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SMOKING VOLCANOES, SMOKING PEOPLE & SMOKING HOT CHICKEN!
Indonesia, land of the 'biggest' - biggest population on an island (over 140 million people live on Java), biggest lizard in the world (the Komodo Dragon), biggest archipelago (over 17,000 islands make up the country), biggest flower (the Rafflesia), biggest snake (the Reticulated Python which can grow up to 10m long) - this country has an impressive list of superlatives!
From Singapore, our first destination in this land of extremes was Yogyakarta, home of the largest and oldest Buddhist temple in the world. Yogyakarta couldn't be more different from Singapore if it tried; the city is grimy, the air is grey and motley graffiti covers building walls from top to bottom. On our first night we decided to try a local restaurant on the famous market street, Maliboro Road. Since the only Indonesian words we knew were mee (noodles), nasi (rice) and ayam (chicken) we got some noodle, rice and chicken dishes! When the lady mentioned the chicken we'd ordered was "good for spicy" we told her, "no problem, we like spicy" but little did we know she was talking 'flames coming out of your mouth, smoke coming out of your nostrils, pay for it in the morning' kind of spice! This ayam was HOT!!! In fact (and Joel still doesn't believe me about this) it was so spicy that I could actually feel my ear canals tingling!
Our main purpose for coming to Yogyakarta (other than to sample the world's hottest chicken) was to visit Borobudur, an ancient Buddhist temple dating back to the 9th century! We thought if we got there reasonably early we'd beat the crowds but apparently a number of schools also had the same brilliant idea. Of the three hours we spent at the temple, two were taken up being interviewed by hundreds of excited school children desperate to practice their English and have their photos taken with us. Joel was the preferred choice for photos particularly with giggling gaggles of Indonesian school girls; one besotted group actually screamed with excitement when he said 'yes' to having a photo with them - eat your heart out Justin Bieber! When we did get a few breaks from the 'paparazzi' we were able to walk up and around the terraces of this incredible temple and admire the views from the top (darting behind stupas when necessary to avoid the pleas for "one photo with you please, Mr/Miss").
From Borobudur we headed South to Yogyakarta's other famous temple complex, the Hindu temples of Prambanan. The structures here have suffered a lot of damage as a result of the many earthquakes that have shaken Indonesia's soil but despite this the temples were still incredibly beautiful (they have however been subjected to a lot of restoration). We couldn't help but be reminded of Cambodia's Angkor Wat and India's Khajuraho temples as we wandered around the ancient shrines. Before leaving Yogyakarta we checked out the Kraton (the current Sultan's palace grounds) and the Tamin Sari (ancient ruins of former palaces and bathing pools for past sultans). Unfortunately the Sultan's pools were closed by the time we got there but a nice local lady took us out the back of a restaurant and told us to poke our heads over the fence for a sneak-peek at the pools down below. She then took us on a tour of the village within the Tamin Sari including a visit to Sumur Gumuling, an underground mosque that was once only accessible by boat. We got a real feel for what the place would've been like completely surrounded by water when an enormous rainstorm caught us off-guard and kept us in the underground mosque until it eventually eased off.
We left Yogyakarta for Bromo at 8.30am the following morning squished into an old minivan in 35 degree heat with practically no A/C. It was a shocker of a journey - we arrived at 11.15pm that night and were dumped in a mould-filled, bug-infested shack courtesy of the crappy company we'd signed up with (Reason #413 why I despise tour companies)! Joel suffered the consequences when he woke up absolutely covered, shins to shoulders, in bed-bites! After only 3 hours sleep, we were back on the road heading up Mt Penanjakan to catch the sunrise over Mt Bromo in the volcanic Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park. Thankfully the spectacular scenery and stunning sunrise made up for the previous day's palaver - the view was incredible and my photo-taking-finger was aching by the time the sun was up! We were even lucky enough to see Mt Semeru puff out a couple of big, grey clouds of smoke. After admiring the sunrise we took a jeep over to Mt Bromo to climb up the famous volcano and walk around the crater. It was quite a surreal experience standing on the edge of a steaming volcano crater but we certainly weren't alone; Bromo was brimming with hundreds of other lava-loving tourists!
Having spent 14 hours in a vehicle the previous day, we boarded yet another bus and made the 13 hour journey from Bromo to Bali, including a dodgy ride on a dubious looking ferry and a midnight drive through the streets of Sanur in a Bemo (Bali's beat up old taxi-vans). When we finally arrived at our hotel, we crawled into our (bedbug-free) beds and didn't get out of them till late the following morning. Bliss! It was well worth going to Bromo but I definitely won't miss those loooooong travel days!
High: The breath-taking dawn scenery at the lookout on Mt Penanjakan.
Low: EVERYBODY here in Indonesia smokes! Apparently it's still considered 'cool' and socially acceptable. On boats, buses, in restaurants and temples, around parks and gardens, there is just no escaping the foul fog of cigarette smoke.
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