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Published: August 13th 2007
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Surfer
Jimbaran Bay, Bali Hi there,
This will be the last entry on our travelblog (weep) as the trip has sadly reached it's conclusion.
The story picks up from Borneo. After we left the land of the forest man (orangutan), we headed to Indonesia - an archipelago of 100's (maybe 1000's - am not really sure) of islands. Indonesia is right in the Pacific Ring of Fire. It is the Ring of Fire. Basically these are islands formed from huge volcanic eruptions. This is the home of Krakatau, whose eruption was so mammoth, that it blew itself apart, and teh bang echoed around the world for 9 days. Really. Anyway, enough dramatic eulogising about volcanoes for now - we will come back to them later.
We headed to Bali, home of one of the biggest surf breaks in the world, spas, beautiful beaches, and lots more. The plan was to have a few days of beach relaxation, then to head to the island of Flores, where we could then sail to Komodo, home of the dragon, and a massive marine park where you can dive with huge manta rays and whale sharks, amongst lots of other exciting underwater beasties. Unfortunately, only 2
Mmmm. Bintang Beer!
Sunset, Jimabaran Bay dodgy little local airlines fly there, and the flights were totally full for the next 2 weeks. Even trying to bribe the arilne poeple didn't work, which means that they were serioulsy oversubscribed! ( A deviation off thew point here: Indoneiian airlines have such terrible safety standards, that they are not alloed to land anywhere in the EU). The only way of getting to Flores then, was by means of boat, and we had been warned lots that vessels were barely seaworthy, and the journey took 3 days each way. Not wishing to end up like Jeramiah and get eaten by a whale, we decided to cut our losses, and head somewhere else. Which was such a shame, as Anton had really been looking forward to going, and we had our accommodation in an eco lodge and boat where you sleep on the deck under the stars, booked. Nevermind. So we decided insetad to head to Yogyakarta, in Central Java.
Yogyakarta is like the cultural second city to Jarkarta. It is where lots of Javanese art and music and other things of culture originated. It is also the home of batik (usually brown, swirly patterned material). We stayed in
a funky coffee shop that had rooms attached - every morning we had the most fabulous breakfast of banana pancakes and Javanese coffee - yummm! Just outsied Yogyakarta are the temples of Prambanan and Borobodur - they are really fantastic - like Indonesia's answer to Angor Watt. We vistited the temples at sunset, which would have been nice, except for the clouds that prevented us from seeing very much! We visited the Kraton, the Sultan's palace where he still lives. We alo visited a very sad bird market - everywhere there wer caged birds and animals - owls, parrots, birds of paradise, bats, snakes, dogs etc. The only interesting bit was the canary section - canary singing competitions are big in Indonesia - a prize canary can sell for 10 grand sterling. Crazy. Everywhere we went in Indonesia, we were appraoched by people who would invariably ask:
Them: Hello, what is your name?
Us: Anton and Nicola
Them: Ahh. Meester Anton, where are you from?
Us: England.
Them: Ahh Inglang. You like Manchester United.
Anton: No, Liverpool.
Them: We like MU.
Anton: That's your mistake then, isn't it.
Them: What?
Me: Nothing, he's just kidding.
Them: Oh. Do you
Batik man
Yogyakarta want to come and see my cousin's batik shop? Please? (pleading eyes).
Us:Errrm....
but almost everytime we ended up in a batik shop, meeting the person's whole family, and buying something we didn't need.
Indonesian people are super super friendly. We loved chatting to them - they were always really interested in you, and the majority of the time, not for any reason other than just to chat, because they are curious about you. It was really nice. Everywhere we went, people smiled, waved or wished us good day. Indonesia seemed like a very cheerful place, despite all the horrible things that have happened there - the tsunami, bombings, earthquakes, eruptions. Which is a testament to the strength of the people's spirit. It was a very lovely place to be.
Anton decided that because e missed out on the dragons, that we had to climb a volcano. The volcano outside Yogyakarta is called Gunung Merapi. It is an active volcano. Yep, active. And Anton wanted to, in true Anton style, climb it. Indonesia has around 126 active volcanos. The last time Merapi erupted was last year, in May. We could see Merapi from Yogayakarta, and on a
clear day, you could see it smoking. So, yes, I was a bit worried about climbing it. Yogyakarta had, also last year, experienced a huge earthquke that killed about 6000 people. So this is a very geologically active place. We decided (I use the term 'we' loosely - I was not driving the car here), to climb Merapi in the middle of the night, so that we could reach the peak at sunrise. We would be the first non-local people since the last eruption, to climb it. This is a 5 hour climb up, and a 4 hour climb down. We drove to a village at the foot of Merapi, fortified ourselves with tea at a losmen (guesthouse), met our guide and other climbers (who included a volcanologist - yay!). We set off, in the poich balck, guided only by our torches. It was 1 am. We would walk up a road, which then stopped, then through some jungle, then up, up, up. From the start, it was very hard going - it was so so steep.
After an hour, my knee (the one I had an operation on) started to really hurt. I chatted to Anton and the
guide, and made the decision to go back down. The other option was to keep going, and if I had to stop, they would make a fire, and leave me on the side of the volcano, and get me on the way down. NO CHANCE. There was no way I was waiting in the pitch black freezing cold, with only a small fire to keep me company, on the side of an active volcano. So, I went down, and found myself banging on a guesthouse door, and sleeping in a room that looked like a torture chamber, with spiders and rats to keep me company. Meanwhile, Anton and the others toiled up the volcano. Anton told me after that it was a good job I had turned back. Another climber, a French guy who had spent the last month diving and climbing (so not unfit) told me that had he known it was going to be so hard, he wouldn't have gone. Apparently, the type of surface they were walikng on would change really frequebtly - one mitute they were trekking through boulders, the next scree, the next razor sharp rocks, all in the dark. But sunrise was absolutely amazing,
and made all the hard trekking worth it especially when the volcano revealed itself. They found that they had trekked to above cloud level, and that they could see the flumes of smoke coming out of the volcano's sulphurous core.
After we left Yogyakarta, we headed back to Bali, where Anton surpised me with a stay in a very very nice hotel - we had a butler and 2 hours of spa treatments everyday - bliss! We heard here that the day after we left Yogyakarta, Merapi erupted.......only a small eruption, but still.....! Then the tectonic plates underneath our feet decided to push together and we experienced our very first earthquke. A 7.4. richter earthquake hit Java, and Bali is at the tip of Java. It was less serious where we were, as we weren't at the epicentre of the quake, but it still was not pleasant at all. The ground and buildings started to shake, and it continued for about a minute. I was in a different building from Anton, and was very scared! It was like someone had picked up the room and was shaking it about.
Then, the next day, we left Bali, and begun
Anton touching a Buddha's foot
Makes all your dreams come true...apparently! our long journey home, via Malaysia. We were supposed to go home via Beijing, but had some visa issues. I can't believe it is the end of the trip - we have had the most fantastic time, seen some great things, and met some brilliant people. (We have alo had some not nice experiences, camel vodka probably being the worst). So home now to flooding and normal life.....we are planning the next trip to keep us going!
Thanks for reading!
Nic and Anton. xxx
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