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Published: August 3rd 2009
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27th/28th July
A very emotional day leaving Manchester. We made it to Stansted about 10pm and hit the bar until check-in. We took off about 1.25 am, I was fairly appalled to discover that we weren't allowed to sleep - they started trollying curry around! Anyway, we got to sleep around 3am and slept for the majority of the 13 hour journey. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur around 9.30pm KL time and got a bus to our hotel. It was very nice and we chilled out and got to bed fairly early. At 5am I woke to the sound of what I thought was the air-con machine taking off, it turned out to be a monsoon! We were kept awake about an hour with VERY loud thunder and really heavy rain and huge sheets of lightening.
29th July
We wasted several hours in the airport waiting for our flight to Palembang which we board an hour or so late - they're very slap dash with domestic flights and nothing seemed to be very organised - how very unbritish! We arrive there about an hour later and shell over the $50 for our Visas and then head to
baggage collection to find our baggage isn't there! Turns out they managed to stick it all on another flight despite the fact we were an hour late to leave. So we booked a hotel at the airport and headed there for the night. To say that we were unimpressed with Palembang would be a major understatement as it was a complete hell hole, made worse by the fact that we had none of our stuff.
30th July
After a pretty horrid night we managed to get the receptionist to book us a flight to Jakarta for later that day and also locate our things. We headed to the airport and again, waited about an hour longer than we were meant to - we were at the airport about 6 hours in total. We arrive at Jakarta, once again at night and hop in a taxi - what we thought was a reputable one. He decides to take us on a hairy detour to a unlicensed gas station where we both thought our lives were over for a while! After tearing through the various ghettos at about 80mph we arrived at our hostel. This was pretty grim to say
the least - probably made worse by the fact we'd had the previous 2 nights in plush hotels. We went out for tea and sampled the local beer - Bintang and headed to bed early.
31st July
We woke at 5am today to the sound of Muslim preaching over loud speakers over the whole city (we later discover this happens 5 times a day everywhere in Indonesia!!) We spent the day in Jakarta - it's really busy and smoggy with thousands of bikes riding where they please, it was very chaotic and took us ages and then help from the locals to cross the road. Later we found a very tasty restaurant where we sampled the local delicacies for about 1 english pound a dish then we found another hostel for that night which was about half the price and really nice - we had a pool with fish and terrapins outside our room and the place was very relaxing. We booked a flight to Padang - North Sumatra in an attempt to get back to our plan. We bought some Indonesian flag patches and I taught Andy to sew, we put them on our rucksacks - we're
going to get 1 for each country. Then we played several games of Crash (thanks grandad) and had an early night.
1 August
Today we woke to the sound of goats and cockerels (thankfully we were out of earshot of the preaching in this hostel), there were also little lizards on our ceiling. We leave and wake a taxi driver from his morning nap to take us to the airport. At the airport while checking in (this took about an hour) I had a nasty turn and ended up fainting which wasn't so nice, a nice man with smelling salts took me to the medical center where I got checked over, the lady asked me about all the symptoms of swine flu (we'd already had temperature checks at all the airports for this). It turned out my blood pressure was too low as I hadn't eaten since the night before and it was now 1pm and boiling hot - think I scared Andy though, poor thing. After all this we tried to get some food to bring the ol' blood pressure up and could only find tofu and rice - YUM! We got off in Padang and met some local twins who were more than willing to help us with just about anything and got us to our 1st hostel here. The hostel was fairly grim and more bad luck - the electric goes! We went for something to eat and came back and lay around in candle light waiting for the electric (air-con) to come back on, which thankfully about an hour later to the sound of cheers it did.
2nd August
We moved to another hotel which was really bad - horrible horrible bathroom with a rotten door, leaking sink and filth everywhere. The only reason we stayed is because we'd already trekked about half an hour in the blistering heat with our rucksacks on. We went out to the markets and had a general mooch for as long as the heat would allow and then headed back for our daily nap. Later that day we met up with the twins again and took them out to dinner to thank them for their kindness. A few more drinks (mostly soft) it's very difficult to get a stiff drink over here as they're all staunch muslims and aren't allowed drink, pork, or girlfriends (tough times!)! More cards before bed.
3rd August
Today, up early doors and headed to find a bus to our current destination - Bukittinggi. With a little help from a local we grabbed an orange oplet (small, open mini van) to the bus station where we got harassed onto a bus to here. The journey was very long, not helped by the drum and bass playing in the back! Over taking on blind corners at high speeds with sheer drops either side seems to be rule of thumb. Thankfully we have found that Bukittinggi is very nice with beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and the people here seem much more chilled than in the city. We'll be glad to stay here for a few days before moving onto the crater lakes up north.
Overall we have found that the people of Indonesia are very friendly and helpful and the weather is always hot and the food wonderful, it gets a bit much being stared at all the time but I guess that's what you get being a minority!
More updates soon.
Much love,
Elli and Andy.
xxxx
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sophie
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The joys of travelling
Wow a lot has happened since you left hey - all part of the joys of traveling and something you will look back at and laugh about i hope ... not so funny is you fainting - get stuck into all that lovely food lady! Your bodies will be grateful for the soft drinks i bet as once you hit Thailand it will be drinks galore morning/day and night. Another happy day at the office here ;-) take care x