Advertisement
Published: September 8th 2008
So running out of the hell hole that is Medan we arrive in Jakarta and what the lonely planet says is the Khao San Rd of Indo. (Que more Mockney accents!) It's a cronic shame but the backpacker population of Indo seems to have declined in a couple of years. There are warnings on the FO website and most of the travellers that come here seems to head straight for Bali and it's famous Kuta Beach party town, ignoring the beautiful and exciting Sumatra and Java islands. We didn't have much time to spend here, but we would've loved to hang around for a little longer just to see a bit more of this fantastic country. Go! It is more rugged than travelling in somewhere like Thailand and we did have a few 'interesting' journeys but that's just half the fun, isn't it?!
We arrived late at night, our train to Jogja was really early in the morning, there was a Euro game on and I'm travelling with boys - so of course it was an all nighter! Jalan, is nothing really like Khao San but definitely has a good vibe about it even though this comes from locals and
not a real backpacker population. The bar was surrounded by guys who didn't want to pay for drinks but wanted to watch the game on a big screen and were happy to sit in the street to do it! They're mad about football here and even though it was only the Euro, all the games were shown everywhere and the bars stayed open late to play it live. (we regularly got the piss taken out of us for not being in it by the Indo guys!) We went straight from the pub to the train station (after a detour for the best Indonesian curry I have ever tasted) and headed for Yogakarta. The train was completely lacking in anything like aircon and we were sticking to each other while we tried desperately to find a comfortable position for our inebriated sleep. Train journeys in Thailand were wonderful and cool and had beds; we had sticky leather seats and the funniest lady boy singer/guitar duo I have ever seen. You could only imagine my surprise as I, half comatose from heat and tiredness, started to come round as this lady, barely concealing her male origins in a stylish pink strappy top
and Denim mini, is singing in the most hilarious voice as high as she can get it, at the other end of the coach. She shimmies and sways her way up towards us with her little partner scurrying behind hoping to catch a couple thousand Rupiah from the poor unsuspecting passengers. To be honest I was in too much befuddled shock to actually give her anything, but I so wish I had!
We stayed in a fantastic little hostel; they don't actually call them that here but can't for the life of me remember what it was so will have to have a think, I just remember it being really cute! We had crazy murals all over the walls and ceilings and a very stressful afternoon trying to sort out shitty Tom bank stuff (why, if you had told the bank every single place you were travelling to, would they insist on blocking your card every time you tried to use it in a new place, Grrrrr!) So even though we had a pretty bad day on several fronts we did manage to book a tour for the next day which was expensive but we were on a schedule
and it meant we could get to see everything we wanted to see(and after the hellish couple of journeys we'd had, a big aircon car just for the three of us was very much appreciated!)
Around Jogja there are a couple of must see sights, the Buddhist "Borobudur" and Hindu "Prambanan". They are essentially temple sights and none of us are particularly historians, but they are beautiful. I was obviously photo happy and went around just trying to get the best shots to show off the immense, awe inspiring sights. Borobudur is a layered temple, graduating up the different levels to a final floor which is covered in massive, latticed stone bells; in the centre of which are stone carved Buddhas. It's quite incredible to see something like this, especially as we had a very long day ahead so had arrived very early in the morning; the palms that surrounded the temple were covered in a cold mist and early morning light crept over the stone carvings. After this going on to Prambanan was also very impressive because even when I look at the photos now I feel like it was a film set; like when you look at
a beautiful beach at sunset and say "Ooooh, how pretty, it looks like a postcard!" It was later by this time and the sun was beating down in typical Asian fashion. A little while ago Prambanan was the victim of an earthquake and some of the temples are still in the reconstruction stage, but we were able to get into one of them. The insides aren't that exciting but it is just so amazing to see something that big and detailed created just for prayer and now it seems just to be looked at! All this was quite lost on the boys who had already spent some time in south east Asia so had seen a lot of temples and the stunning sight of Angkor Wat. As we arrived we were accosted by a couple of little Muslim girls, we'd already talked to a couple in Borobudur and were tired so really didn't fancy it again, but not to be rude we begun the questioning - little did we know this was only the start! These girls were all on a school trip and were there to practise their English by grabbing any foreigner they could and asking them questions,
getting their names and sometimes even signatures. I think we would've spent half the amount of time at Prambanan if it hadn't been for these little ladies; since we were the only English people there at the time, we had a lot of talking to do and couldn't walk two steps without another girl group popping up just as we'd got rid of the last. In the beginning it was sweet, in the middle it was infuriating and at the end it was actually quite interesting. I begun to ask them more questions and find out what they were up to, they were all so sweet and respectful (obviously some of them though were having a bit of a skyve and would just ask you to write down your name, country and signature (a fake one!) and then run off - I kinda like these ones!) The boys just had a bit of a laugh, which the girls didn't quite understand, and started writing stuff like "Margate is the best!" in their books! I just hope the girls never look that up!
Even as we were waiting for our bus to Bromo the next morning a few
girls found their way into our hostel; luckily the bus came and we were able to make a quick get away - 7.30am is not a good time to talk to me! Bromo was FREEZING! It took us the whole day to get there in this little cramped minibus and we were starving with barely any clothes on, so the fresh mountain air at 9pm was a bit of a shock to the system. Were leaving at 4.30 the next morning to catch our jeep up to the sunrise view point. There are a couple of options when it comes to seeing this volcano - you can see it from the viewpoint, where you actually watch the sunrise with Mt Bromo in front of you or you can watch it from mt bromo itself after a hike from the town across the 'sea of sand' in the dark - Hmmmm! We went for the more expensive but nicer option. The Jeep took us up to the viewpoint and then after the sunrise drove us across the 'sea' to the base of Bromo, where we could then walk up and actually see inside the volcano. Matt and Tom's luck with this
kind of thing seemed to be holding out; they said they had always had brilliant viewings of stuff like this along their trip and said even though I had heard loads of people with bad experiences of Bromo (lots of cloud/bad weather etc) we would be lucky. And they were right; little buggers! we had the most beautiful sunrise, the sun rose to the left of the volcanoes and they slowly came into view in front of us as the orange light filtered across the landscape - Photo ops ahouy! When we arrived at the base the sand was being whipped up around us and the little men with their ponies would run up to you and offer to take you up the volcano, to the base of the convenient, if tiresome, stairs. Matt wanted to do it coz it was his first time, so we bartered (obviously!) and got the easy way up, I 'lost' my little man because he gave me the reins rather than leading me so I was even allowed to gallop for a little bit 😉 The volcano gave a great view and you could actually walk all the way around the rim - if
you wanted to fall in and die - there wasn't any hand rails, apart from at the point were the stairs came up and so the rest of the walk would've involved slipping on the loose shingle surface while walking along a path a couple of inches wide. Not exactly made for my accident prone self!
We went straight back and had to get onto Bali, where some of the girls the boys had been travelling with were waiting. After having to spend the minibus ride down to the bus perched on a little ledge behind the drivers seat, I was spectacularly happy to chill with a beer in the sun and then get on a big, comfy, aircon bus down to the port. We were warned at the time that there would be a little change of bus, but we did not expect a local of all local bus where there were regular appearances by singing buskers at every stop and 5 seats across the width. This meant only one cheek on the seat and the other hanging out in the aisle for me, who shared two seats with an Indo guy who couldn't keep his legs closed
Nice and Quiet
Tom walks through Borobudurand Tom being one of four sharing three seats, had a Muslim man using his shoulder as a pillow and his 4yr old daughter asleep on his lap. Try that with no aircon and because there was no aircon and this was Indo, smoking was allowed on the bus! (at least the chimney boys I was with were happy!) So a slightly manic minibus/VIP bus/local bus/ferry/local bus/taxi combo finally got us into Bali! Whoop WHoopp!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.051s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 19; dbt: 0.0233s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
