Yes, the internet connection in our hostel here in Singapore is excellent. I've no idea if we ever can do this again until Germany. Also, it's Doro's fault :)
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
A small collection of Pictures to comemorate our travels so far, which may or may not be updated in the recent future.
https://picasaweb.google.com/
Yes, the internet connection in our hostel here in Singapore is excellent. I've no idea if we ever can do this again until Germany. Also, it's Doro's fault :)
Yes, the internet connection in our hostel here in Singapore is excellent. I've no idea if we ever can do this again until Germany. Also, it's Doro's fault :)
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Musings on Indonesian crafts and food
Eventually, D replaced her broken thongs. All in all, in the space of a few days in Solo and Yogya, D bought three pairs of thongs and one set of sneakers, for around Rp120000 in all. The great worksmanship meant that only one pair of the thongs remains. The rest has fallen apart, while the sneakers' inner sole was so well made that she walks on a wide spaced plastic grid that cuts into her feet by now. Our two tries to buy portable water heating spirals met with similar disaster when the plastic handles (allegedly bakelite) melted during first use - we got two lukewarm cups of water out of them. My first batik shirt has no buttons and is starting to unravel at the buttonholes, the second one is coloring any water it comes into contact with as well as my sweat so blue I'm surprised the colors are not all gone yet. I'm afraid that if you want something to keep, I must advise you not to buy Indonesian - unless there's some trick we've not found out yet.
Food on the other hand, is quite good even at street level. In fact, the best gado gado we've had are from street vendours. One restaurant in Yogya was too busy arranging the veggies in a pretty tower to not overcook them, or to make a decently hot peanut sauce. The live jazz band was a nice touch, though. The only drawback is the preponderance of fats and oil in everything. Also, unless they're used to westerners, the only vegetarian option is often nasi or mie goreng (fried rice or noodles), which is rather monotonous and, of course, oily, with time. My usual standby in these cases was bakso, chicken meatball soup, until I got fed up with it during the long trip from Jakarta to Bukittinggi.
It can be surprisingly difficult to get fresh fruit, considering that banana, coconut, mango and other fruit trees are everywhere. It is often necessary to find a market, which could as well be impossible when you're staying in some small village.
By now, we've also started eating at tourist restaurants, especially at Liberta Homestay in Tuk Tuk (my blog'll get there, sometime), and enjoying such things as vegetable tacos (taco means fried canneloni-like dough in Indonesia) and avocado salads, and I'm also quite happy with those.It's especially nice to have something that seems like breakfast (omelet or porridge), since Indonesian breakfast is usually leftover nasi goreng. Only bubur ayam, rice porridge with chicken, even remotely seemed like breakfast to me.
The most interesting food must be Padang cuisine, which is basically an assortment of mystery dishes (Indonesia speakers could probably find out what's on the plates) that are arranged before you, and you choose which ones you're willing to try.
Fresh juices are great, and often available. I think I've written of es kelapa (iced coconut juice with strips of coconut flesh, syrup and, if you're lucky, lime), jus apocado (avocado juice, made with milk), jus melon. We've also had good mango juice, and passion fruit juice. The local beer, Bintang, is all right, but rather expensive at Rp 20 000 - 30 000.
Food on the other hand, is quite good even at street level. In fact, the best gado gado we've had are from street vendours. One restaurant in Yogya was too busy arranging the veggies in a pretty tower to not overcook them, or to make a decently hot peanut sauce. The live jazz band was a nice touch, though. The only drawback is the preponderance of fats and oil in everything. Also, unless they're used to westerners, the only vegetarian option is often nasi or mie goreng (fried rice or noodles), which is rather monotonous and, of course, oily, with time. My usual standby in these cases was bakso, chicken meatball soup, until I got fed up with it during the long trip from Jakarta to Bukittinggi.
It can be surprisingly difficult to get fresh fruit, considering that banana, coconut, mango and other fruit trees are everywhere. It is often necessary to find a market, which could as well be impossible when you're staying in some small village.
By now, we've also started eating at tourist restaurants, especially at Liberta Homestay in Tuk Tuk (my blog'll get there, sometime), and enjoying such things as vegetable tacos (taco means fried canneloni-like dough in Indonesia) and avocado salads, and I'm also quite happy with those.It's especially nice to have something that seems like breakfast (omelet or porridge), since Indonesian breakfast is usually leftover nasi goreng. Only bubur ayam, rice porridge with chicken, even remotely seemed like breakfast to me.
The most interesting food must be Padang cuisine, which is basically an assortment of mystery dishes (Indonesia speakers could probably find out what's on the plates) that are arranged before you, and you choose which ones you're willing to try.
Fresh juices are great, and often available. I think I've written of es kelapa (iced coconut juice with strips of coconut flesh, syrup and, if you're lucky, lime), jus apocado (avocado juice, made with milk), jus melon. We've also had good mango juice, and passion fruit juice. The local beer, Bintang, is all right, but rather expensive at Rp 20 000 - 30 000.
Central Java and Yogyakarta
1.11.-9.11.
We moved on to Solo and Yogyakarta., where we generally did the tourist trek: Candis (temples) Sukuh and Cetho, the two kratons (palaces, though only one is really called kraton, the other usually pura), and the museum in front of the excavation area where a couple of homo erectus skeletons were found in Solo. In Jogja, we checked out the kraton, and the two massive temple complexes of Prambanan and Borobudur. I also bought some cheap batik shirts to complement my wardrobe. One's falling apart, the other loses color as quick as I can sweat into it, which is quite fast around here. The last stop near Djogdja was climbing Gunung Merapi, another Volcano.
The kraton is the old palace of the sultan of Surabaya (= Solo), who moved here and founded the city in 1750-something because of divine guidance - Allah had obviously decreed this a most auspicious place. The sultan, however, died within a few years, and his son immediately lost half the sultanate to familial infighting: the old sultans nephew managed to get the dutch, Indonesia's colonial overlords, to give him the rest, which is the reason for the two palaces built inside the city within 10 years. The kraton is rather shabby and run down, and having perhaps rashly turned down the offer of a guide, we found the grounds and the collection of sultans europeanized carriages, dishes, silverware and indigenous wayang puppets that are labelled "museum" rather unimpressive. The most remarkable piece of architecture is the meditation tower, mixing styles of dutch houses and a light tower, of all things.
The pura, built by the naughty cousin of the hapless second sultan, is much better in shape, and stylistically at least somewhat more Javan - it seems even independent minded autocrats dared not show their independent streak too much, and the required guide got a bit flustered when I asked why the portraits showed this freedom fighter in European garb, after she had just told us the reason for the split had been the cousin's rejection of the dutch. It can't have been to strong though, if he got them to sign over half the kingdom to him... With the guide, this palace, was far more interesting, though the part where she had to show us the old Belgian crystal dishes and french silver bowls was a bit tedious. In all, well worth the couple of thousands of rupia the guide book recommended as a tip.
The prehistoric museum at Sangiran was a dud, though. Because of renovation (we weren't warned at the entrance, they just happily pocketed our money), only one of the three rooms of the museum was open, featuring empty displays, some fossilized bones (a fragment of a mastodons jaw featuring most prominently, lying around in the middle of the room) and mainly badly made plastic dioramas of "prehistoric scenes", naked people hunting and gathering. A guide attached herself to us, so we had to politely admire a row of hominid skulls with Indonesian only inscriptions, two of which had to do with the place. Any Naturkundemuseum in Germany will give you more complete information on the subject, and we did not even see the digging grounds. Still, I should probably honor their efforts, after all, one reason the museums in Europe are so much better is that european scientists walked away from here with the fossilized goodies. What made the trip worthwhile was the adventures of getting there and away. Good backpackers that we are, we spurned the ease and (probably only moderate.) expense of a taxi or ojeks, and took the bus to Kalijambe, from where we walked to Sangiran. We had to be insistent, though: the ojek drivers in front of the station tried to tell us there was no bus, we had to take two of them. Even a group of officials sitting at the terminal entrance - I think collecting the terminal tax for hawkers and drivers - supported them until we rudely ignored them and entered, where we were shown the bus immediately. On a more positive note, though, along the way from Kalijambe to Sangiran we found a warung selling not only delicious food, but also wonderful melon juice and avocado juice, something you should try here.
The two candis on the slopes of mount Lawu, east of Solo, are reached by a chain of dfferent buses. We walked the last two km (and were thoroughly drenched - it really is wet season here) up a steep hill to Sukuh, the first of the two Hindu temple ruins, which has some nice reliefs out of Hindu mythology. Cetho is the prettier of the two, because of its nicer blueprint and the view (you see the valley deep down through nine gates ), but it has fewer reliefs and is a lot harder to reach. As a bonus, there's a statue of an elephant standing on a turtle, obviously a reference to Discworld cosmology. We made the error of believing the sign marked 5km where the road goes off of the main road, and had to get an ojek after we encountered a sign proclaiming 3km after we'd walked about five. Cetho is restored, and a community of about 200 Hindus lives around and prays in it, according to my (Hindu) ojek driver, who als unsuccessfully tried to teach me some bahasa java.
The executif train to Yogya was cold and not close to as interesting as the economi one we took before, just suits and no hawkers, and an a/c on refrigerator. In Yogya, we found a basic place to stay in Anda Losmen, on Gang I in the backpacker district, where we finally got us a lonely planet Indonesia, after the rather disappointing performance of footprints Southeast Asia. Too bad some smartass ripped out the pages to Yogya and Borobudur before leaving it there...
With Anda our base of operations, during the next 3 days we explored the touristic splendour that is Yogya's Malioboro Street, its kraton, and the two large temple complexes of Prambanan and Borobudur. At the kraton, residence of Indonesia's only Sultan with political powers - thanks to his support in the war of independence - I had to buy a batik shirt, because I had put on my sleeveless one. In the end, it turned out to be too expensive, even at Rp 25000 - it has lost 3 buttons after I've worn it twice - but it got us into the palace, where we saw and heard a gamelan orchestra and puppet performance. Doro's new thongs from three days earlier broke during that visit, but since the market had closed for the day, she had to make do.
On the way back, we let ourselves be trapped: a guy started speaking to us in German, real friendly and for-old-times-sakey, and then lured us to "the real batik art exhibition". He discreetly handed us over to another guy - he left early enough so that we weren't too suspicious - and we were led, through some alleyways to the exhibition rooms - the alleys kinda gave it away, then. The studio was filled with quite nice batik paintings for prices that can only be mistaken for real ones by people who have never been to Indonesia. Everyone else must notice the discrepancy of living costs and these prices, and the vendor offered us half price without us bargaining any. Of course, we had to buy today, because the exhibition would be gone by tomorrow...
The kraton is the old palace of the sultan of Surabaya (= Solo), who moved here and founded the city in 1750-something because of divine guidance - Allah had obviously decreed this a most auspicious place. The sultan, however, died within a few years, and his son immediately lost half the sultanate to familial infighting: the old sultans nephew managed to get the dutch, Indonesia's colonial overlords, to give him the rest, which is the reason for the two palaces built inside the city within 10 years. The kraton is rather shabby and run down, and having perhaps rashly turned down the offer of a guide, we found the grounds and the collection of sultans europeanized carriages, dishes, silverware and indigenous wayang puppets that are labelled "museum" rather unimpressive. The most remarkable piece of architecture is the meditation tower, mixing styles of dutch houses and a light tower, of all things.
The pura, built by the naughty cousin of the hapless second sultan, is much better in shape, and stylistically at least somewhat more Javan - it seems even independent minded autocrats dared not show their independent streak too much, and the required guide got a bit flustered when I asked why the portraits showed this freedom fighter in European garb, after she had just told us the reason for the split had been the cousin's rejection of the dutch. It can't have been to strong though, if he got them to sign over half the kingdom to him... With the guide, this palace, was far more interesting, though the part where she had to show us the old Belgian crystal dishes and french silver bowls was a bit tedious. In all, well worth the couple of thousands of rupia the guide book recommended as a tip.
The prehistoric museum at Sangiran was a dud, though. Because of renovation (we weren't warned at the entrance, they just happily pocketed our money), only one of the three rooms of the museum was open, featuring empty displays, some fossilized bones (a fragment of a mastodons jaw featuring most prominently, lying around in the middle of the room) and mainly badly made plastic dioramas of "prehistoric scenes", naked people hunting and gathering. A guide attached herself to us, so we had to politely admire a row of hominid skulls with Indonesian only inscriptions, two of which had to do with the place. Any Naturkundemuseum in Germany will give you more complete information on the subject, and we did not even see the digging grounds. Still, I should probably honor their efforts, after all, one reason the museums in Europe are so much better is that european scientists walked away from here with the fossilized goodies. What made the trip worthwhile was the adventures of getting there and away. Good backpackers that we are, we spurned the ease and (probably only moderate.) expense of a taxi or ojeks, and took the bus to Kalijambe, from where we walked to Sangiran. We had to be insistent, though: the ojek drivers in front of the station tried to tell us there was no bus, we had to take two of them. Even a group of officials sitting at the terminal entrance - I think collecting the terminal tax for hawkers and drivers - supported them until we rudely ignored them and entered, where we were shown the bus immediately. On a more positive note, though, along the way from Kalijambe to Sangiran we found a warung selling not only delicious food, but also wonderful melon juice and avocado juice, something you should try here.
The two candis on the slopes of mount Lawu, east of Solo, are reached by a chain of dfferent buses. We walked the last two km (and were thoroughly drenched - it really is wet season here) up a steep hill to Sukuh, the first of the two Hindu temple ruins, which has some nice reliefs out of Hindu mythology. Cetho is the prettier of the two, because of its nicer blueprint and the view (you see the valley deep down through nine gates ), but it has fewer reliefs and is a lot harder to reach. As a bonus, there's a statue of an elephant standing on a turtle, obviously a reference to Discworld cosmology. We made the error of believing the sign marked 5km where the road goes off of the main road, and had to get an ojek after we encountered a sign proclaiming 3km after we'd walked about five. Cetho is restored, and a community of about 200 Hindus lives around and prays in it, according to my (Hindu) ojek driver, who als unsuccessfully tried to teach me some bahasa java.
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| Candi Cetho |
The executif train to Yogya was cold and not close to as interesting as the economi one we took before, just suits and no hawkers, and an a/c on refrigerator. In Yogya, we found a basic place to stay in Anda Losmen, on Gang I in the backpacker district, where we finally got us a lonely planet Indonesia, after the rather disappointing performance of footprints Southeast Asia. Too bad some smartass ripped out the pages to Yogya and Borobudur before leaving it there...
With Anda our base of operations, during the next 3 days we explored the touristic splendour that is Yogya's Malioboro Street, its kraton, and the two large temple complexes of Prambanan and Borobudur. At the kraton, residence of Indonesia's only Sultan with political powers - thanks to his support in the war of independence - I had to buy a batik shirt, because I had put on my sleeveless one. In the end, it turned out to be too expensive, even at Rp 25000 - it has lost 3 buttons after I've worn it twice - but it got us into the palace, where we saw and heard a gamelan orchestra and puppet performance. Doro's new thongs from three days earlier broke during that visit, but since the market had closed for the day, she had to make do.
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| Gamelan orchestra and puppet play |
On the way back, we let ourselves be trapped: a guy started speaking to us in German, real friendly and for-old-times-sakey, and then lured us to "the real batik art exhibition". He discreetly handed us over to another guy - he left early enough so that we weren't too suspicious - and we were led, through some alleyways to the exhibition rooms - the alleys kinda gave it away, then. The studio was filled with quite nice batik paintings for prices that can only be mistaken for real ones by people who have never been to Indonesia. Everyone else must notice the discrepancy of living costs and these prices, and the vendor offered us half price without us bargaining any. Of course, we had to buy today, because the exhibition would be gone by tomorrow...
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| Doro on her pilgrimage to Borobodur. Don't forget to circle each of the 10 levels thrice! |
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| Hindu Goddess of kicking ass |
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| Crazy drug-induced elephant vision |
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| Ganesh, Hinduisms coolest God |
One thing we learned from the reliefs on the temple: the heavenly Buddhist punishment for gossiping is being boiled alive.
We also were in Yogya for the Muslim sacrificial ceremonies. Near our hostel a number of sheep, goats and a cow were tethered for that reason, and at first we were glad to see that Indonesians are making sure their city bred children get to meet and feed farm animals. The next day, all were gone... Another fallout from the festival was the increased energy of the muezzin. The one right next to Anda was especially ambitious: at 4 in the morning, he was first to call out, and did so the longest. Not relaxing, especially as they are not chosen for their singing abilities, or coherency of sounds they produce.
After Yogya, we went up Gunung Merapi, the most active volcano in Indonesia. To get there, we had to negotiate bemo rides to a string of villages and hitch a ride for the last stretch - all completely without the help of English. Lonely Planet claims there are public buses to Seto, the village we wanted to reach, but locals told us the buses have stopped ten years ago.
Seto, however, has English speaking guides, including the owner of the first random homestay we found, which had rather oily blankets and an already full trashcan in the bathroom. The owner also drew us a - very useful - "map" - a straight line with some landmarks - for climbing Merapi, the first guide we'd met who seemed happy enough to let us go on our own instead of convincing us we needed him.
We decided to do the sunrise thing again. The basic stategy was clear: get up at 1am, hike up to the top, take a look at glowing lava and the nightly countryside while we wait for the sun to come up, and walk back down in time for breakfast. We met the first snag at one, when the alarm went off: it's raining. We decide to ywait an hour and see, and are on our way by 2:30. We stumbled up the dark, winding paths, which often split up, and sometimes get tgether again, and weren't ever really sure we were on the right track, often shrouded in clouds. Ever so often, the clouds did part, and we, had a great view of the countryside at night; looming dark mountains and the speckled lights of villages, the stars overhead. Getting a peek into tue crater for all that open lava was another difficulty: The actual cone of the volcano is a barren rocky slope, steep enough and covered in a slippery mud/pebble/rock mixture so that we often had trouble crawling up on all fours, digging in our fingers, but we did reach the summit, peeked into the crater and the depth of hissing, sulphurous steam that hid any potential lava glow. Sunrise had just happened somewhere behind the cloudy mist engulfing us, but then we did get a couple of cloudless minutes to take in the view. For the way back, we luckily found the footsteps of the local guides and had an easier way down. I think we might have been unable to retrace our own steps. On our way down, we passed a couple of guides - who looked quite disgruntled at seing us up there without any of them - and sweaty tourists slowly making their way up, a bit late for sunrise.
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| This gives more or less the right impression of the climb down from the crater. The way up was too steep to take pictures. The fog you see is sulphurous steam. The next cloud thankfully waited another 5 minutes before making navigation hard. |
Thursday, November 24, 2011
East Java highlights
29.-31.10.: Probolinggo and Ceromo Lawang
The train ride to Probollinggo from Banyuwangi took 7 hours, and we saw a lot of pretty countryside pass by. It would probably have been nice to spend a few days there, but this region is an empty, white speck in Footprints Southeast Asia. The food we packed before getting onto the train - mystery rice from the same people we drank coffee with, before - was an unnecessary precaution, because the train was regularly visited by hawkers, whose prices generally aren't above the usual street level, and who pack a variety of interesting snacks, which should cost no more than Rp3000 a bag. The hawkers navigated the already full train. It seems school's out by 12 here, as there were a lot of school girls I'd put into medium to late secondary school, age wise.
In Probolinggo, 7pm is too late for bemos, and we took a becak (bicycle rickshaw, Rp15k for the both of us, haggle hard) to get to a hotel 3km from the station, Hotel Ratna. Rp100k got us a room with fan, shower, western toilet with its toilet seat (the absence of which usually makes "western toilets" in Indonesia more unhygienic and uncomfortable than the local crouching mandis), TV (one program, Indonesian) and breakfast (kopi, almost raw toast with butter and badly made jam, hard boiled egg and a fork and soup spoon that was too large for the egg, no knife. I guess the thought counts, but I usually prefer Nasi Goreng for breakfast here, they can handle that).
Met a couple of Indonesians and two Saudis at a public viewing of the Arsenal-Chelsea game that evening, and ended up having a drink with the Indonesians. Coffee, of course, as everyone here but a small smattering around old Hindu holy places is Muslim. Their English was far better than my bahasa indonesia, so we could talk about a fairly diverse range of topics, but once again, as with Rica and Waia, the fact that Germany only has one language with dialects was a difficult concept. Indonesia has at least a dozen more common ones.
The next day we caught a bemo to the bus station of Probolinggo, a place known for inflating it's prices and the thieves on busses frequented by tourists. We wanted to get to Cemoro Lawang, a village at the edge of a giant volcanic crater turned plain in which a couple of volcanoes stand around, including the famous Gunung Bromo, a Hindu holy place (Cemoro Lawang is populated almost entirely by Hindus).
We arrived at the station around 9:30am, let us be guided into a bemo, our backpacks put on top, for the price of Rp25k. Then we waited. An waited. After half an hour, another passenger, Indonesian. Then the driver shoes us into the bus. Joy! We're finally leaving! Alas, it was a false alarm: For a reason I cannot fathom, the driver wanted us on board for picking up another tourist from a hotel a whopping 500m away, then turned around and drove back to the station. Waiting again. Met a German family (kids grown up) who had met up for Java with their daughter and her British boyfriend, who had been traveling Indonesia for two months. They also wanted to go to Cemoro Lawang, thus filling up the bus nicely, but wanted a price of Rp15k, which the driver was unwilling to give. After dithering and insisting forever, they told him they'd pay Rp25k only if he did not stop along the way to pick up passengers, effectively chartering the bus. Otherwise, they said, they'd only pay Rp20k a person. Thanks to that, we left only around 12 o'clock, although the crowd of locals that suddenly appeared out of nowhere may have meat there was enough people all along, or that the bus only goes at 12. On leaving, we had around 17 people aboard a Mitsubishi Colt, a minivan the size of a VW bus. Of course, the driver stopped, which was commented with a contented "Jetzt gibt's nur noch 20." from the Germans. The muttered "Das macht er extra!" (That's on purpose) when the bus stopped to fill up petrol was a little bit over the top though. The ride itself took 1.5hours, past hillsides continuously terraced not with rice, but with onions and cabbages.
Booked the cheapest place we could find, a 3-bed, two bedroom building with a sitting room up front, and an external bathroom, for Rp80k, a definite rise. No service, of course, but for some reason it was cheaper than single rooms, external bathroom, belonging to the same person.
Just afterwards we met two Germans, Vic and Hendrik, who had come up with the next bus (for Rp25k, must be the correct price) and just had booked another place to stay. Too late to move in with us, but we nevertheless set a date for the evening meal at the warung next to our place - right at the start of the right hand of the only branching of roads in Cemoro Lawang, when going up - the food's good.
To see the sun rise over the volcanic valley (not over Gunung Bromo itself, that point lies far afield) you get up at 3:30 to 4am, depending on your walking speed, and head up the road, ever along, past two gaggles of coffee- and snacks stands, and countless offers of ojek- and horse rides, until you reach a third group of stands, which signifies the second (and definitely better) lookout point
After the sunrise (partly hidden by clouds, but the part where the sun beams hit Bromo was pretty neat, with our coffee in our hands), we headed further up the hill - quite a climb, don't try this in thongs - and started walking around the edge of the crater, which also happened to be the ridge of a string of mountains on this side (while Cemoro Lawang lies on a plateau that falls off into the great crater). Sometimes, we even had enough of a path so we could walk instead of climb! Lots of fun, and pretty sights in both directions, into the crater and to the fertile and densely populated plain on the other, northern side. Just when the view started t get boring, we found a road heading down into the crater, and took it, passing another slew of buses and jeeps ferrying tourists back, doubtless from other sunrise-viewpoints.
After a brunch at the warung next door, we took the 12 o'clock bus down to Probolinggo, with Vic and Hendrik. Down there, we got bus tickets for a night bus to Solo (Surakarta), a big hassle, with shopping around, and bargaining hard, we got a price of Rp80k instead of Rp120k, but, unlike we were told, no a/c. The bus did drop us off at the hotel, though, a nice touch. Vic and Hendrik went east, practically skipping Bali for Lombok, Flores and so on. Since the night bus would go at 8, we started looking for supper around the terminal, where basic meals cost Rp15k - the reputation for gouging travelers is well deserved, it seems, because we got the same kind of meal for Rp5k about 500m down the road, at a tiny warung with friendly people, where the 7 year old daughter enlisted Doro for her English homework. The baby always started crying when I tried to play with her, though.
A post about Solo's next, whenever I can get it finished. No p[ics this time, although I've got them here, but this pc is infested
We arrived at the station around 9:30am, let us be guided into a bemo, our backpacks put on top, for the price of Rp25k. Then we waited. An waited. After half an hour, another passenger, Indonesian. Then the driver shoes us into the bus. Joy! We're finally leaving! Alas, it was a false alarm: For a reason I cannot fathom, the driver wanted us on board for picking up another tourist from a hotel a whopping 500m away, then turned around and drove back to the station. Waiting again. Met a German family (kids grown up) who had met up for Java with their daughter and her British boyfriend, who had been traveling Indonesia for two months. They also wanted to go to Cemoro Lawang, thus filling up the bus nicely, but wanted a price of Rp15k, which the driver was unwilling to give. After dithering and insisting forever, they told him they'd pay Rp25k only if he did not stop along the way to pick up passengers, effectively chartering the bus. Otherwise, they said, they'd only pay Rp20k a person. Thanks to that, we left only around 12 o'clock, although the crowd of locals that suddenly appeared out of nowhere may have meat there was enough people all along, or that the bus only goes at 12. On leaving, we had around 17 people aboard a Mitsubishi Colt, a minivan the size of a VW bus. Of course, the driver stopped, which was commented with a contented "Jetzt gibt's nur noch 20." from the Germans. The muttered "Das macht er extra!" (That's on purpose) when the bus stopped to fill up petrol was a little bit over the top though. The ride itself took 1.5hours, past hillsides continuously terraced not with rice, but with onions and cabbages.
Booked the cheapest place we could find, a 3-bed, two bedroom building with a sitting room up front, and an external bathroom, for Rp80k, a definite rise. No service, of course, but for some reason it was cheaper than single rooms, external bathroom, belonging to the same person.
Just afterwards we met two Germans, Vic and Hendrik, who had come up with the next bus (for Rp25k, must be the correct price) and just had booked another place to stay. Too late to move in with us, but we nevertheless set a date for the evening meal at the warung next to our place - right at the start of the right hand of the only branching of roads in Cemoro Lawang, when going up - the food's good.
To see the sun rise over the volcanic valley (not over Gunung Bromo itself, that point lies far afield) you get up at 3:30 to 4am, depending on your walking speed, and head up the road, ever along, past two gaggles of coffee- and snacks stands, and countless offers of ojek- and horse rides, until you reach a third group of stands, which signifies the second (and definitely better) lookout point
After the sunrise (partly hidden by clouds, but the part where the sun beams hit Bromo was pretty neat, with our coffee in our hands), we headed further up the hill - quite a climb, don't try this in thongs - and started walking around the edge of the crater, which also happened to be the ridge of a string of mountains on this side (while Cemoro Lawang lies on a plateau that falls off into the great crater). Sometimes, we even had enough of a path so we could walk instead of climb! Lots of fun, and pretty sights in both directions, into the crater and to the fertile and densely populated plain on the other, northern side. Just when the view started t get boring, we found a road heading down into the crater, and took it, passing another slew of buses and jeeps ferrying tourists back, doubtless from other sunrise-viewpoints.
After a brunch at the warung next door, we took the 12 o'clock bus down to Probolinggo, with Vic and Hendrik. Down there, we got bus tickets for a night bus to Solo (Surakarta), a big hassle, with shopping around, and bargaining hard, we got a price of Rp80k instead of Rp120k, but, unlike we were told, no a/c. The bus did drop us off at the hotel, though, a nice touch. Vic and Hendrik went east, practically skipping Bali for Lombok, Flores and so on. Since the night bus would go at 8, we started looking for supper around the terminal, where basic meals cost Rp15k - the reputation for gouging travelers is well deserved, it seems, because we got the same kind of meal for Rp5k about 500m down the road, at a tiny warung with friendly people, where the 7 year old daughter enlisted Doro for her English homework. The baby always started crying when I tried to play with her, though.
A post about Solo's next, whenever I can get it finished. No p[ics this time, although I've got them here, but this pc is infested
Monday, November 14, 2011
To Java, East, from Bali
The last post ended on Oktober 27th, on Ubud, Bali, just before we left for Java. We had the presence of mind to ask what the price for the bemos is we would need to get to Gilimanuk, where the ferry crosses to Banyuwangi on Java, and the driver, maybe because he's one of the few honest ones, maybe because he couln't profit from us directly, told us the real price: Bemo Ubud to Batubulan and Bemo Batubulan to Ubung Rp. 10 000 each. From Ubung, a bus goes to Gilimanuk for Rp25k. This may be a good strategy to find out the real price of transport, but we have heard tourist prices even then.
On the 28th, a Thursday, I believe (ups, a Friday. Rest of post edited and dates corrected), we then went to the bemo terminal of Ubud, and were offered Rp150k directly to Ubung, or R80k to Batubulan. Great. We insisted for a long time, but in the end had to pay Rp30k for the both of us to Batubulan, and then the driver didn't even get us all the way, but foisted us off on another bemo somewhere in the middle. There we luckily met Ayu, a local girl going to Gilimanuk to meet up with a friend of hers, who took us under her wings. The travel from there on went well, with Ayu interceding for us whenever the price was not right, both with the drivers and the hawkers coming onto the bus to sell food - mostly fried tofu with hot peppers and soy sauce, or peanuts boiled in salt water. The bus to Gilimanuk got pretty crowded, and it was not comfortable at all travelling with our backpacks in the way all the time, often on our laps, but the countryside, which started to exist in western Bali (as opposed to the settlements everywhere in central), was pretty. No a/c, so it got hot again, but all windows and doors were kept open all the time -- try to sit right behind a door in such a bus. There seems to be no inappropriate time to smoke in Indonesia (also no inappropriate age, today we saw a vendor selling cigs to 12 year olds), so people will smoke next to you on the bus. This is not so much of a problem because of the air circulating through the windows.
We got to Gilimanuk late in the afternoon, said our farewells to Ayu, and crossed the street to the ferry harbour, where the prices for crossing are listed, Rp6000, no haggling, thankfully. The crossing itself was uneventful, apart from Made, who talked to us in broken English. It seems his name means "second son" in Bahasa Bali, or alternately "sixth son", or "tenth son", as there are four names that go through cycles: Putu, Made, Nyoman, Ketut.
In Banyuwangi, a tour agent told us the way to a cheap hotel "700m" (closer to 1.5km) away, where we got a room with bathroom for Rp40k - in fact, this is the cheapest room we've had (up to now, Nov 14th!), and certainly one of the best. Yay for not being in a tourist-frequented region. Settled in, went out for a walk, and immediately were invited by Rika, who was on her way to pick up her son, to visit her home, where we spent the evening trying to communicate with her and later her neighbor, Waia. Apart from the language inadequacies, it was rather tiring because both largely insisted on talking to me through Doro : "And your Boyfriend, what is his name?", ".. what will he do?" and so on. Still, they tried to teach us some bahasa indonesia, and we reciprocated with inggris and jerman.
Later that evening we dined at a local Warung, where no one spoke an English word. The meal involved a lot of smiling at each other, and us stammering out the few sentences of Indonesian we had just written down, with mixed success: We only understood answers that could be communicated by "yes", "no" or signs.
On the 29th, Saturday, we hiked to the train station (stasiun kareta api), allegedly 3km from the hotel, in truth right past the ferry harbour. There, we noticed that, somehow, all clocks in Banyuwangi seem to be an hour late. This, of course, meant we had passed into another time zone from Bali to Java, which our guidebook neglects to mention... Luckily, the direction of time change meant we were two hours early instead of one, so we proceeded to have breakfast and drink coffee with the group of people sitting around a mobile stand in front of the train station, comunicating much the same as the day before.
At least good coffee is available everywhere in Indonesia. A word of caution on Indonesian drinks (minuman) though: everything will be sweetened, unless you specifically request otherwise. Ordering kopi or kopi susu will get you sweetened black or white (the "susu") coffee, the powder still in the glass, and our first fruit juice on Bali, the mango one, included a gratitious amount of chocolate syrup, though sugar syrup is more common for drinks. We were told to order Kopi tawa (English 'w') if we wanted it unsweetened, but in Central Java, this just confuses the poeple, and a translation site just gave me kopi hitam or kopi pahit. I'll try that next time.
Well, that's all for now, in my ongoing effort to juggle being on an interesting country where I'm trying to get up with the sun (6am is our best mark, yet) and writing about it. Time is short, as you can see: I'm writing this from Pekalongan, on the north coast of Central Java. Still a lot to catch up...
All the best from here!
Friday, November 4, 2011
Culture
25.-27.10.: Ubud
On Tuesday, we took an early shuttle bus by Perama (10am) to Ubud, another tourist paradise, albeit a qquieter one, known for its artists (including European expatriates) and unspoilt (by tourists) countryside. The wait was made nicer by free tea, coffee and wi-fi in the nice, open-walled waiting room.
The bus itself was not airconditioned, so the trip was hot and sticky. Baggage was simply thrown up front between driver and door. The trip itself was short enough, 2h.
In Ubud, we were immediately surrounded by people trying to get us into their hotels, offering rooms from Rp150k. The speed with which they accepted our demand for Rp100k told us we were still paying too much, but accommodation was infinitely better than in the Rempen: We chose Petri Inn, right next to the Perama station, with a spacious room, bathroom with shower and squatting toilet (flush by ladle from sink), a small porch with a table and wicker chairs, and breakfast (banana pancakes with honey and some pieces of banana, papaya and pineapple on the side, everything covered with coconut flakes). The people there were friendly; the owner and cook introduces herself as Ibu, which means "mother" in Balinese and Baha Indonesia.
By 1pm, we had settled in and were walking along the streets of Ubud, in no particular direction. In the city center, we found a man selling a dish of rice, tofu, soy bean sprouts and hot peanut sauce (gato-gato, but slightly a different recipe, Rp 5k), and coconut juice (with ice, some sugar syrup, and a piece of lime, delicious, Rp 3k).
We headed up the street the vendor was in, venturing into small paths going off; the houses were surrounded by elaborately decorated walls, with statues of demons (gods?) at the entries, so the whole quarter looked full of temples - only the washing lines in front of the mundane houses further back told us that people lived here (ordinary people, too, no priests, as far as we could tell. Schoolkids came home while we were there, and the grown-ups passing us seemed mundane). We also found narrow stairs down a deep gorge to a lonely temple in a rainforest-river setting.Walked out of the center, along the sparser houses, although central and southern Bali are never really uninhabited. Even if you find a road not lined, city to city, with houses, in the rice paddies the buildings are seldom more than 50m apart. Along the way we bought cooled water (1.5l for Rp4k) at one of the small shops/stalls owned by non-english speakers, which is only slightly more expensive than in the supermarket (generally, supermarkets are even more expensive for most goods in these, poorer, countries than markets or street vendors, or even hawkers in trains and buses). Each rice paddy has a shrine, almost all houses more elaborate ones, sometimes with multiple statues and small buildings, and every so often there is a fully fledged temple, with crazy statues and decorations galore. Bali is architecturally extremely interesting.
Back to the inn by 5pm, after a quick stop to get chow along the road - rice with green vegetables (beans, chili, onions) and soy sauce for D, mine had fish, egg and pressed soy beans added, for Rp5k and 8k.
Wednesday: To market, mostly touristy stalls full of batik clothes, watches, jewellery (local and international styles), and wood- and ivory carvings. Some fruit and food stalls, got a delicious meal with some kind of dark, sweet(ened?) rice.
Walked 5km, more or less, to Goa Gajah , the Elephant Cave, were some obviously benighted person mistook a quite human demon face around the entrance for an elephant. The temple precinct is quite expansive, lots of pathways through the rainforest. A ten minute walk to a temple ruin in a river down a gorge is especially worthwhile.
The walk to and from Goa Gajah was interesting for the views of Bali we got, but not particularly pleasant, the traffic being heavy on the road not designed for pedestrians.
Thursday: Found good coffee and mango juice at a Warung on the way to the market (3k and 8k, respectively. Fruit juices get a lot cheaper off Bali). Visited the Sacred Monkey Forest, a small forest overrun with makaques being fed by visitors. There also are 3 temples there, with multi-day ceremonies going on right now, but tourists are barred from the temple grounds during prayer times. Nice setting, though, and watching the makaques was good fun (entry Rp20k).With their beards, they look quite human. Being used to us means they will jump at bags that contain food, and we saw several instances of water bottles being stolen. Often, they don't know how to use them, but every so often, you see a monkey that can drink in a human way. We ourselves lost a mango we just had bought from the market to a monkey while debating, in front of the forest, if we should enter with our fruits despite the warnings...
Wednesday: To market, mostly touristy stalls full of batik clothes, watches, jewellery (local and international styles), and wood- and ivory carvings. Some fruit and food stalls, got a delicious meal with some kind of dark, sweet(ened?) rice.
 |
| Coconut at Goa Gajah. That's the life. |
 |
| The "Elephant" |
Walked 5km, more or less, to Goa Gajah , the Elephant Cave, were some obviously benighted person mistook a quite human demon face around the entrance for an elephant. The temple precinct is quite expansive, lots of pathways through the rainforest. A ten minute walk to a temple ruin in a river down a gorge is especially worthwhile.
The walk to and from Goa Gajah was interesting for the views of Bali we got, but not particularly pleasant, the traffic being heavy on the road not designed for pedestrians.
 | |
| Thief! |
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Kuta, Bali
I'm kinda behind on the posts, but I want to write about something recent, so I'll skip New Zealand and Australia for now, and get back to those later. I also cannot connect my SD card to the pc here, so I'll hopefully load some pics sometime else.
23.-24.10.: Denpasar & Kuta
Sunday: Flight to Denpasar, through visa and customs, taxi to Kuta, the tourist village of Bali, for Rp80 000 (~$9) after a lot of haggling. Still got stiffed, we probably could have gotten a ride for less than Rp40 000.The first taxi driver to talk us up (he eventually passed us along to someone cheaper, he wanted $20) told us: "Germans don't like Kuta. Too busy. Germans want to see real Bali. Australians go to Kuta, for the discotheque."
Kuta is a mass (mess?) of touristy stalls along mostly small pathways, many only a span wide, all shared by scotters and pedestrians going in both directions. Te density of taxi drivers (including motorbike taxis) and massage 'spas' is incredible. The amount of ugly or downright stupid t-shirts obviously sold to drunks is amazing.
The weather in Bali is hot and humid, so that your clothes will stick to you. In cheaper hotels, air conditioning will generally double the price of a room, bu a fan over the bed is usually enough to make the night comfortable. We were pointed o a hotel named Rempen as cheap and got a room for Rp 100 000 (~Euro8.50), but we cannot recommend the place: to filthy.
From there, we walked along the streets of Kuta during the remainder of the day and the next. We ate at stalls a bit off the main tourist roads, the meals including fried banana with coconut and chocolate flakes covered in evaporated milk, gato-gato (rice with vegetables in a peanut sauce, often very spicy) and chicken curry (Rp 5k, 12k and 15k, respectively). The range of places to eat is varied, with street vendors starting at Rp 5k for vegetarian, rice-based meals, up to restaurants only slightly cheaper than in Germany.
Traffic is fluid, rules relaxed. People tend to drive on the left side, but at the slightest opening in traffic a gaggle of scooters -- they make up about 80% of traffic, unlike in Bolivia, where Buses and Taxis dominate -- will overtake slower trucks, and 50m of free space will induce your bus driver to overtake 5 scooters and two trucks. Pedestrians, of course, are far down the food chain, pedestrian crossings drawn on the street only to get rid of excess paint, I surmise. Still, it works, and the upside of this kind of driving is the relaxedness with which people get through traffic. Honking is used a a friendly, fair warning to others that you're there and need that space, unless you are a herd of tourists on motorbikes, who honked continuously because traffic generally does not allow more than 30kph, at best 40, and the mean Balinese would not clear the road for them. (Other, slightly off-topic pet peeve: I don't care how bad their English is, calling the waitress at the friendly, and cheap, restaurant [Warung] Missy is downright arrogant)
On a final note, in Bali you can expect to find someone around who speaks English reasonably well, so communicating is not a problem. This must be different outside of the island, and we're grateful that we have the time to get used to Indonesia.
Bali is a Hindu island, and this is a very visible religion here. I'll write more on that in the next post, but there are some nice pictures from Kuta I want to share. Basically, in front of every house, you find these little prayer bowls made of banana leaves and filled with flowers and foodstuff: rice, soy sauce, crackers, chocolate... You smell incense every couple of steps. This is quite nice, the smells of the city are drowned out, and the open air (I can't say fresh, in Kuta) dissipates the incense fast enough so it does not become overbearing.
There's shrines everywhere. Many houses come as little complexes, with a shrine region in front, and I guess one larger families houses in the back. Note the demon on the right hand side of the shrine in the picture to the right.
The picture below, shows a housing complex. The roofs are all shrines, and somewhere in there a house is hidden. If the area's too crowded for such a complex, the house at least gets a small stele, as seen down below.
Sorry for the crappy formatting, but I'll not spend my time around here trying to get it right :)
Traffic is fluid, rules relaxed. People tend to drive on the left side, but at the slightest opening in traffic a gaggle of scooters -- they make up about 80% of traffic, unlike in Bolivia, where Buses and Taxis dominate -- will overtake slower trucks, and 50m of free space will induce your bus driver to overtake 5 scooters and two trucks. Pedestrians, of course, are far down the food chain, pedestrian crossings drawn on the street only to get rid of excess paint, I surmise. Still, it works, and the upside of this kind of driving is the relaxedness with which people get through traffic. Honking is used a a friendly, fair warning to others that you're there and need that space, unless you are a herd of tourists on motorbikes, who honked continuously because traffic generally does not allow more than 30kph, at best 40, and the mean Balinese would not clear the road for them. (Other, slightly off-topic pet peeve: I don't care how bad their English is, calling the waitress at the friendly, and cheap, restaurant [Warung] Missy is downright arrogant)
On a final note, in Bali you can expect to find someone around who speaks English reasonably well, so communicating is not a problem. This must be different outside of the island, and we're grateful that we have the time to get used to Indonesia.
Bali is a Hindu island, and this is a very visible religion here. I'll write more on that in the next post, but there are some nice pictures from Kuta I want to share. Basically, in front of every house, you find these little prayer bowls made of banana leaves and filled with flowers and foodstuff: rice, soy sauce, crackers, chocolate... You smell incense every couple of steps. This is quite nice, the smells of the city are drowned out, and the open air (I can't say fresh, in Kuta) dissipates the incense fast enough so it does not become overbearing. | ||
There's shrines everywhere. Many houses come as little complexes, with a shrine region in front, and I guess one larger families houses in the back. Note the demon on the right hand side of the shrine in the picture to the right.
The picture below, shows a housing complex. The roofs are all shrines, and somewhere in there a house is hidden. If the area's too crowded for such a complex, the house at least gets a small stele, as seen down below.
Sorry for the crappy formatting, but I'll not spend my time around here trying to get it right :)
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