Blogs from Indonesia, Asia - page 617

Before I go on just a quick note to say Hi to Rob and Jaks and happy Birthday Rob you old git :-) Your present is in the post but you know what the South-east asian postal surface is like. Take care 6/03/04 - Now DEAR ALL We spent a night in Medan before meeting our course leader, Anthony, and two other volunteers Saskia and Franz poo poo pants from Holland before heading off to Bukit Lawang. The first 3 days were spent acclimatizing to both the weather, and the toiletry customs (yes Baby wipes were used!) We also carried out some field assistant tasks, which included filling test tubes with preservative (used to keep Orang poo) and data entry. Cindy and I amused ourselves by talking in silly voices the whole time we were entering ... read more

Do a Google search on 'Flores' and you will see that this far out Indonesian island gained worldwide attention last year as the place where they found a little 'hobbit' person's remains. Only about 12000 years old, it is supposedly a previously unknown human relative. Ardent evolutionists and creationists have been jumping up and down in their armchairs about it ever since. The scenery in Flores is utterly brilliant. It is up there with Laos. Maybe it is better - it would be a great place to explore by motorbike for a couple of weeks. The other surprising thing is that the people are mostly catholic. Tin shack churches replace the more familiar mosques of other parts of Indonesia. Seems like the Portuguese missionaries did a proper job when they were here. Everyone is called Bernard, ... read more

After blowing my budget to pieces in Thailand with the dive trip, I decided to hot - foot it through Malaysia (thought it was a bit crap last time and couldn't be arsed to give it a second go) and make my way to Jakarta in record time. It was a fairly pain-free journey to the port of Melaka, Malaysia - if you consider 36 hours on a sleeper train and 3 buses pain-free (does this make me a 'guru-traveller'? I hope not - I haven't been to India and I don't have those stupid huge hole things in my ears yet). I stayed the night in Melaka. I told the guesthouse owner that I was getting the next ferry to Dumai, Indonesia the next morning. I was filled with stories of travellers being poisoned in ... read more

Arrived at Denpasar Airport after our 6 hour flight from Sydney on time, around 4:30pm. As we arrived we were told on the plane by the pilot that it was around 36 degrees which didn't sound so bad. Although when we got through customs and outside the airport the humidity really took over and was really hard to come to terms with. We got a taxi to our hotel which was called the "Flora beach Hotel" in Kuta. This place was very ordinary, small, dirty and the doorknob practically falling off the door. If I had travelled to Bali or even overseas before and had the experience it probably wouldn't of worried me, however this was my first trip and felt very unsafe. We then left our gear and went for a walk around the streets. ... read more

Photos at: Java-Bali Pics Trip Diary ----------- Dec 25 - Sat Silkair flight at 08:30 from SIN to Solo. Flight still had a few spare seats. Got a window seat. Landed in Solo about 9am++. Clear weather. Solo is 1 hour behind. Small airport with one other plane - Garuda - parked. Immigration counter has 2 booths - 1 for visitors and 1 for Indonesians. VISA-on-arrival available but not required for me. Baggage collection -- no conveyor belt. Manually delivered to passengers after cross-checking ticket. Taxi ticket counter outside. Met Satheesh -- Indian living in Singapore, working for Kanbay. Heavy smoker. He is headed to Solo while I want to go to Balikpapan kereta api station (train). Together, taxi cost us 50k Rupiah. From Balikpapan, regular trains to Yogja. I got the 11.30am ... read more