Indonesia

Bandung & Jakarta 22-24 November

Six hour bus trip from Pangandaran to Bandung (50.000 Rupiah). Each stop getting pestered by merchants to buy food and drink, pay for singers/guitarists, some sellers even stay on the bus between stops and repetitively ask you every other minute if you're really not interested in that mank bit of fruit. The city is in complete gridlock. We arrive, settle in & explore. …Festering people, seedy streets, grubby, rubbish laden, manky cats without tails, beggars ever present alongside clean glitzy shopping malls. Reality check – all the famous franchises are present from Starbucks to Gucci. The grinding poverty can be discouraging. Lots of homeless mums send out their flock of children to beg us for money – often using empty beverage cups from the McDonalds just up the road – the epitome of a third world country eagerly trying to latch onto the "glamorous" West. New movies releases are playing for only 15000 rupiahs ($2.50) - James Bond 'Quantum of Solace' provides a welcome distraction.

Java is well known for its bakery delights so we sample a fair bit of it. Head up Jeans street- 200m of shopping centers lined with cheap tacky clothes, shop fronts adorned with colossal plaster giants of all the favo superheroes – Rambo, spiderman, superman – they’re all here! Just around the corner we find a meticulously clean shopping mal. A sudden transformation to a sanitary environment with high security, rich teens on ‘young street’. A city of harsh truths indeed.

Happy to leave Bandung, a 3hour train ride to Jakarta, past rice paddies, coconut plantations, workers in the field. As we approach Jakarta we see people sleeping & living on the train tracks, kids playing, entire villages constructed from garbage, men enjoying a game of chess on the tracks! So many people with nowhere to go and nothing to do…

Pangandaran 19-22 November

4hr train ride to Banjar, Becak rides in the pouring rain, 2hr death defying bus ride through jungle (doesn’t really stop to let people on or off – you just have to jump), careering around the corners at full speed, taking up the whole road and then we’re dumped in the middle of nowhere. We negotiate scooter rides to “Delta Gecko Village” in Cikembulan (4kms from the tourist hub of Pangandaran) despite the adamancy of our drivers that Delta Gecko no longer exists and that they could take us to their mates place instead. We insist, and set off along the rough coastal road, stormy seas, pouring rain, path of destruction and hotel ruins, remnants of the 2006 Tsunami. We stop outside a pile of rubble – apparently Delta Gecko. Thinking they’re having us on we go check out the area and find 1 house and a European among the carnage. “Is this Delta Gecko?”, “That’s Delta Gecko” he says pointing to the rubble. I guess it does pay to have an up to date (post Tsunami) guidebook! Off to their mates place within the tourist hub (despite the knowledge that we’ll have to pay the commission that the becak mafia get off the losmen).

Oh well, we’re here – Pangandaran, a seaside town with crashing surf, beaches, coconut plantations, and a forested national park at the tip of the peninsula. The streets are deserted, apart from locals energetically rebuilding a life from the rubble – the destruction is still so vivid. We scope out the fish market, the freshest seafood around! Simply look through the polystyrene iceboxes outside the warungs until you find what you want and they cook it up how you like it. Delicious! Fish, squid, prawns, scallops… and the assorted by catch that comes with bottom trawling -even 2 baby hammerheads, and some crayfish so undersized even the most avid poacher would be ashamed to take – overfishing at its prime. The King Prawns are a winner however!

The beach is covered with blue prahus (boats), nets, fish drying on the footpath, fishermen, souvenir shops, and locals barbequing prawns over an open fire. There are deer and monkeys playing and eating crackers on the beach (?) – the gateway to the National Park (5000R entrance fee with includes insurance – eek). We see black monkeys, macaques, iguanas, deer, caves, and finally some peace and quiet! We watch the sunset from the beach, and at dusk the skies fill with mammoth fruit bats. Apparently people still eat them – they catch them by snagging their wings on hooks attached to kite strings.

We hire a scooter (50.000R), put 2litres of Benzin (petrol) in the tank (6000R/Litre) and head out of town to the Cituman Dam – children calling out to us “hello” and waving, locals showing us the way – happy, friendly people! Several pooldrops and limestone caves later, we see some local boys swimming above a big drop in the river – Guido joins them. Then off to Pangandaran’s most famous site “Green Canyon”. 75000R for the 2 of us to charter a longtail boat up the Sungai Cijulang River, forested river banks, iguana’s basking in the sun, stunning butterflies and birds, and then the banks steepen into limestone cliffs, waterfalling, stalactites and a narrow gorge. The boat can go no further so we swim up hard and fast against the current to avoid getting sucked over the rocky drops below us, to see the ‘gorgeous’ scenery and rapids upstream. As we swim we run into a blue snake swimming right by the rope we’re supposed to grab onto – aargh! Who needs a rope anyway!

Yogya (Yogyakarta) 15-19 November

Yogya ranks as one of the best-preserved and most culturally attractive sities in Java and our first impressions were good – bigger, busier, and way more vibrant than Solo. We run around the nearby gangs (alleys) and find “Bedhot” – a funky café that does good food and delicious ginseng coffee, with cruisy reggae tunes reverberating around us. Drinking Big Bintang beers on the deck is the perfect way to unwind! The main street is packed with clothing/souvenir stalls on one side, the other side lined with lots of warung stalls that pop up for night time feeding – we enjoy tasty Nasi Gudek Telor (local specialty of jackfruit drenched in coconut milk with egg on rice, sauces, chilli). and become big fans of the streetstall lumpia (spring rolls) and fresh donuts (1000R). Tempted to try the local burung (fwhole fried pigeon) as well but it really doesn't hold that much meat so no go unfortunately (it cost a whopping $2 anyway). The horse and carriage/becak drivers hassling us for transport is unrelenting… sigh

We enter the maze of the Sultan’s Palace (grounds covering a mere 200 hectares) and a guide – lets call him Pepe. he shows us the Princesses quarters (usually closed to the public). Another downpour when we’re at the pool area (torrential rain every day now around lunchtime for an hour – monsoon to blame!). Alana felt sick (since Bromo) so drifted off to sleep while Guido talked to good ol' Pepe, a royal palace gamelan player by day, who proceeds to explain that the palace servants are passed down by generation and his son is next in line (7th Generation). Somehow he also slips into the conversation that the local Javanese rice wine is a particularly good aphrodisiac and that he consumes plentiful to please his wife (and of course if we want any). Meanwhilst I stare into the heavy monsoon rain which blocks any foreseeable escape from this conversation which further unravels the palace servants sex life in full detail. When the rain eases we go to the gallery to see batik clothing being made, then onto the Wayang Kulit puppets being carved from buffalo hide (that ithey specifically import from Sulawesi for this purpose). Such intricate designs and detail - no wonder it takes weeks to make one. We leave the palace grounds and check out the bird market and water palace on our way back.

We watch a Wayang Kulit performance (shadow puppet show) where one man works all the leather puppets and speaks for them, playing the drums with his feet, while the gamelan plays in the back. Being the only ones in the audience we couldn’t understand a word but it was entertaining for sure!

Head off to see Java’s number 1 tourist attraction “Borodudur” – the largest Buddhist Temple in the world built in the 9th Century. We arrive at the silent hours of dawn, shrouded in mist – very enchanting (until the hords of language students try to interview us to practice their English - “excuse me, what are your hobbies?”). They are amazingly organized though – donned in full suit with corresponding name tags and ear to ear smiles. They must get up at like 5am to intercept us. We ascend the multiple tiers in a clockwise direction – following the Buddhist pilgrims' journey through the stories delicately carved into the walls. The base represents the real world, the summit is Nirvana, so as you ascend the tiers you are symbolically following the path to enlightenment.

On to Prambanan complex – the largest Hindu Complex in Java, to look at the main temple area – 3 giant rocket-shaped andesite temples, all covered in intricate narrative carvings, dedicated to the 3 main Hindu deities – Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu. Facing these are 3 smaller temples housing the animal statues or “chariots” that accompany the gods. The structure suffered greatly from the 2006 earthquake – reconstruction is incredibly tedious as each granite block is once again intricately hand carved by local labourers. Many of the minor temples still lie in ruins.

Surukarta (Solo) 13-15 November

We settle into Istana Griya Homestay in the city centre and head off to a Wayang Orang Sriwedari Performance (costing 50 cents!). The gamelan (Solonese Orchestra) performs and the curtains draw for a play acted out by Javanese artists in elaborate costumes. Graceful fluid movements telling a story that we can’t understand. The gamelan is particularly impressive – an extensive ensemble of tuned percussion instruments – mainly gongs, metallophones and drums of varying sizes. We eat random street food (costing 50 cents!) and snack on Krupuk (prawn crackers) while a little old lady beats a child with a broom to get him to cook for us – he refuses and goes back to sleep. Our food is served cold and raw – who knows if it’s supposed to be that way!

At side stalls you can eat the local specialty “srabi” a combo of pancake and sweet rice served with various mouthwatering toppings (3 srabi for 50 cents!) - this place is so ridiculously cheap! The town’s main source of income is from textiles, gamelan sets, and tofu production, not tourism so we don't see many western folk around. We explore the indoor/claustrophobic/overwhelming batik market and walk around the royal mosque (not allowed inside as we’re not muslim). Eat Gado-gado (tofu satay and vege dish) and walked Solo in a day looking at the palace exteriors “kraton” and the Radya Pustaka Museum (costing 50 cents!) – built by the dutch in 1890, one of the oldest and largest museums in Java. Nothing in English so we used our vivid imagination! Geared up for a Friday night out but found NO nightlife! Near impossible to even find a beer or a place to drink… outrageous! Time to leave… we convince an old becak driver to cycle us to the train station with all our packs – so loaded up we thought his bike might break under the pressure...Oops!! Also finally figured out what all those places with stacks of amber coloured liquid bottles represent - cheap benzene (petrol) for sale. Not unnecessary either with all the scooters around!

Bromo 12-13 November

An 8hr bus ride to take the ferry crossing from Denpasar (Bali) to Probolinggo in East Java. We unwittingly took the Executive Class option so had a luxury journey including reclining seats, blankets, pillows, food, drink, air con. Such luxury! Arrived in Probolinggo at 2am local time to suss out our trip to Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park. Not surprisingly a 24hr info centre awaited us. Mini bus shuttle to Cemoro Lawang (46kms from Probolinggo) at 4am with some other locals using the public bemo service (apparently it's quite normal to be up at this ungodly hour of the night). We pick up more people, chickens, bales of fresh rice harvest etc and slowly meander our way up the mountainside decorated with lush forest, villages and a stunning sunrise. Our accommodation is perched on the active volcanoes craters edge, with stunning panoramic views of the crater and the volcanoes within. Gunung (Mountain) Bromo (2392m) with its dramatic smoking crater, Gunung Batok with its chopped cone, and Gunung Semeru in the distance. It is believed this area came to be from the eruption of Gunung Tengger, then the highest volcano in Java at over 4000m. The craters base now filled with a vast sandy plain, the so called "sea of sand". It’s 6am and the village is buzzing with life… school kids, jeeps heading to/from the park, but by 10am the village is deserted… all activity ceases. Time for a nap. By 4pm when we arise the view has clouded over and we’re surrounded in mist while we drink strong black Java coffee (5000Rupiah, less than $1) in the eerie silence.

We head off on a 3am sunrise tour into the Park and up to the volcanoes - waiting for a sunrise that never comes – too cloudy. Slightly bemused we jump back in the jeep and off to the base of Gunung Bromo. Our driver stops the jeep and leaves us to our own devices – don’t assume that if you pay for a tour that you actually get one – so we learn. A 15min walk up Mt Bromo and some steep steps later, we stare into the abyss that is the crater while people ponder around throwing flower offerings into its smoking heart. An ancient custom from the local people to appease the gods. Once you’ve done the tour there really is nothing more to do in this tiny village but leave.