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Published: January 12th 2007
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So where was i, oh yeah, meeting my friend mardi, throwing away ideas about budgets, and deciding on pulau pagang to be my next destination.
Although it cost a bit, it was so worthwhile. The island is situated just off the coast of Padang, absolutely nobody there, very robinson crusoe-like.
The days food was the days catch, i'm talking fresh fish, eaten by (right) hand.
All those years of parents trying to teach you not to touch your food, and then in indonesia just getting away with it. Absolutely love it.
Beforehand i bought a kamus (dictionary) in padang for as little as 2 euro.
So the 3 days i spend on pulau pagang i learned quite a bit of bahasa indonesia.
I had a great time snorkling right off the beach, including a big drop-off.
Unfortunately mardi, who had never snorkled before, stepped on some sort of sea urgent, Bulababi or something like that in indonesian language, so was in pain for a week orso, trying the get the spines out of his feet.
Interestingly, he trusted the local maningkabau way of treating it, by washing his hair, and dripping the run off water over his feet. Interesting. But it
worked allright.
Next stop was Jakarta, by cheap air asia. Didn't bother stopping over, so took a direct bus to Bogor. Found a good place to stay, overlooking the town and a volcano in the background.
The sound of 5 or 6 overlapping mosques calling for prayer sounded really amazing.
Visited the botanical gardens, wich were nice.
Here we also met myung, a dutch girl and another ozzie girl. Me and Mardi choose to take a bus to the highland town of Cibodas, and although we managed to do all our washing here, and lots of chilling out, the rain and mist made it not the most scenic place we visited.
Next up was Bandung by bus, a filthy, poor looking city.
Arrived in an horrifying rainstorm, the one with horizontal rain and cracking thunder, discovering my backpack with freshly washed laundry got soaked in the bottom of the bus.....
Stayed just the one night in a cool place with some youngsters who did lots of singing and guitar playing. Met up with the dutch and oz girl again too.
Unfortunately, was feeling a bit sick by then.
Next morning i had to drag myself from bed
to catch a train to yogya, joining mardi and myung.
Yogya was absolutely the opposite of bandung, clean, inviting and friendly.
Me being very sick by now, high fever and the lot, me and mardi only managed to visit Borobudur.
So decided on going to the local hospital. Discovered i had lost 6 kilo's in about 6 weeks of travellling! Got 4 different types of pills worth 20 euro and soon felt better.
By now i noticed my bankaccount wasn't keeping up with my spending, so had to send Mardi back to sumatra. Very sad to see him go, we said goodbye on the trainstation of yogya.
Mardi, i want to thank you ( although you don't have acces to the internet) for your company, you teaching me bahasa indonesia, and i promise we will see eachother again.
TERIMA KASIH BANYAK HARDI, AKU BERJANJI, AKU BERTEMASYA KE INDONESIA DI NOV 2007.
Choose to leave on the 26th of december by minibus via gunung bromo to bali.
Arrived in cemoro lawang very late, so did not see the amazing view that welcomed me the next morning. Decided to walk down the crater to the main volcano, wich was a good
coral
right on our doorstep choice.
The other option was going along with the other 95 % of tourists in their jeeps.
Had a great , peacefull walk along the crater, checked out the hindu temple and the steaming volcano next door. Again, absolutely amazing, just see the photo's, you'll know.
Ok, think i'll finish this blog in java, see you in the next one.
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Judy Rogers
non-member comment
Pagang
Have heard that it is very beautiful. Would like more information.