muslims again take time to remember God's presence, guidance, mercy, and forgiveness.

Oh well, i have been up already anyway. The bus to Borubudur is gonna leave at 4.30 and I´ll try to have a shower with the garden hose in that tyled room people here call a bathroom :-)

I could have slept so much longer but I forgot to change the time from Bali time to Java time which is an hour difference. so i got up at 3 instead of 4 arrghhhh

My room neighbors are driving me up the wall right now because they make terrible sounds while sleeping. If it would be only a regular snoring i´d just try to ignore it but they rattle and breathe in max volume. The rooms here are 10 cm open at the top so i hear it as if they just sleep next to me. I tried several times to let my mobile alarm go off, but they seem to have fallen into a deep coma. GOSH maybe i could use that "toilet flush bucket" in order to give them a cold and wet awakening

I guess i´ll just get dressed quickly and make myself some tea downstairs and read a book down there......



Hotel room, yogya, CJ

What an awesome day!!!! The bus arrived in time in the morning and picked me up. We were a small group of 4 plus the driver while i was the only german. The other 3 were french backpackers (all of the few white tourists i saw here were french). AFter 20 minutes we had a puncture and had to return to the hotel where another bus picked us up.

We arrived shortly before sunrise at borobudur. The air was a bit chilly but the atmosphere was MAGICAL. You could see this huge huge old monument ahead of you surrounded by foggy mountains and palm trees. There was a scent of woods and earth in the air and it was absolutely silent and quiet.

The bus driver gave each one of us a coupon for breakfast at 9 and informed us where to meet up. This day the japanese roots within me came through again, i remember to ahev taken 2 full film rolls that day. It was just too amazing. Borobudur is supposed to be one of the world wonders and I can only agree with that, it was just amazing. It was built between 770 and 825 by Sailendra King Vishnu (or Dharmatunga). It was finished by king Samaratunga.

As the sun went up more people showed up and it begun to become really hot.

Most of the visitors were local school classes or indonesian families and I was kinda an attraction for them as they dont seem to have seen long blonde hair before. First a few young girls pointed shyly onto their camera and intended to take a pic of me. So by the end of the day i ended up in about 30 cameras (I´m not exaggerating) and felt like a star


After spending 1.5 magical hours at the monument i went shopping to the local market which was an experience also. I´m already quite good in bargaining and this is the most fun thing about shopping here.

Afterwards i met up with the french backpackers who experienced the same thing with photo crazy locals

Finally we went back to the bus who drove us to the next monument called PRAMBANAN. The architecture was even more stunning than borubudur but the atmosphere wasnt as magical.

The frenchs and me had a look around together until we finally returned to the bus, sweaty, thirsty and exhausted....

we were dropped back at our hotels and i arranged with one of the frenchs to meet up for lunch. He gave me some good tipps and a hotel address for kuta where to stay on my last day before i leave for germany again. At least i wont get bamboozled there again.

Afterwards i went into town, spend the half evening in an internetcafe and before dawn i returned to my room to catch some well deserved zzzzzzzzzz... Tomorrow will be another exciting day as I´ll be leaving for East java watching active volcanoes

-usual duties, internet cafe, dinner from that awesome street vendor, washing clothes



Probollinggo, East Java

Finally finally finally...... I arrived at the Hotel after a looooooooooooooooooooong bus ride. This time the ride fortunately wasnt as freaky as the first one, but maybe i´m getting used to it and my tolerance towards mad driving manners has grown a bit *G* I learnt just to trust the drivers here. The whole traffic system is different than at home but people here seem to be fine with it. According to statistics buses are safer than airplanes..... good joke mwahahaha. I figured out a way how to survive such a drive: when it gets too scary, i listen to some calm music on my discman (Thanks Marcelo for the Luis Miguel Album!! latin lovesongs work really calming to your nerves), wrap myself in a blanket, close my eyes and try not to pay attention to whats happening around me.

Anyway, this time it was a minibus and the driver reacted when i asked him to drive a bit more careful (even though he fell back into old driving patterns after a few minutes each time). The busride was very interesting. We crossed the country, saw smoking volcanoes, remote villages, a mosque with "JIHAD" written in big letters in the front, saw a stunning sunset....

In the late evening i arrived at yoshis hotel in probillinggo where i am now. Tomorrow i´ll have to get up very early, already at 2.30 a.m.!!! ... i must be nuts to do this on MY HOLIDAY!!! Other people sleep in and just have a relaxing time when they go on holiday... but not so on here So much to see and to discover!! Just cant resist to see those beautiful volcanoes during sunrise... For that we have to go by jeep for 1.5 hours through the mountains and dunes. OK time to sleep for Nicola now.... In 3 hours i already have to get up... i'm still exhausted from the busride...

it is 9.00 in the morning now and the average tourist gets up at around this time while I already spent 3 hours on a jeep, watched a sunrise, climbed a volcano, saw a volcanic eruption in the distance and stood right on top of the crather of another active volcano...

Together with 2 frenchs (how can this be different, of course they were french!! ) and one indonesian jeep driver we headed towards the volcano at 3.10 a.m. (Embarrassing, i was late as always, so we left 10 minutes late ) The way took us through a moon like landscape over steep slopes, big dunes, through a few bushes until we reached the top of the mountain from where we were supposed to have a great view over a couple of active volcanoes... When we left the jeep unfortunately it was as dark as it could only be.... no one told us to bring torches and so we did our best not to stumble over rocks and sticks in the darkness. It had some magic in it, the smell of nature, the wind whistling in the mountains and 2 voices having an excited conversation in french... Anyway, the further we went the more lively the area got and we finally met quite a few people on the lookout point. It was cold as!!!!!! Felt like in greenland!!

Then a slightly pink stripe appeared on the horizon, the sky turned into dark blue, then into orange colors and finally the orange sun appeared. The view was stunning!! It was unbelieveable to be at a place like that so i even forgot about the fact that i got up at 2.30 a.m.



The sun went up further and further and finally it was time to return to the jeep that took us down the mountain, and up to another plateau from where we could climb the Mount Bromo volcano. The view was AMAZING, the way up Mt Bromo wasnt as long but the crater itself was surprisingly deep. You could see smoke rising up and it smelt like sulfur. From the top of the crater there also was a great view to Mount Semeru, one of the most active volcanoes of the world that has been erupting continually since 1967 until today.



Unfortunately I got a nice sunburn, am exhausted from the day already and was gonna return to sleep but of course this was impossible as this Japanese couple next door probably discussed the weather or somewhat in max. Volume I think I'll just get myself a couple of coffees and it should be fine. Today I'll have a long overnight bus trip to Lombok....



Hotel room, Kuta/ Lombok, Central indonesia

It has already been 4 days since I arrived here but i wanna write down what has been happening here... It feels like a whole month passed since I arrived here and I went a bit through a scary time...

OK I will start from the day I left Probollingoo....

The bus picked me up at 3pm in the afternoon and it was gonna be another loooooooooooooong chaotic ride. The first bus took me until east java where i had to exchange buses in a tiny village. It was already dark but still really hot and i decided to get a bottle of fresh water from a shop. First of all i dropped most of my luggage at the bus station from where i went to explore the village. Once I crossed the road I was suddenly surrounded by a crowd of kids pointing with their fingers at me and touching my hair and arms. It felt a bit like theyve never seen a white person before. Dont know....

I finally got my bottle of water and suddenly heard muslim prayers from the backyard of a house. I was a little bit curious and just looked around the corner where i saw about 80 muslim men sitting in 2 big circles, moving and singing to the prayer that came out of a couple of speakers. One of the men saw me and asked me with gestures to come closer and to take a picture. I felt a little bit awkward as i was uncovered and wasnt sure whether it would be appropriate to have a closer look at those praying men.... But then the man suddenly posed in front of his motocycle and wanted me to take a picture of him.



That kind of broke the ice. A few other came and wanted to get a picture taken and finally asked me to take a pic of the whole crowd. OK i thought, sat down to get a better shot, but suddenly there was SILENCE. Everybody stared at me and i must have been as red as a tomato when i noticed that i just unplugged their stereo. For a second my heart stopped beating until i was able to apologize and disappear as quickly as possible...



Fortunately my bus arrived a couple of minutes later...

The trip to Lombok was very long, alltogether it took 20 hours till I arrived at my hotel. I arrived on Lombok with the local ferry which took about 5 hours to get from bali to Lombok.

I was tired but encountered another "nice" surprise when leaving the ferry. ABout 5 men were jumping at me yelling "transport verrrry cheap" while trying to tear me my luggage out of my hands (this time it was an advantage that my suitcase was so heavy hahaha) I finally ended up in a taxi with 2 guys who hardly spoke english. One of the guys sat in the back together with me asking me whether I'd be married and informed me proudly about his religion "I'm muslim, I'm muslim!!"

When I finally arrived at the hotel I found out that all my money was gone!!!!! I was devastated as I didnt even have enough money for the ferry back to bali, let alone the money for the departure fee for bali. I spoke to the hotel manager and told him about what happened. he was lovely and so helpful. He asked me to relax and that I wouldnt have to worry about paying for meals and drinks in the hotel as long as i wouldnt have money. He invited me for dinner and a cocktail and reassured me that there will be a way to get my money. I spent the entire afternoon making phonecalls to germany and asked my family to send me some money from my savings back home. (That lady at the phone center was so sweet - she saw that i was very worried about something and gave me a hand full of caramel sweets) Fortunately there appeared to be a way to receive the money within 24 hours. For that I had to go to Mataram the capital and pick the money up with a pincode.

The following morning I felt very sick and thought I was gonna die, I was so sick with high fever and the worst headache and stomach cramps. I couldn't even stand up. Eventually I made it up with a triple dose of flu tablets and arranged a taxi driver to take me to Mataram to get the money. On the way to Mataram I felt like fainting and lay down in the backseat. the driver got really worried and asked me if there would be anything he could do for me. He gave me a head massage and insisted on bringing me to a doctor. He took me to a medical centre where I really felt like in a 3rd world report, like in a mother theresa film. The examination rooms looked everything but sterile, doctors didnt bother closing curtains or doors while examining patients and no one (!!) spoke english!! I never wanna be seriously sick in Indonesia!! I heard that Indonesian people go to Australia or Singapore (as far as they've got the money which most dont have) for treatment of serious sicknesses or operations. How glad can we be to live in well developed countries with good insurances and high medical standards. Hard to imagine, the doctors fee was only 15 US-cents!! Patients were queueing up on banks and again I felt like a monkey in a cage - I was the only white person and people stared whispering at me. Fortunately my taxi driver spoke a bit of english and he was really sweet. He translated between the doctor and me and helped me not to feel too lost between all those dark staring people (I couldnt look more exotic for indonesian people hahahaha). Yes, Indonesian people are very helpful.
Show me a taxi driver in Australia or even better, in Germany who would offer you to bring you to a doctor when he sees you're not too well and one who would spend several hours with you there without charging extra money with the reason "All I want is that my customers are happy and healthy" After the doctor prescribed me medications my taxi driver took me to the bank. We sat together at the counter for getting the money and when the money was paid out I had to run quickly to the bath as I got those terrible cramps again and I didnt wanna faint in front of everybody..). 15 min later he waited for me with the money at the counter so I could receive it then. He told me to buy a lot of water so i would feel better soon and took me to a supermarket before he brought me back to my hotel which was another long and painful ride. In the supermarked I had to keep in mind always staying near by a bank or chair to sit down, as every five minutes this pain returned that made me weak and 3/4 faint (in case i found something to sit down in time, otherwise it would knock me out completely...) He didnt charge me any extra money for the extra hours he spent with me in Mataram!! (Of course I gave him extra money) Back at the hotel i took my medicine and once i laid down in bed everything was just a blur around me. The doctor wasn't sure if it is something serious... (even though i was good and got all neccessarry vaccinations...I'm still worried) The following 3 days were just a blur, i was so sick and had high fever and this pain wouldnt go away either In between I felt a bit better but this was only temporary. I'm still sick (it's getting better though) but i also would like to see abit of the island, so I went to this lovely beach, called maoun, around 5 km from here. I asked one of those guys who offer cheap transport on their motocycles to take me to that beach. It was so beautiful there. The beach was EMPTY, no people, the water glittered turquoise in the sun and the sand was WHITE. I begun to feel sick again and so had to return to my hotel already after a few hours. My motocycle driver sat down in the shade relaxing and waiting for me while i explored the beach. Peoples ability to relax over here is really admireable. I just returned from the beach, went to write a few emails and now I'm back in bed. WHAT A HOLIDAY!!
It seems like Indonesians are the friendliest and most helpful people on this earth and people travelling by themselves don´t need to worry about travelling through this country by themselves (I was so worried first) as you can ask anyone for help when you get in trouble and everyone will be happy to help. Some indonesians dont speak much english, so it can be worth learning some words of bahasa indonesia (I regret that i didnt do that), It may seem scary when you end up in a taxi with 2 guys on lombok who speak hardly any english, they might not be the friendliest seeming people but they wouldnt harm anyone as everybody here confirmed (When you take a taxi on lombok you´ll find out that there are usually 2 taxi drivers, in order to accompany each other and not because they intend to kidnap you)

Today was my final day on Lombok and I explored the village where I'm staying(Today is the first day i was able to eat a bit since i got so sick). The beach is not far either, one only needs to cross the road from where you can already sea the turquoise water. Kuta is still very original and extremely quiet in regards of tourism. A local explained that medias are spoiling indonesias reputation by reporting about terror and riots in a way that people believe it is a very dangerous country. The locals suffer under the lack of tourism, especially already quiet places like Kuta which isnt more than a village out in nature. This place is said to be one of those undiscovered holiday destinations and there are actually plans to build a few hotel chains during the next 10 years in and around kuta. I took a long walk along the beach, enjoyed the sun, met a few locals and had my favourite meal for lunch: Satay chicken!! Unfortunately I'm still having pain and my temperature is still above 38 so I decided to spend the afternoon in the shade under a palm tree at the pool. I closed my eyes, enjoyed the sounds and fragrances around me and let my thoughts drift away... Suddenly one of the waiters came along and brought me a choc-coffee milkshake!! He said they all were worried when i was so sick and the hotel stood me this milkshake for free! I was lost for words, it was so sweet of them and came so unexpectedly!!

As it is evening now I'm feeling sick again, guess its time to sleep for me now...



Good bye from Matahari Inn with its lovely, highly helpful staff! (this was also the best hotel in indonesia i ever stayed in. Very clean, nice atmosphere, beautiful room, bathroom with white tyles, a toilet as westerners know them and a big shower, a beautiful park with palms, tropical flowers and a nice pool) And the best of it was, it was truly affordable :-) I WILL BE BACK!!




Dua dura hotel, kuta/bali

Today it's finally my final day of this holiday.... A few hours ago I arrived back on Bali from where I will fly out tomorrow. Fortunately this time I had a hotel where i could go to without feeling ripped off as I followed the recommendation of that frencxh backpacker from java who stayed in this hotel a few weeks ago. It is in the middle of a massive shopping mall about 500 m away from the beach. I also just found out that that bomb site is only 150 m away from here as well

The trip from Lombok to Bali was very quiet and without any new shockers. This time I chose the fast boat but still the entire trip took again 12 hours... I will go to the internetcafe now and afterwards I'll go to sleep no matter how hard people around me will party, I'll have a 15 hour flight tomorrow...

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Photos

photocrazy girls :o)
i dont know how many people insisted on getting a picture taken of them with my camera that day :o)

.... again photocrazy people
next time u travel indonesia bring an extra film roll / an extra memory card only for photos people want you to take of them and sometimes even with you :o)