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Kuch Be Hota Hai
If you are wondering about the strange title, well i think it perfectly sums up Indonesia. As a loose translation for all you non-Hindi speaking people it means anything can happen in Indonesia and it invariably does. Whether its soaking up the rays in Bali, climbing a volcano in Flip Flops, going to see a Ramayana ballet at the back of an ancient temple complex or having Indonesian Pharrel Williams type sing Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to us in Jaya's Pub in Jakarta. Anything can happen there.
From the beginning. Our first stop in Indonesia was Bali. Bali is an incredibly beautiful place, its the only Hindu Island in the Muslim archipelago and this has a strong influence on the culture and its people. Everywhere you go, there are beautiful Hindu temples, they really love Ganesh here and there is something really familiar about Balinese Hinduism and also something really exotic, that a thousand year separation from India produced. The people here are also quite religious and on everywhere in front of houses and street corners are offerings of rice and incense sticks. For me, as a Hindu it was a fascinating and amazing place to visit. This was also where we realised that Indonesians have a love affair for Bollywood. Everywhere we went, people would shout India and then burst into Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (that film was really popular here). Even when we were bargaining with people in shops they would say I am Shah Rukh Khans friend and we would reply "I am Amitabh Bachans friend can i have a discount?"
After Bali we took a bus to Java, and the first place we visited was Mount Bromo. This was a hilarious experience as the bus dropped us off in the middle of the night to this agent who had a Akshay Kumar calender (Bollywood is big) and he was trying to sell us a tour. Instead of accepting the price he was offering us at 3am, the Asian in us wouldn't allow it and our reply was "can we have a better price?" There was a Dutch couple with us Asterix and Sven and with them we managed to secure a better price. We then drove that morning to see the sunrise over the volcano. It was one of the most amazing things i have ever seen, it didn't look real, reds, oranges and purples looked like they had been painted and we were looking at some BBC set. Add to this the volcano was actually smoking, and so it was a pretty amazing morning. But it hadn't ended there.
We were dropped off to the base of the volcano as you can actually climb up it. We had to walk across a plain of ash, we were only wearing flip flops and socks so our feet would sink into the soil. Add to this we were surrounded by locals trying to sell us a pony ride. The ponies looked so small, it felt cruel for some well fed westerner to ride them. No Thankyou didn't deter them, they actually followed us all the way to the base of the stairs of the volcano hoping fatigue would make us relent. Did we? No. Another complication to walking along a plain of volcanic dust which has been trodden on by ponies was that there was a lot of pony crap. Flip flops in no way protect your feet from the external elements of dust and horse shit. We climbed the stairs to the top of the smoking volcano. I expected see red lava boiling, Lord of the Rings Style. It was just a blast crater smoking. The jury is still out on whether this was a worthwhile trek. Admittedly the view fro the top of the volcano was beautiful, in the plain in front of us was a solitary temple so it looked like a set piece out of Crouching Tiger it was amazing. The whole landscape looked unreal, it certainly gives the South Island of New Zealand a run for its money in most dramatic landscape setting.
After Mount Bromo we went to Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta is the cultural centre of the island of Java. I have to mention the place we stayed at there, because it was the most beautiful hostel i have ever been to so far. All the walls of the rooms had murials painted on them and each room was painted by the artist owner in a different style. I think the place was called Setia Kaswan Losman (don't quote me on this) but the paintings on the wall should make this place a tourist attraction. Also it was cheap which is always a bonus. In Yogyakarta we went to see Borobodur the second largest temple complex in South East Asia after Angkor. We also went to see Prabanam which is a Hindu temple complex from when the islands use to be ruled by Hindu Rajas. It was also incredibly beautiful, so strange to see ancient carvings of Shiva and Brahma in the middle of Java. After our visit to Prabanam we went to see a Ramayana Ballet. The Ramayan is a really popular story in Indonesia and it is used in a lot of cultural shows from ballets to shadow puppet shows. It was amazing. It was an open air theatre, the background was the actual Prabanam temple. The dancing was really beautiful, the audience cheered and clapped especially when Ram used his bow and arrow. The best part was when Hanuman set fire to the island of Lanka, the pyrotechnics were so good, you could feel the heat of the flames. Yogyakarta was one of the highlights of Indonesia its an amazing place.
After Yogyakarta we took a train to Jakarta as we had to fly from there to Singapore. Here is a word of caution for all you cheapskates out there. If it cost one pound more to take the airconditioned cabin, take it. Seven hours on a train in 30c heat with a crappy fan is very unpleasant. Jakarta is big noisy and polluted. The only thing of note there was Jaya's Pub. Thats right, i have a pub named after me in Indonesia. I knew my fame would spread : ). Actually the place is a cheers style pub mainly for rich locals, western ex-pats and businessmen. The highlight was the band. They were really young (with us probably the youngest people there) and they could sing so well in Indonesian, English and Hindi. They sang Kuch Kuch Hota Hai for us in perfect Hindi and their voices were really good. Actually they were quite talented that it was a shame they were wasting their talents on the old people in that joint.
As you can probably tell from the word count i really enjoyed Indonesia, its such a amazing place, the people are wonderful and we only saw two islands out of the estimated 17,000 islands that are supposed to make up the country. It definently merits a second or even tenth visit.
Jaya.
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inderjeet plaha
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one mum
good on you girls , after reading your blogs it was like we were traveling with you . loved it all . cant wait to see you all. love inderjeet