Exploring Indonesia

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Ok. Finally. I’ve managed to sit down to write about my week in Indonesia. I left EARLY Saturday morning with David, who was taking a flight to Japan. We said goodbye at the airport. Like GOODBYE (?) goodbye, because he isn’t coming back to Korea, but we might see each other in the future in China. So it went something like “See you around…maybe.” I headed to my gate where I ran into a bunch of friends who work at a different school. Just about every foreign teacher from their school was taking this morning flight to Kuala Lumpur, and then heading on to different locations. This included my friend, Sam, who I was travelling with and was currently planning on meeting up with in Kuala Lumpur. Being on the same flight makes that a heck of a lot easier! I even got to sit next to a couple of the other teachers on the flight over. Win.

After landing in Kuala Lumpur, I felt strangely at home after my vacation last year. I felt like a local, leading Sam around. I knew the easiest, cheapest way into the city (take the shuttle buses, fyi) and I knew how to work the train system to get to Chinatown, where our hostel was. I even helped this French tourist figure it out. I was feeling pretty cool. Until we found out that they’d switch from a card system to a coin system, which we had to ask for help with. And then we couldn’t find the hostel within Chinatown for awhile. But we saw the basics: Chinatown, Petronas Towers, got drinks at the Reggae Bar.

Our hostel was fantastic in that it had a bed and cost me $2 for the night. Privacy is overrated. And really, I was the obnoxious guest, packing up and leaving at 3:30 in the morning. Sam came to say goodbye, as she was headed to Singapore instead, which I think annoyed the people closest to the door, but they probably paid $1.50, so whatever. I was supposed to meet another friend, Analynn, the next day in Indonesia. She was supposed to already be in Yogyakarta, but there was a problem and she missed her train. So instead of meeting her at a hostel, I had to find the hostel and pick her up at the train station. That’s fine. Deep breath. I flew to Yogyakarta and luckily had taken out money in Indonesian rupiahs before I left Incheon, because the people who didn’t have rupiahs on them had a difficult time paying for the visa. I tried to take a train from the airport to the city center, but after staring at the train schedule for several minutes and not finding anything that looked familiar, I gave up and took a cab.

I knew the street I was looking for, since I had written it down before leaving Kuala Lumpur, so my cab driver had to help me find a hostel. Obviously he took me to some upscale ones until I kept laughing at him and asking for someplace cheaper. We finally found a place that seemed doable and I took the room and immediately fell asleep for something like 5 hours. I woke up and made my way to the train station to wait for Analynn to get in. It took awhile because some local kids were trying to help her out, which they did. They were actually pointing her in the direction of the exit. Just not in the direction of the station, where I was sitting. We did some basic exploring of Malioboro St., the main tourist-oriented street in Yogyakarta and signed up for a tour the next day.

Obviously we took the earliest tour, because I wasn’t sleep-deprived enough and we had to see the sun rise over Borobudur, one of Yogyakarta’s main attractions. It was about an hour drive in a van full of French people. Not that that’s not pleasant. It was just shocking how many of the tourists in Indonesia were French. We talked to some French tourists later and they pointed out that they DO get a ridiculous amount of vacation time. So more power to them. Our tour took us to Borobudur, a large Buddhist temple, Candi Menut, a small Buddhist temple, and Prambanan, a large Hindu temple complex. They were all stunning and it was definitely an awesome tour. The sunrise at Borobudur wasn’t particularly spectacular, but it was nice to have the tour finished with by about 2 pm, since it was getting extremely hot!

We left on a train to Surabaya the next day, which is where we could catch another train that would take us to the coast, where we could get a ferry, where we could get a car, to take us to a small town on Bali. We had a long couple of days ahead of us. We left for Surabaya fairly late in the day and took a train that only had executive class seats. I obviously sat with a large French family, because Indonesia. People walked up and down the aisles with refreshments. It was lovely. Surabaya at night was a bit scary. Especially when our car drove us to our hostel of choice. A little on the sketchy side, but again. Functional, with a fantastically safe lock.

The next morning we headed to the train station to buy our train tickets to the coast. It turned out that the next train was going to be a few hours. Or like, a lot of hours. But we had an air-conditioned Dunkin Donuts with wi-fi and outlets. So we were fine. I thought it was hilarious that I could eat at Dunkin Donuts in the middle-of-nowhere, Indonesia, while my mother cannot do the same in the Colorado. So there. We watched The Daily Show. It was fantastic. What was really funny about the train station in Surabaya is that there is very clearly a “wrong side of the tracks”. Dunkin Donuts was on the right side of the tracks, obviously. They also had a nice convenience store, where I bought Kleenex. And a bathroom with a Western-style toilet! I freaked out over that a little. But then! We went to the other side of the tracks about an hour before our train arrived. And I tried to use the bathroom over there. Not even a hole in the ground. I just walked into a room. With a depression in the doorway and a hole in the wall next to it. This was a bathroom. So.

The other shocking thing about our train from Surabaya was that we could take coach. Which we did. And it was fantastic! I want it to be known before I start that I loved every minute of it, but I’m not sure that’s going to be clear from my description. But it was actually the best part of my vacation. So. Here we go. We had immense problems finding our seats because the aisles were filled with people and belongings and then someone was sitting in our seats. So we had to ask a few employees to help us out before it all got straightened. The seats were not the lovely bucket seats/feet rests of the train before, but wooden benches. You could have a cushion for a fee, so no thank you. We were seated facing the doorway, which was left open most of the trip, allowing dirt and things to fly into the car from time to time. When we left we looked really tan because of all the dirt on us. Also, at one point a piece of trash flew in through the window and hit me in the face. I laughed, because it was really funny. Analynn bought at least one of just about every dish that passed us from the people who get on the train and ride for a couple of stops before going in the opposite direction. We didn’t know what most of it was, but were pleasantly surprised by all of it. Some of it we could read because we’re really good at speaking Malaysian/Indonesian. (not the exact same language, but extremely close. They’re both forms of Malay) At least enough to know that “Roti Goreng” means “Fried Bread” and I want some of that. We also got to try jackfruit and sour plums for the first time. I highly recommend the jackfruit, not so much the sour plums. Be warned that when you ask for any sort of juice or iced tea, it will be served with what seems like an entire kilo of sugar.

We got to the coast somewhere around 11, I believe, as our train took much longer than we had originally been told. We then had to walk to the ferry station. (I wish that these sorts of locations had signs so people didn’t just wander around stations, following other foreigners, but pretending they aren’t. Because that’s awkward.) A man on the ferry offered to drive us to the city we were looking for, and when we politely declined, he yelled at us loudly. He would walk away and walk past again, so that he could continue to yell. That was also fun. We started talking to the other two foreigners on the ferry, who had also declined the gentleman’s offer. They were NOT French, but Spanish. We decided to get a car together, since their location was a bit down the road from ours. We managed to haggle together to get the price of a midnight car to locations an hour and two away to a quite reasonable number. We had to wake up the people who owned the hostels in the middle of the night, but everything worked out all right.

Early the next morning, we went snorkeling, while Sam went scuba diving. (We met back up with her in Bali.) Bali, by the way, is gorgeous. I know, I know. Everyone always talks about how ugly Bali is, but really it’s fantastic. One of the things I like the most about scuba trips is that you get to eat lunch on the boat. And lunches that get taken out on boats are always the most delicious, for some reason. There’s always rice, and chicken, and fresh fruit, and soda in glass bottles. I love it.

Our resort on Bali was the most gorgeous place I think I’ve ever been, because I actually paid really people money for it instead of $2. It was stunning. It was right on the beach and the people who worked there swept up the dead leaves every morning, leaving behind the flowers. We also got to release baby sea turtles into the wild, which was really freaking cool. I got to hold a baby sea turtle in my hand. So. We also managed to visit a couple of temples in the area. They were covered in monkeys, so I was on guard the entire time. I hate monkeys. It’s a little known fact. They will steal everything from you and attack you and bite you and they’re horrible. But the temples were cool! We got to borrow saris from them so that we could explore the whole thing.

We had a bit of a miscommunication leaving the town on our last day. Sort of ended up in a fight with every dude in town. BUT we got on the road on time and managed to sort out the problem on the way. Unfortunately, someone promised to relay a message that never got relayed. It can be difficult to tell sometimes who actually understands English and who’s good at pretending.

But that was my trip to Indonesia. I loved it and I would love to see more. There are so many more islands to experience! And surfing! And orangutans!

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