The Rest of Indonesia

We arrived back in Bali on 19th May, and after a night spent in Padangbai, we carried on our route, which was to take us up the east coast of Bali, along the top, then across to Java for a bit of a mooch around, before finally heading back to Bali to do the west coast and heading onto Thailand.

Next on the list was a town called Amed, on the East Coast of Bali, famous for its fantastic snorkelling and expensive ‘budget’ accommodation! We ended up forking out a whopping 100,000 rupiah for a room here - our most to date. In sterling it works out as roughly £3 each. It did include breakfast though, so that made it a bit easier to swallow. As well as snorkelling, we hired a moped for an afternoon, and visited Tirta Gangga - a water palace, as well as taking in some more great scenery.

Still not possessing a driving license meant I spent the afternoon clinging onto the back of the moped for dear life as Lauren got to grips with the Bali roads!

After Amed, we headed up north to Tulamben, a very famous dive site in Bali, where the USS Liberty was hit by a Jap torpedo during the war. After finding some cheap accommodation (to make up for the previous two nights’ extravagance), we booked our dive for the following day. The dive was pretty cool - managed to see a lot of the shipwreck as well as its resident marine life, including a Grouper and a rather menacing-looking Barracuda. In the afternoon, I headed back in for a bit of snorkelling, and came across a huge circling shoal of jackfish, each about a couple of feet long. I managed to swim right in the middle of them and had thousands of them circling me - an incredible sight!

Next on the list was Lovina, about half way along the northern coast of Bali. We arrived after a two-hour bemo ride - quite a busy bemo carrying everything from bamboo scaffolding to buckets of fish! Anyway, having secured yet more cheap accommodation, we decided that we quite liked Lovina, and thought we’d spend a few days there. During these few days, we hired another moped and visited the Git Git Waterfall which was spectacular.

After the ‘falls, we headed on to a rice paddy village called Munduk - again, some beautiful scenery, before heading back through the pouring rain to Lovina.

Java

From Lovina, we headed up to Gilimanuk on the far north-west coast of Bali, where we took a mercifully short ferry ride across to Java. Once in Java, we knew where we wanted to go (Yokyakarta), but we didn’t really have an inkling of how on earth to get there. We spoke to a couple of agents who quoted us some ridiculous figures to get a couple of coaches there, but we decided we’d check out the train station instead.

Lucky we did! The train worked out a hell of a lot cheaper, and even in ‘Eksectutif’ class, the 14 hour journey cost only a few quid. From what I could tell, being an Eksecutif meant that you we subjected to near absolute-zero temperatures of air-conditioning for the whole night, with only a pink blanket for comfort! Luckily, for the second leg of the journey, we had only booked ‘Bisnis’ class, meaning we could thaw out. I much preferred being a bisnisman rather than an eksecutif. Aside from the air conditioning fiasco, the only other thing of note was that Lauren got chicken noodles for lunch by mistake (double portion time for me again!).

Anyway, we arrived in Yogyakarta on the afternoon of 28th May, and set about finding somewhere to stay, which proved more difficult than we’d anticipated. We eventually found somewhere fairly rough, but it met most of our criteria (ceiling fan and western-style loo). The only thing it lacked (aside from sunlight and a lick of paint) was a sink, meaning we had to wash out of a bucket normally used to tip water down the loo to flush it. Yes, I know.

The next morning, at five in the morning, we went to see a temple called Borrobodour.

I’m normally fairly sceptical about the merits of getting up when the clock is in single-digit territory (pre-10.00 a.m.) anyway, but combined with the prospect of doing it in order to see a temple was quite a tough call. I’m glad I did though, as the temple thingy was spectacular.

The best bit, though, was massive groups of Indonesian school children wanting to have their photos taken with us! That and the coffee.

That afternoon we had a wander around town, visiting the local markets and then dining (for the second night in a row) at a rather good warung run by a podgy Indonesian chap who let us help ourselves and charged us very little indeed! Heading back to our room, I heard a familiar noise emanating from a room of the road we were on. I poked my head in and found about ten local boys playing Pro-Evolution on the Playstation. At 2,500 rupiah (16p) an hour, I couldn’t resist, and took up the challenge they issued me! Two hours later, we were all kicked out as the owner wanted to go to bed!

The next day, we had another long journey ahead of us, as we were on our way to Mount Bromo, an active Volcano in East Java. We were picked up from our accommodation at 09.00 and finally arrived at our hotel in Cemero Lawang, at the base of Mt. Bromo twelve hours later. To my glee, I found that our hotel room had a TV, and I was just in time for the second half of the FA Cup final!

The next morning (just), we got our alarm call at 03.05 and, having forgotten to take a torch, stumbled up Mount Bromo in time for sunrise.

Luckily we managed to follow some local chaps who were taking their horses on the same route, so we somehow managed not to get lost! The view from the crater at sunrise was magnificent!

The crater itself was spewing out clouds and clouds of sulphurous gas looking as if it was going to erupt any minute! We spent an hour climbing all the way around the crater, taking some photos and getting knackered before walking back to our hotel room and enjoying a hot shower for the first time since Singapore, back on 25th April!

From Bromo, we caught a bus back to Bali. Again, a pretty dull and painful 12 hour bus ride, with a short ferry interlude. The only thing that made this journey remotely interesting was another food gaffe, but this time by me. In a roadside warung, where the bus had stopped for lunch, I decided to be a bit adventurous, and went for goat curry. It wasn’t like the curry back ‘ome. What I got was a bowl of goat guts in sauce. I could identify a heart, as well as a kidney and a liver. There were also a couple of long things which were wrapped up in a ribbon of intestine. I normally devour anything from the meat family with gusto, but even this was too much for me. I nibbled at a piece of what, I think from the texture, was heart, before giving up and just having the rice. It was well rank. I offered it to Lauren, but even she didn’t want it and for once, I can’t blame her!

Anyway, we arrived back in Denpasar, the capital of Bali at around midnight on 31st May, and head back into the dreaded Kuta to find some accommodation. Normally this is pretty easy in Kuta, but we hadn’t bargained on it being Australian holiday season! We staggered around for ages with our backpacks on, before finally finding somewhere at twenty-to-two in the morning for a staggering 125,000 rupiah! Our record smashed again! Needless to say, we checked out fairly promptly the next morning, and headed twenty up the road to Legian, to a more reasonably priced place.

Our aim whilst in Legian was to learn to surf! Day one was fairly tough, and we both managed to stand up only a couple of times. Day two was quite a lot better. Granted, we had a surfboard that was about eight foot tall three foot wide, but we were pleased with our progress, and managed to get up and surf about 70% of the waves. The remaining three days, we managed too get progressively worse, having discovered a cheap hotel with pool and a happy hour a minute down the road!

By 8th June, the time had come to leave Indonesia for Bangkok. We had an absolutely fantastic time - the food was superb, the people very friendly and the country very diverse and beautiful - well worth a visit!