Bromo vulcano
This morning I slept long, because it was my last day in Lovina. Around noon I took the bus to Java. My exact destination there was the Bromo vulcano. The bus was supposed to a luxury bus, but it was still pretty crammed. As I sat in my chair I had to lay my legs on top of other peoples bags. The bus trip went through a beautiful area. At the end of the afternoon we reached the harbour. It was a bit dusty and smelly there. The boat trip didn't last very long, because Bali is quite close to Java. In the evening the bus stopped at a restaurant near Pasir Putih (a popular beach on Java). Around 10 o'clock the bus arrived at the Bromo vulcano. It was a couple of hours too late. I went looking for a room together with a couple of other people from the bus. In a nearby hotel we could just get the last places in the dormitory.
This was only a very short night, because at 3:15 we had to wake up to go to the vulcano. The best time to visit it is just before sunrise. The Bromo consists of a large crater with a diameter of 11 kilometers. Within this crater there are several other smaller vulcano tops. The Bromo vulcano is actually one of these. Our hotel was located somewhat outside the main crater. A jeep took us to the edge of the main crater. From there you could walk to the Bromo vulcano, or you could rent a donkey to take you there. It was very cold this morning. There was even some frost on the ground. It was also very very dusty, especially when those donkeys passed by. Many people wore masks on their faces. I arrived at the top just before sunrise. The sunrise was quite special indeed. There was some light fog hanging in the main crater, which looked very beautiful with this sunrise.
Bromo vulcano
The way back to the hotel I went by foot. It was a quite
beautiful area here. It reminded me a bit of the Alps mountains. I spent the
rest of the day relaxing in the garden of the hotel, like many other people did.
I was still feeling a bit tired and sleepy.
At the end of the afternoon the bus arrived which would
take me to Yogyakarta. I met 2 dutch girls there who had been working in
Australia for a year, and who were now making a trip through south-east Asia
before going home. They seemed however quite unexperienced with travelling. In
the evening the bus stopped in Probolingo. We had to wait for another bus there,
and in the meantime we could have dinner. I went searching for a restaurant
together with the 2 girls. After a while we found a small warung, a place which
rarely saw any tourists. The people here only spoke indonesian, but I knew just
enough words to be able to order a meal. The girls were very impressed. :-)
After dinner (which had tasted good) we still had to wait some longer for the
next bus. This turned out to be a real luxury one. It had adjustable seats, and
plenty of space for my legs (very extraordinary in Indonesia!). And there were
only 7 people in it now!
At 3 o'clock we arrived in Solo. The other passengers wanted
to go here, but all hotels turned out to be full. So they decided to go to
Yogyakarta instead, like me. In Yogyakarta is was also difficult to find a room.
We finally found one where we could sleep on the porch outside. After a while
some guy came, telling he had found a hotel with a free room. I decided to take
it, although it was a bit expensive. However, it was quite a dissapointment. In
the first place, I didn't like the room too much. And then when I finally wanted
to go to sleep (after 2 nearly sleepless nights) a church service started next
to the hotel. The service included a loud gospelband, and it lasted for several
hours. so I could just forget about sleeping. I was fed up with this hotel, so I
left to search for another one. This had just been a waste of money. Soon I
found another room, quite near to the city center. This room had very little
daylight, but it was very cheap. I spent the rest of the morning sleeping.
In the afternoon I went for a walk in the neighborhood.
Yogyakarta is a far more interresting city than most other large indonesian
cities. It has lots of interresting things to visit, such as the kraton (the old
sultans palace). And in the nearby area are the famous ancient temples Prambanan
and Borobudur.
Market
In the morning I visited the kraton palace. It was located in
the center of the city, not too far from my hotel. We were shown around by a
dutch speaking guide. The palace included an interesting exhibition of the live
of the sultans. Although Indonesia is nowadays a republic, the sultans still
have much prestige and power.
After visiting the palace I went to the Prambanan temples.
This is a huge ancient block of hindu temples, located a few miles outside
Yogyakarta. I went there by becak (bicycle-riksha) and by bus. The temples
looked very impressive.
Prambanan temples
In the evening, after dinner, I came across a batik exposition. Batik is an indonesian way of painting textile. It is mostly used for clothes, but also to make paintings. A guy outside talked me into the shop. Since I didn't have any other plans for that evening I decided to take a look. The paintings looked quite nice. Of course it was possible to buy them. I thought it would make a nice souvenir, so I decided to buy one. But because of their smooth talks I ended up with 2. And for a probably way too high price, in spite of all the "special discounts".
I got up early this morning, because I wanted to go to the Borobudur temple. The Borobudur is a huge buddhist temple. It consists of a number of terraces and on top a number of stupas, each with a buddha statue inside. The whole building is covered with sculptures. It is best to visit this temple early in the morning, because at that time it isn't too crowded with tourists yet. The temple is about 40 km away from Yogyakarta. I went there by bus. Like I expected there weren't too many people there yet. A good opportunity to take pictures. Soon more tourists arrived. Many of them tried to touch the buddha statues inside the stupas. This is supposed to bring luck. There were also quite a number of indonesian students who wanted to talk to tourists to practice their english language. I had a little chat with a few of them too. And of course they wanted to take pictures of me. As I was posing for a picture with 2 of them beside me, I suddenly said "Saya orang besar!". They looked quite surprised! :-)
Borobudur temple
This morning I left Yogyakarta. At 7:00 I took the bus to
Pangandaran, a popular beach town on the southside of Java. The bus wasn't going
all the way there. Instead we would have to cross a lagune by boat. Halfway
during the busride we stopped at a restaurant along the road. It had a self-
service buffet with lots of different dishes. This was the kind of indonesian
food I already knew from home, but which I had not yet seen on my holiday. The
food tasted delicious. In this restaurant I also met some people again that I
had met in Bromo. After lunch the bus went further to Cilicap, where we had to
take the boat. The lagoon looked quite beautiful. It was a kind of swampy area
with lots of mangrove trees. The boat journey took about 4 hours. At the end of
the afternoon we arrived in Pangandaran.
I knew that my friend would arrive here in 2 days, so I
first tried to go to the same hotel as his. But this one was already full, and
the other ones in the neighbourhood were quite expensive. But a becakdriver knew
a cheap hotel not too far away. In one of my travel guidebooks this hotel was
described as very new and clean. But in just a couple of years it had quite
decayed. It was cheap, though.
Today I would go with an organised tour called the "green canyon tour". It wasn't really cheap, but I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to see something of the area. I still felt bad about having missed the Besakih temple on Bali, due to being too thrifty. Two other dutch tourists went with this tour today. We had a very good guide. He told us a lot about everything we visited. We first went to a cacao plantation and a small krupuk factory. Then we visited a small sugar factory and another factory where tempeh and tofu were made. These 2 products are made from soya beans. It all looked very interresting. I was glad I had joined the tour, because I most probably wouldn't have seen all this if I had just travelled on my own. The next thing we visited was a man that made wajang dolls. These are some kind of puppets which are used in the traditional Ramajana and Mahabharata plays.
Wajang-seller
After this we went to the green canyon. This is a river valley
which used to be underground. But several years ago it had collapsed and at that
time the 'canyon' was revealed. We made a boat trip on the river. It was a very
beautiful area. After this we went to the beach. There were a lot of surfers at
this beach. At this place the waves went along the shore instead of coming
towards. So the surfers could just walk back in the right direction instead of
having to swim. It was also possible to rent tubes from truck-wheels to let
yourself float along the waves. This was very exciting. The waves were quite
large by the way, but not like in Pangandaran where they are so huge that it is
too dangerous to swim or surf. In the end of the afternoon we visited a bamboo
bridge and a lagune. I had enjoyed this tour very much.
In the evening when I was taking a walk I came across a
cinema where they showed a movie called "Surviving the game", with Rutger Hauer
and Ice-T. It was a good movie, and the cinema was very cheap.
I got up late this morning. In the afternoon I visited a park
near the town. You could see lots of monkeys here. There was also a beautiful
beach in this park, but that was closed this summer. After this walk through the
park I felt hungry again, so I took a second lunch.
At the end of the afternoon I went to my friends hotel. He
had just arrived. After I had told him all about my experiences of the last
couple of weeks, we went to the town for dinner. We left the restaurant just
when the owner starting to sing karaoke. In the evenings we spent the time in
the hotel, together with some other people of his group.
This was my last day in Pangandaran. We spent most time today on the beach. At the end of the afternoon I went back to my hotel to pack my bags. The bus would pick me up in front of my hotel. Meanwhile I had a quick dinner at a restaurant at the other side of the street. The bus arrived at 7 o'clock. I was the only tourist inside. The route to Jakarta went through a mountainous area, and the road was very very curvy. Because of this, after a couple of hours I got carsick, and I had to vomit. After some time the bus stopped for a pause near a restaurant. I was glad I could get out of the bus. For a moment I thought about staying here the rest of the night because I felt so sick, but I decided to better just continue the busride. We soon came into a more flat area with straighter roads. Then I didn't feel that bad anymore.
At 3:30 the bus arrived in Bekasi, a city near Jakarta. I had
told the busdriver that I wanted to go to a hotel. He arranged that I could
travel further with a guy with a motorcycle. I expected him to bring me to a
busstop, but instead he brought me to a hotel in this neighborhood. That was not
what I wanted. I wanted to go to Jalan Jaksa, the center of Jakarta. This hotel
was full by the way, and also a bit too expensive for me. But the staff was very
helpful in finding out how to go to Jalan Jaksa by bus. During the busride I
could soon see the national monunent, a large pillar in the center of Jakarta
(very close to Jalan Jaksa). I recognized the places that I had seen before a
couple of weeks ago. At 5 o'clock I arrived at Jalan Jaksa. It was not easy to
find a hotel. After searching around I found a place on a dormitory. First I
took a shower to wash of the vomit of last night, and then I could get some
sleep at last. The next morning I went looking for another hotel. I'd rather
have a room for myself for those last days of my holiday. I soon found one in
the same hotel I had been before ("Bloemsteen").
After breakfast I visited the National Museum. It was not
too far from my hotel. There were lots of things to see about the cultures from
all different parts of Indonesia. After this I went for a lunch at the local
McDonalds. Next to this was a large department-store called 'Sarinah'. It was
quite interresting to see. There was a section with all kinds of souvenirs from
all over Indonesia. Very handy in case you have forgotten something, or don't
want to carry it all around during your journey. It also has fixed prices, so
you won't have to bargain about it. Here I found out that I had payed too much
for my batik paintings from Yogyakarta.
Scooter riksja's
The rest of the afternoon I spent in the garden of my hotel.
It was very hot today, so I decided to take it easy. And I also hadn't slept too
much last night.
I had dinner at a mexican restaurant in the neighborhood.
The food was excellent, but it was also rather expensive. Then I went back to
the garden of my hotel, where I met several other travellers. Among them a dutch
couple that I had met before in the plane to Indonesia. They would also have the
same plane back as me. They had only been to Sumatra. I noticed how quite it was
in this garden, in spite of being located in the center of a city with millions
of inhabitanants.
Today I visited the older part of the city. This is located near the harbour on the north side of the city. I visited a small colonial dutch fortress. After this I went to the nearby harbour. There you could see many large sailships. These kind of ships are still being used for transport between the islands. You could see how labourers carried large wooden beams from the ship, one by one.
Old harbour
Next I went to the zoo. It was quite a long busride. In the
zoo I was particularly interested in the Komodo varans. But at this moment they
were all sleeping. I enjoyed the rest of the zoo, though.
At the evening I had dinner in the restaurant of the Sarinah
department store. This restaurant is well known for having meals from all parts
of Indonesia. But I didn't like the meal that I had chosen. I spent the rest of
the evening in the garden of my hotel again, meeting other travellers and
exchanging experiences.
This was my last day in Indonesia. I woke up late and spent the rest of the morning in the garden of my hotel again. It was quite hot again today. Just before leaving I took a last shower. Then I took a bus to the airport. There I met some people again that had been on the same plane to indonesia. I had a little chat with some of them. The plane left at the end of the afternoon. We had a short stop at Singapore again.
Somewhat after midnight the plane landed in Karachi. Here we had to wait a couple of hours again. In the meantime I could sleep on one of the soft benches again. The next morning we continued our flight to Amsterdam. Around noon the plane landed at Schiphol Airport. There everything went very smooth. I was one of the first people that left the plane, there was no passport control, I was the first one who arrived at the luggage room, and there it was my bag which arrived first. Then I took the train to Rotterdam, and from there the bus to Zierikzee.
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