Wonderful Bali

I send greetings from Bali, a wonderful island to celebrate holiday, some different athmosphere than Java. And a little bit more wealthy as well, although this morning on a remote beach, there were children begging again, which I find really hard to see.

Since Surabaya (where I had the first problem with my Lonely Planet quide - I walked to a restaurant in the night but it was not there anymore, in some remote suburb in the dark, that's quite bad but I came out by cycle taxi again...), I had a quick trip to the magnificent volcano Bromo on east Java: I arrived there at 14.30, at 3.15 we woke up and went around and on this volcano by jeep (a great old Toyota Landcruiser 2.4 ltr 6 cylinder) and at 9.30 I was in the bus again, in order to drive all day to Bali. Now I know again why I said to myself: I don't want to hurry from place to place. Because I did this time and I immediately regretted it. So now I'm taking it easy on Bali and Sumatra afterwards!

But Bromo was beautiful. It was an old vulcano (like Dieng) that collapsed, but in the plain area that then occurred, a new vulcano started (so on the pics, it's the lower smoking white thing that is Bromo, the nice one is Gunung Batok and then you have the great smoking one at the back of which I forgot the name again...

Gunung Bromo is " just" the small grey hill with white smoke in the left down corner of the pic!

First we had a view of the sunrise (together with about 300 other visitors, of which at least half of it were Dutch) and then we drove to Bromo itself and climbed it. Although it was quite dusty (because you were walking in the same path as the to be rent horses were riding), it was really nice.

Dusty lava sand on the way to the Bromo crater

And immediately after, I went into the bus for a very tiring ride to Denpasar on Bali. We started at 9.30 (which in the end appeared to be 10, like all Indo busses do) to come down the mountain and finally, after 0,5hr ferry trip, we arrived in Denpasar at 22hrs (which became 23hrs because of 1hr difference in local time). So then I completely had it and together with two Slovenian people and one Dutch guy, we found a hotel just behind the bus terminal. Although I had to rent the VIP room because there was nothing else left, the toilet still had to be flushed with a bucket and the shower was still cold... Then I appreciated the simple hotel near Bromo more: the same conditions, but without a stinky hot city and the great view...

The Dutch guy Luuk had been ill and did not really appreciate travelling on his own, he was quite broken. So we had a beer and he wanted to come with me on Bali, but the next morning, he decided to go back to his brother in Java. Helping him kind of gave me more strength because for me my journey works out in a great way, I'm enjoying it all the time!

That morning I took a private taxi to Ubud, handicraft center of Bali. I actually wanted to go by public transport but I think the drivers knew that if they would wait long enough with starting to drive that I would get impatient, just like every tourist for whom a 25km busticket only costs 0,5 euro and a private ride only 7...

Ubud is very touristic, but if you just go outside the town, it's great! Sawa's, Buddhist temples, nice farmers which whom you can speak three words of English and Indonesian bahasa, black lava beach with heavy see (I did not like to go swimming because of the high waves). I rented a motorbike for the last two days to drive around, this went ok (an automatic shifted 115cc Yamaha Nuovo), but in the end it's quite tiring (trafic still is hard and left driving, although it's way more quiet than Java). And then the Buddhist culture, with great dances, clothing and wood carving.

While touring around from temple to temple, average speed is only 50-60 kmh because of all the traffic!

Tonight, I will climb the highest peak on Bali (3100m, and we start at 900) with a guide. We start at midnight, so now I stop writing, will have dinner and will have some sleep...

Fishermen's boats (for use on the ocean!!! aren't they small?) and a tribal dance

Hope to post my next post from Sumatra, where I will fly to on the 3rd of August!

Bye, Jeroen

PS Due to slow internet and an old PC I uploaded some smaller sized pics, so they won't be that nice this time...

Surabayaaaaa

The day after I wrote my first message, I left by train for Yogyakarta. Joost took me to the train station way too early in the morning to being able to keep a feeling of holiday. Thanks to his rather quick " Indonesian" way of driving, he was able to drop me at the station, 3 minutes before the train to Jakarta left, so this was great timing. The train trip after that (via Jakarta) took almost all day, at 15hrs. I was in Yogya.

Rice and fishermen's fields in the low plains of Western Java. Everything goes by hand, I only saw 3 tractors in 500km... And nice little kids who speak two words of English (guess what...)

I found a hostel and looked around in the city: the ancient Dutch fort Vredeburg and the Sultan's Palace, both very nice buildings. But further on, I found Yogya noisy and dirty, with someone on every corner asking " Hello Mister, you want taxi/batik/becak?" So I decided to have a nice meal and sleep, in order to travel on to the Dieng area next morning. The meal worked out that way, but the sleeping was worse: until late at night and early in the morning again, there were people coming and going, planes flying over and mosques singing.
Vredeburg fort, Jeroen in a Becak and the Dutch influences in the Indonesian language

So actually I was quite glad to leave Yogya again for Dieng, but first: Borobudur temple! This is a UN World Heritage Site and now I know why: a giant Buddhist temple, very impressive and destroyed several times by nature, bombing etc., and with a great surrounding landscape.




After that, I drove up into the mountains by public bus, in order to reach Dieng before dark. Dieng is a plain of about 5 square km's in the crater of an old vulcano. It has the highest village of Java (2200m) and a great view point from which you can see the sun rising next to the still active vulcano Gungung Merapi (at 6 o'clock, so again up before 5...). Didik, the guide who was working in the hostel was a very nice man, he drove me around on his small Honda motorbike. with a breakfast break in between. After the sunrise, we visited some other vulcano relicts and Buddist temples. It's a very impressive area where they grow potatoes on terraces on the vulcanoes! In the rest of Java (lower parts), they mainly grow rice, tobacco and coffee. In the afternoon, I sat on the holstel's balcony, planning my trip and overlooking the main street of Dieng.
Guide Didik on his motorbike, driving me around the Dieng plain. The great sunrise (the utter middle peak in clouds is Gunung Merapi which is still active). A coloured vulcano lake with sulfur and hot water bubbling. And the Dieng area with it's potato terraces.

Yesterday I went back down to Yogya after having a breakfast of banana pancakes and saying goodbye to Didik, Tito (another guide) and some French people with whom we had been having a nice drink the night before. It was a long bus ride but I did not want to stay in Yogya another night, so I directly went on by train to Surabaya. It was a quite heavy day, because once I came down from the Dieng plain, temperature was rising again and that makes you tired... But I had a good train ride because I had a nice chat with Rani, an Indonesian girl (vetherinarian student), after an earlier chat with a family with very cute kids.

At 22hrs I arrived in Surabaya, Indonesia's biggest harbour city and home of the navy. I wanted to go there, before visiting Bromo vulcano (my next goal), because there should be much Dutch architecture being left. My hotel was ok, an all right bed (although you should not expect any cleanliness or comfort from budget hostels out here!) but again two mosques singing, at 3 and 3.45hrs... This morning I went into town and this really shocked me! Just near the hotel, people were bathing in the dirtiest river I've ever seen, and selling all sorts of food, car parts etc. in stalls in which we would not even leave our waste bin... And again Hey mister, hey mister. So with quite mixed feelings, I went into town. Well you had to look well between the bill boards and concrete buildings, but indeed there's a lot of ancient colonial style buildings to see, very interesting: trader's offices, banks, ware houses etc. And I also went into China town, where it was very crowded, stinky but interesting, with a lot of trade in anything you an think of (single ax-tractors up to paperclips...). After visiting the harbour, with old and heavy loaded ferry's leaving for Kalimantan, it was time so search for the air conditioning of this internet cafe (WarNet as they call it here).



I hope that I gave you a bit of an impression and hop to write more when I'm at Bali!

Bye! Jeroen

After five days in Indonesia!

Dear friends,

I've started my fifth day in Indonesia quite tranquile. I'm a guest of my good friend Joost, who had to work today. So I had some time to wash clothes, prepare my trip for tomorrow when I will be heading on from Bogor to Yogyakarta and go into the city alone for the first time with my Wat & Hoe-dictionary...

Until now it has been GREAT. Warm, sweaty, traffic jam, loads of people, dirt, motorcycles, "Hey mister", very nice food but the best is the hospitality of Joost, Erik (two classmates from my time at Larenstein Forestry University). Together with Joost's girlfriend Widya and Erik's wife Dewi, we had a great time singing kakaoke, visiting the Bogor botanic gardens and their working space at PT Planters/GFU violin/geranium nursery and visiting a nice mountain area near Bogor, with cascades and hot springs. And first of all, they picked me up at the Jakarta airport when I arrived after a flight which was far too long...
Erik and Joost with some kids from the Kampung near the nursery. " Hey mister..."

Ancient Dutch soldier's/colonist's cemetery at the botanic gardens of Bogor

Since I am enjoying Joost's virtual hospitality now as well, I will make it short and just upload some pictures to give you an idea. And I have to go into town now, because at 18hrs it get's dark already!

Having a chique goodbye meal in Cafe Batavia in Jakarta, were the ancient Dutch colonists used to drink their cognac and trade.

Hope to be able to tell you more soon and best regards from Bogor, Java, Indonesia!

Jeroen

A very young cat found in Widya's street in Jakarta. We took it home and called it Manga!

Cleaner, safer and more efficient with GPS

Source: Houtkrant #11 - 09-06-2008, Apeldoorn (NL)