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Janet's travel blog (Part Two - Java Adventure)
Ellen, Orasa and I arrived in Jakarta around 12, after having had about two hours sleep. We were all so deliriously tired that the smallest things would just set us off and we would crack up laughing. I'm sure our new tour leader Nan and also the taxi driver found us entertaining!
When we got to the hotel all we wanted was a burger! We went to the hotel's restaurant to order burgers but they were out of buns, so we ordered a triple sandwich each. After about 20 minutes (which is a long time to wait when all you want is food) the waiter brought my sandwich out then asked the others if they would like the same... they were gutted. Eventually we all had our sandwiches and struggled to work out how much we needed to pay each with this new Indonesian money. Believe me, it was a struggle with only two hours sleep!
Had a good nap at our hotel after. That night we had the group meeting for the second section of the tour (Java Adventure). The first night of this tour was the polar opposite to the last tour! On this tour we had 9 Germans, 2 English, 2 Swiss, 1 Scot and me. There were a group of four 30ish year old ladies, Connie, Anya, Petka and ?(I forget one of their names!), who tended to keep to themselves. A Swiss couple who were very lovey-dovey, but also enjoyed mingling with everyone. Two 30ish year old German guys Andreas and Dominic. We got to know them better at the end of the tour, they were fun to be around. Two German girls, Nadja and Tanja. Woody from Leicester and Gina from Germany (who had studied in England so had perfect English) formed a bit of a group with Ellen, Orasa and I.
We went to Bandung on the train on the first day. We almost lost half the group on a train at one stage! We were getting on what we thought to be our train. Nan realised that it was the wrong train and told everyone to get off the train fast! I swear half of us jumped off as the train was pulling away!
We had a brief look around Bandung (not lots there, just Jeans street, a main shopping strip with lots of superhero statues... strange!) Then most of us went to a hot spring. I hadn't been to a hot spring before. The water was quite dirty, and it was bloody hot! Good though. That night at dinner we had a birthday cake cake for myself and two others as we all had birthdays on the tour. Nice.
From Bandung we went to Yogyakarta where we stayed for three nights. We had the afternoon to relax which was nice. Quote of the day went to Ellen. We were talking and joking about how its so easy on a tour to just follow everyone. I said, "a bit like sheep" to which Ellen's laugh came out rather as a sheep would baa! Quite funny (or perhaps you just had to be there... we found it quite funny anyway!)
On this tour I taught Orasa, Ellen, Gina and Woody how to play the card game Chinese gin rummy. It was quite a hit with them all and we basically played it any time we were sitting at a table, even during meals! Orasa noticed my competitive side and as a result rather enjoyed it whenever I lost... Grr... :)
We had a tour of the city the following day. We saw a batik factory where we could see the workers printing the patterns on the fabric. Other sights were the kraton where the sultan of Yogyakarta lives, the water palace where previous sultans would bathe with one of their many wives... and then the bird market. We all had our own becak's (which as Ellen put it is "a bike with an armchair at the front where skinny Indonesian's drive around fat westerners!" Quite accurate I thought!) It was quite a good way to see the city, and also a good way to get a feel for the chaotic traffic!
Around this time there was a tsunami just off the coast of sumatra and also Mount Merapi (which is 30 kms from Yogyakarta) decided to start misbehaving. This caused a few of the groups friends and relatives back at home to get a bit worried, but if you hadn't head any news (which is super easy to do when you are travelling) you wouldn't know anything was happening. Nevertheless we were quite safe in Yogyakarta.
A visit to a one thousand year old Hindu temple, Prambanan, was the following day. We were going to go to see another temple, Borobodor, on the same day but we weren't able to go there due to the ash and debris from Mount Merapi. I really enjoyed going to see Prambanan. There was a temple for each of the three main gods, Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu, along with a temple each for their animals, Nandi (Shiva's bull), a swan of Brahma's and a Garuda (half eagle half human) of Vishnu. There was also a temple for wind and one for fire. I think I liked it because I could understand its layout. The sheer size of the temples and the intricate carvings all over the temple were amazing too.
One thing I've had to get used to here in Asia is the complete lack of road rules. It really is amazing there aren't more accidents! Traffic just seems to go and other cars and motorbikes just dodge around all the others! And when crossing the roads all you do is wait for the smallest break in traffic and just walk. The bikes and traffic will slow down for you or go around you. It's so different from home! That afternoon when I was looking around the markets with Orasa and Gina my arm actually got brushed by a motorbike when I was crossing the road, no damage though.
We headed to the base of mount bromo the next day which was a rather long 13 hour bus journey. Long day! I taught Ellen more about how to use her phone (which she has had for a year! Bless). She was well happy when I showed her she could write notes on her phone! We entertained ourselves by both writing our travel blogs on our phones, listening to each others music, looking through photos playing cards of course and napping. We got a bit crazy towards the end of the journey. I cut loose with a bit of iPod karaoke and Ellen busted out some iPod dancing. Orasa found this rather entertaining! Orasa decide to teach us a word game which apparently was 'easy'... evidently Ellen and I didn't think so. Word game fail you might say. We reverted to a game of eye spy after that. It was much more enjoyable!
This brings us to one of my favorite days of the tour, an early morning start to watch the sun rise over Mount Bromo which happened to be on my birthday! We got up at 3:30 and were driven in jeeps to the viewing point. As the sun started to rise I could see the view unfolding in front of me. Straight ahead was the steaming Mount Bromo and over to the left the sun began to rise. Beautiful view. It was unfortunate there were so many people at the viewing point, I found it was much too crowded. I like to enjoy a quiet sunrise. It was still beautiful though! After that we walked up 250 steps to the rim of the volcano. When I got to the top I could hear a really deep rumbling, I could see lots of smoke coming from the volcano and I could smell traces of sulphur. That plus the view of the land surrounding the area was gorgeous. It was great to sit with Ellen on the edge of the volcano rim and just soak up the fact that I was dangling my feet into an active volcano! It's not everyday you get to do that hey!
Again we jumped back on the bus for another day of travel (we were all getting a bit over being on the bus by this stage!) and headed for (kalibaru?) a small village on the way to Bali. Again on the bus we played cards, only today, I managed to lose every single card game that I played! I wasn't too fussed but I did get a bit pissed off when Orasa continually reminded me of the fact!
There wasn't a lot to do in Kalibaru but have a look at the coffee plantation and visit the local people in their village. Our guide for this didn't speak a great deal if English so he kept looking to Nan for help. Poor guy. We were all a little delirious from the amount of bus travel we'd done in the last two days as well so that didn't help the concentration levels. Orasa, Ellen Gina and Woody all went a little snap happy with their cameras. It was kinda funny! In any case, we got to see and have a taste of lots of various things like coffee beans, vanilla, peppercorn, cloves and palm sugar among other things. After that we went for a walk through the local village to see and meet some of the locals. It seemed a bit strange at times because we were just sort of wandering through their village, takings pictures and looking at them while they were staring back at us! The kids we met were very cute. At one stage one of them came up and held my hand and walked with me for a bit. Very cute. We also got to see how rice is grown and were told of the stages it goes through. We also tried some tapioka which is a root vegetable and is a lot like potato.
My lovely roomie Ellen whipped up a beautiful hand made birthday card for me. I loved it. Dinner followed by a few games of pool with Woody. I managed to finish my birthday with a few wins which was nice!
On to Bali the next day. Again, more bus travel! We stopped by Medewi for lunch and watched all the surfers doing their thing on some sweet left-handers. It just made me want to get in there! Got to Sanur in the early evening where we had our last dinner with the Java group and the first dinner with our Bali adventure group.
Overall this tour was a lot more subdued and involved a lot more travelling from place to place than Bangkok to Bali. It was still nice to see some great landscapes. My highlight of this tour was definitely climbing mount bromo to see the sunrise on my birthday. It was pretty special!
Stay tuned for more updates to come!
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