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Published: August 7th 2007
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Aaarrrhhh, just logged on and found out that the last couple of logs that I published have been lost!! Technical prob or something and they don’t think I’ll get them back, pants!! Anyway……….
Pangandaran
On leaving Jakarta I headed to the west coast of Java to Pangandaran. The bus journey had been quite comfortable (I pad extra to go on an air conditioned bus), though I was a bit concerned as the bus driver moved my bag to another compartment on the coach which was used for the smokers, which had another exit of the bus that I couldn’t see from my seat (putting the bag under the bus in the language compartment was also meant to be a big risk on these bus routes!). This meant the at any stop any of the local smokers could easily walk off with my backpack and take my only two pairs of M&S pants with them. Luckily my bag was safe ….
I arrived there at about 2am, where I was the only passenger dropped off my bus, at the ‘bus Terminal’, which seemed to be just a small camp fire by the side of the road with a
huddle of locals around it (in daylight I found it to be fairly large). As it was 2am and it was very dark with just a bunch of guys around a camp fire, I didn’t rally negotiate as is the custom in Asia and just paid the little extra and was taken by Rickshaw (probably quicker to walk!) into town. I was levied with an admission charge to enter the village which seems the norm in Java, though this only amounted to approx 20p.
Pangandaran was really nice, though tourism (its main source of income) had felt the ripple effect of the two Bali bombs, as tourism was quite slow. On top of this Pangandaran had been devasted by a Tsunami on the 17thy July 2006 (only one year ago), which had killed 500 people, any many of the hotels were still not up and running. The wave was approx 3m high and went inland upto 400m, spoke to some locals who said how they had been asleep at the time as it came at 6am, and was told of a story of how a toddler had been on a mattress that floated off with the wave, but had
been found on the beach still on the mattress fast asleep (blessed!).
Went on the no. 1 tour from Pangandaran to the
Green Canyon, so called for the colour of the water. We went on a boat trip up the river which runs through the forest by boat to a Waterfall and canyon where we stopped for swimming. This was followed by going to a local small village to see a traditional puppet maker. These were the three dimensional wooden puppets found in central and western java called Wayang Goleh.
Batu Karas
After puppet show we headed to Batu Karas where I decided to stay for a few days the lonely planet travel book said the surf was friendly for beginners. I had my first surf lessons and as expected I was pretty pants! Spent so long on this first day trying to surf that I got blisters all over my hands and cuts from the board rubbing so much on my knees and chest! Hey, but at least I stood up a couple of times and ”caught my first wave”.
Unfortunately one of the guys who I surfed with took all the pics and has
Borobudur Temple - Central Java
Shows the sheer scale of the temple. not emailed me yet, watch this space………….
Yogyakarta
Next stop (heading west across Java towards Bali) was the city of Yogyakarta. This city was ideally placed to see both
Borobudur and
Prambanan temples. Booked on a day trip which visited both sites on the same day. It was an early morning start so that we could get to Borobudur temple for the sunrise. Borobudur temple,1200 years old is one of south East Asia’s spectacular sites with comparisons being made with Ankor Wat in Cambodia and Bagan in Myanmar. Whilst I didn’t think it comparable to Ankor Wat, it was still an amazing structure looming out of the patchwork of bottle green paddies and swaying palm tops. Spent a delightful cool morning climbing to the top to the Buddha statues which sit only partly visible in latticed stupas on the top of the three terrace that make up Borobudur. I walked up the temple anti clockwise, then on returning to the bottom read from my travel book that all Buddha temples should be walked up clockwise (wondered why everyone was going the opposite direction!!).
As close by we also went to the Mendut temple and Candi Pawon
temples before heading to Prambanan temples after lunch. Prambanan is a Hindu temple complex and one of the best remaining examples of Java’s period of Hindu cultural development. All of the temples in the Prambana area were built between 8th-10th Century A.D. (Prambanan temple almost 50 years after Borobudur. Unfortunately an earthquake last year has caused these temples to be unsafe, and where as before you were able to walk straight up to the temples, they are now fenced off which was quite disappointing.
Yogyakarta itself had a couple of sites to see, but nothing of major interest….
Gunung Bromo
Again heading further west now only 1 day away from Bali headed to
Mount Bromo. Stayed the evening halfway up the mountain to do what seems to be the norm with trips, see the sunrise on Mount Bromo. Well actually visited
Gunung Penounjakan (2770m) the highest point on the outer crater. We got there by Jeeps, none of this mountain hiking that Amir and I endured in Borneo Malaysia thank you very much! This is where all the picture postcards of Bromo are taken, with Bromo in the foreground and Semery smoking in the
distance.
The sunrise was indeed beautiful and the sites here really wonderful to see. Really enjoyed seeing this and was well worth the detour.
Anyway I am actually off to Oz in a few hours, but next Blog will be from Bali, until next time
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marco patton
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Green Army
Glad to see that your doing your bit in the global effort of brand development and awareness for Plymouth Argyle especially in asia, keep up the good work.