yogajakarta and the horses effect
Continued..............
I'll try and write this post better than I wrote the last.
Woke to a stunning view of mt Bromo. Took some photos and had a good western breakfast still sneezing and waited for my bus. Bus arrived and dashed down the mountain. I'm not sure how many feet we descended but it was enough more my water bottle to be crushed by the change. Got chatting to some German and English people and swapped some notes as we we're heading in opposite directions. The driver was mental. we careered down the small mountain round at a fearsome speed.
Reached the bottom. Continued chatting and the sneezing stopped immediately. Pop to a super market and bought some snacks and nearly missed my minibus. It was a brand spanking new bus and there were only 5 people travelling which meant I had the entire back seat to myself. Lay down slept, chatted, read, chatted some more. joked, laughed and generally felt a million times happier than a short 24 hours before.
It was an all day event, but it was a happy journey. I've never had so much space on a long journey before. rolled into Jogjakarta (not to be confused with Jakarta) at 8 pm, found a room. ate. wandered around a bit with my new English pals.
Slept like a baby.
The next day visited the sultans palace here. nice enough but we found WE were the tourist attraction for alot of the Indonesian people visiting. posed for photos and generally were politely harassed and ogled. Also visited the pet market here which sells, well everything the outstanding items sadly being monkeys, snakes, lizards, bats and owls. Sad but interesting to see. Then hope in a rickshaw to go and have a tradition Indonesian lunch at McDonald's. Cheeseburgers never tasted so good. and yes cheeseburgers.
Decided to go and visit a silver smith village outside of town. Jumped in a horse and cart and it happened. again. we managed to go about 1 mile before I was Dying much to the amusement of my friends but I was seriously having an allergic reaction. Sneezing, red eyes and this time I could hardly breath. washed eyes with bottle of water (friends now realising the seriousness of my discomfort) sneezed choked wheezed and generally realised this time for sure all horses should be shot.
Finished the day wandering and the crazy markets here and picked up a souvenir or two. Had dinner at a street side restaurant where you sit on the pavement next to low tables. it was good. had a laugh with the people next to us we tried to order. I ended up with goat satay and a kind of fried rice. As a joke we also ordered the two cheapest items on the menu. one never arrived. One arrived looked horrible (and so i wouldn't touch it) but did bet my friend a beer if he could. he enjoyed it until the whole restaurant was laughing. They then told him it was, and I quote "chicken, erm, what di you call: poo poo". The boy received a beer and a whipping in the local Indonesian pool hall. 4 games to 2. I was on fire.
Wandered the markets some more at night time and I ended staying up way too late talking the to the owner of the hotel over a candle lit table as all the electricity had failed.
TODAY!!!!! after a combination of taxi, bus and rickshaw got to the temple of Borobudur. As were on the bus got mixed in in a procession of motorbikes with passengers all waving flags for a particular political party. It's election time here and there are flags for one party or another EVERYWHERE. there were 2000 motorbikes, quite possibly alot more and made the journey interesting.
Got to the temple. scoffed some very cheap very good chicken noodle soup and headed on up the temple. it's multi tiered and beautiful. got to the top sat down to rest. posed for 30+ photos for Indonesian people (I kid you not) and generally acted like movie stars and it was fun!! why do they complain about paparazzi?? return journey as above but minus motorbikes plus thunder storm.
Now I'm back in my hotel trying to write this as quickly as possible to then go pack my bag rest and generally get ready for an over night train to Jakarta leaving at 11.30 tonight. It's been a busy few days. but I think me and my new Friends have had fun, laughing at each other and generally finding new and inventive way to avoid hawkers, horses and sales people of all types.
Tomorrow the evil that must be faced. Jakarta is the only place I'm heading to I don't particularly want to go to. I'm pretty sure it will turn out to be as safe as Bangkok but I'm taking precautions including sewing my wallet inside my short pockets to avoid pick pockets etc.
Laters.
C.
Probolinggo and the hard times.
This post may have to be broken into two or three parts but lets see how I do tonight.
One thing I know is my dislike of night buses. That's what I caught from Lovina to probolinggo and where the trials began.
Waiting at 5 o'clock pm, 7 O'clock my night bus arrived and had 1 seat left right at the back of the bus which so happened to be raised about 2 feet off the ground so my feet dangeled off the chair towards the ground. It was fun feeling like a small 5 year old for a while but that soon wore off where m calf muscles started to ache. Then the bus stopped to take on cargo of BIG boxes which the conductor piled around me to enclose me in an unofficial cargo section of the bus. luckily severeal boxes where stacked beneth my feet meaning I could touch the ground again. Good. not really. Stopped again to pick up a mum and 2 kids. Girl, 4 years old slept between me and passenger next to me. boy 7 yrsold slept to my right mum slept sitting on stool next to boxes head next to my feet. Waitied hours for the ferry to Java. Safety concious have to stay on bus for 1 hour to Java as not allowed to get off bus. If ferry sinks so do I. I didn't, ferry made it. Next 3 hours are a vague twilight. I start to fall asleep, boy moves, I wake up. I start to fall asleep girl moves I wake. continue this untill 2.30 after brief dinner/breakfast/ twilight meal at 1 .30am. 2.30 I arrive at probolingo No sleep. tired. and dropped at travel agency not the bus station (maybe in hidesight a blessing in disguise). I book a bus to take me up to mount bromo. a live volcanoe and it leaves at 3 am. 5am arrive at bromo for 1 hour trek in dark guided by mobile phone light up to view point for sunrise with malaysian and indonesian people. Now I'm tired. really tired. see sunrise, it's beautiful but I'm too tired to enjoy it. walk back down mountain. get in mini van. get left behind by the friends I'd made and have to walk across 40 minutes of lava desert alone. hot. very hot. catch up with my friends. Get a horse up to summit of volcanoe. May be alergic to horses as start to sneeze like a mad man. go to top on foot. Take photo of live steaming crater. Beautiful. to tired to see the beauty. Loosing the plot take a motorbike ride back to village near volcanoe. Book a hotel room still sneezing but now nose is running. It's cold up in the moutains now out of direct sun. very cold. wrap up in two blankets at 11am and hope to sleep. My nose won't stop running and I can't stop sneezing. stick 2 pieces of tissue up my nostrills and finally fall asleep. I wake up at 15.30 eat a packet of biscuits. still freezing. FREEZING. Remember I'd left bali in 37 degree glourious sunshine. and here it was a chilly 5. sneezed. sneezed. sneezed. Felt so ill. Ready to call it quits for this trip. felt like sobing. DIDN'T!! I'm still a man of sorts. Had a cold shower. (no hot available). thought I could wash the horse off me and feel better I didn't. Tired to wrap up again and get some sleep. Sneezed. Sneezed. Regretting whole trip. If you know me you know a hungry and tired Chris will get annoyed. Stick more tissue up my nose. Fall into rough sleep despite annoying english girls in next room being noisy and singing songs. Wake up. Short of breath feeling like death, walk in freezing cold to restaurant. Eat some amazing fried potatoes and corn soup to try and cheer myself up. Decide that something up here is not agreeing with me so to get down from the mountains the following day. Thinking Jarkarta is the nearest airport to get back to BKK. Have another rough nights sleep. runny nose and constant sneezing. figure the horses may not be to blame. Wake up at 6am feeling slightly happier after a day and a half sleeping. Fancy a cold shower. Is it working. ha ha. of course not so have to throw buckets of cold, and I mean COLD water over myself. Actually find a moment of humour in the silliness. Stand in the bathroom freezing throwing buckets of very cold water over myself hilarious and stand there psychotically laughing. the next room must have though I was a nut job. I thought I was too. Laughing and Laughing, the water felt colder and colder and I laughed harder and harder. Cleaned my teeth smiling. climed back under the blanket for another hour of sleep before breakfast of omlette and toast and waited for my bus back down the mountaim...... It's late where I am now so will comtinue tmrw. Please note these are the abreviated notes of a long 2 days. Felt very low. very low, but as life has a habbit of serving up, the lows are followed by highs. And that how I feel tonight 300 miles away from those woes. and the nose, well it's stopped running and I'll tell you how tmrw. Goodnight!!
You Gitgit
The waterfall of GitGit.
What a name. I wish I hadn't been in a packed minibus unable to reach my pockets when we drove by. anyway just so you know. the famous twin waterfall of gitgit exists.
So, The Balinese character. Met me on the main road when my bus dropped me off yesterday. spoke very good English. Gave me a lift to the hotel I wanted to go to and was generally overly helpful. But the eyes. the eyes. the eyes weren't telling me me his mouth was. He "looked" shifty. He showed me a lot of necklaces that he sells. explained that he sells them for 4000000 pounds each and would give me an extra special price. Anyway I arranged a boat trip with him and said goodbye. well that was yesterday.
This morning, my new friend, kutard (custard? I'm not really sure) banged on my door at 545 as arranged: I was off Dolphin hunting. Custard hold told me "100% we'll see them". I was sceptical but see them we did.
Imagine for a moment the end of the rolex/volvo/luis vuitton round the world boat race. The winning boat coming inti port surrounded by a flotilla of small ships welcoming home their heroes. Welcome to dolphin hunting Bali style. 50 or 60 small boats all head out about 6km off shore, and travel up the coast of Bali's north shore looking for dolphins minus the race winning clipper43 class 2.
Surprisingly with this much surface boat action the dolphins still showed up. What was surprising was the first time they showed up was RIGHT next to my boat. I say my as I charted it all on my lonesome. Actually what happened after that was a little bit of an anticlimax. That's because dolphin hunting is not an exact science. Instead it's just an old man steering the boat where he "feels" they may surface next.
It was good. In fact it was awesome. These amazing animals were so close, and where surfacing not for food, and I'm sure it wasn't that they "liked being watched" they were surfacing as they fed as that's what they do au naturel. This wasn't Seaworld, Orlando, this was the world, just off the coast of Bali. The amount of people that were watching made the whole thing a little less personal. Likewise seeing boats miss a head on collision by meters after accelerating full speed towards the surfaced dolphins took away some of the romance. but still it was what it was and we didn't get closer than that first pass. (n.b. My photos of the event are poor but when they pop out of the water for less than a second, you come here and try, in fact I suggest you do).
My friend custard took me to his dads house for breakfast (turned out Custard's dad was the "captain" of the boat. They cooked up some bready ricey coconut milky types of food that was good and then for his generosity I bought 6 of custard's necklaces, at a price significantly less than he was quoting obviously.
His dad's house was right on the beach but sadly had an Aby Ghraib feel to the place. not the chains or torture chambers (though there were some closed doors) but very basic. plain concrete blocks, sheet tin roof. Ill fitting doors. It made me glad I'd help custard and his family even a little after the hospitality they'd shown but the best was still to come.
He was going to pick me up at lunch time to see the traditional slaughter of a pig. (It's Blainsese New Year here right now) Not that exciting you say but it was a chance to See something off the Tourist circuit, and those are the things that make a trip. 12 o'clock came and went as did 1 and 2pm I guessed again that old shifty eyes had done a runner with the money I'd paid for the morning and was in a bar making himself happy. I love having a healthy cynicism.
Actually he'd thought I may not enjoy seeing animal murder so instead picked me up three hours late. fair enough.
So I sat there the only farang at his brothers house eating real Balinese food with my hand (the right one of course, we all know what the left one's for) Chatting to his cousins, cousin's children. cousin's children's aunt's sister's brother's children too. they have big families here, oh and several wives (Custard has 2, his "papa" has 4).
Went home to the hotel. slept. Genuinely tried to ear Balinese food this evening, but ended up with a ver boring fried rice with a large prawn cracker and that was that.
By the way I've added some photo's to flickr, just a few to give a taste.
And so tomorrow a new phase, I'll be moving on and will report back on Friday what's going down. And what going down will hopefully not be the boat I'll be travelling on.
Until next time.
Lovina - Northern Bali
This trip I'm finding for more time to blog. it makes a good afternoon filing activity.
So from last time.
Went back to the beach. Chilled out and had a couple of beers with the "bar" owner and Mr Tattoo. They were nice. went home. slept through sunset so popped out for a hearty Balinese meal of Pasta and salad at a balitalian restaurant. Waited an incredibly long time to pay the bill, which finally came, was wrong. Waited for it to be sorted forever. Wandered around and got annoyed by the tourist acting like idiots. Went home and fell asleep.
Up nice and early this morning intending to check out. had asked various people how to get to my next destination efficiently however no one really new so after a hotel breakfast of fresh fruit and an interesting banana toastie jumped in a Taxi to another town close by where the buses leave from. Got totally ripped off. He was a nice guy but went an incredibly long way round. hmmmm.
Got to the bus station. asked around for the right bus. whereas in the tourist town English was the norm here it wasn't. various hand and finger signals (not that kind) where exchanged. I was told it cost 10 times how much it should. found a driver who would take me for double public rate. that sounded ok, but would have to wait 2 hours. hmmm. Finally the next driver to go (these mini buses wait till they're full before they depart.) sold me his last seat for the public price. result. well kind of. the mini bus was design for 10 and 20 people plus luggage were squeezed inside. I had a granny touching my bum on one side and a star struck teenager elbowing my belly on the other. the trip was three hours. through mountain type scenary. nice enough. Progress was slow as theres a hindu type celebration going on currently and there where truck after truck (alongside the usual motorbike after motorbike afer motorbike) of traditionally dressed people heading to the temples.
Finally arrived at a town near wnere I was heading, transfered to pick up truck (15 minutes) then bus to get to final destination (30 minutes).
So here I am. It's an awesome place. a nice beach of black (ish) sand, rows of boats, hoards of hawkers, and about 1/1000th of the silly tourist shops Kuta had.
I've got a great hotel with a pool, nice room that doesn't have a ceiling fan that sounds like a 80 yr old generator (erm as the hotel in Kuta did).
So just popped out. had a great balinese meal of sliced tuna and tomato sauce with chillies in a small restaurant next to the beach.
I've met an interesting Balinese Charecter I'm saving the full story till things pan out but lets say he could make the next couple of days enjoyable.
So think of me. From 6am tmrw i'm going dolphin watching, then got some thing lined up and will let you know about them as and when.
And so now time for a refelction. And I'm trying my best to give a balanced opinion. Bali is quite like thailand. Kuta is especially like Phi Phi island in terms of the people there and their night time activities, i.e. getting seriously drunk. The beaches of Thailand I'm sorry to say do currently pip bali's IMO.
The balinese people are mixture of annoying and wonderful. So far in the scale of nice to nasty it's something like this:
Hotel workers
restaurant staff
hawkers
taxi drivers
Getting ripped off by taxi drivers is so hghly infuriating, but they have been so "nice" about it, chatting away like a long lost friend, that it's just been best to pay and get on with it.
Other than that people have been very nice, even the clingy hawkers, once they understand your not buying but may have a chat and help them with their English. The minute I think the Balinese people are all great a taxi driver ruins it. The minute I start to hate them, they show kindness and a brilliant smile and all that fades away again.
All for now.
C.
Bali
Here's a brief update so far. Up at 3am Saturday morning for early flight to Bali. Arrived lunch time. Tired, so tired. Got ripped off by taxi driver which left a bitter taste after me and a random I'd met on the plane had helped him.
Then confusion:
Taxi driver: You have trip.
Me: No but I'm thinking of going to the volcanoe.
Taxi: Trip?
Me: Yes, you know to the famous valcanoe and the lake next to it.
Taxi: Trip for me?
Me: Well sure if you do trip's then you could take me, how much do you charge?
Taxi: Trip for me for helping you find hotel.
Me: ??
Me: Oh a tip. (Having already been RIPPED off to get from airport.
Me: How much.
Taxi: 10000
Me: Hmmmm (DOH) ok. (he knows I've just given him all my small money)
I give him 100,000. He gives me 80,000 change.
Me: GRRRRWWWWWWW
Taxi: Smug smile. Struts off.
Me: Struggle with temptation of rude name calling.
Not a great start. Got a room. It's hot in Bali by the way. Very hot. Turned on the fan fell into a sweaty 1 hour sleep. Go out wandering. Starving. Find a place with a big tv showing a movie. Pop in and have a delicious Balinese late lunch of panini and fries. umm hmm. Watch the movie. Get hassled from the 1 million t-shirt/hat/bracelet/bike helmet/massage shops that line the streets. Maybe I should tell them grabbing my arm and pulling me towards their shop is unlikely to secure a sale. still: there just doing their job I suppose. I Keep wandering through the maze of alleys that is Kuta. I want to go back to my room as I'm still feeling tired. I can't find my room. 1.5 hours later (of hassle and annoyance) I get back. Down a 2 litre bottle of water and fall, again into a sweaty sleep. Wake up at 8. go out and eat a delicious Balinese dinner of some spicy beef dish. Head home exhausted and drink a beet on my balcony wondering if this was a good idea.
Anyway, that was yesterday and todays been better. woke up 7 at the beach at 8. wandered. found a nice place selling drinks and sat there this morning drinking orange juice and chatting to some bali boys. as small shops are annoying on the roads, hawkers are equally so on the beach. I counted 12 different types of product I've been offered this morning. let see if I can remember them all.
Massage
Bracelet
Trip
Tattoo
wooden elephant/magic cigarette dispenser
necklace
pedicure (you don't want to be touching those love: I'm ticklish, I'll Kick you in the face)
T-shirts RESULT sold 3 t-shirts
wallets Good quality. (Oh no they weren't)
Watches
Surf lessons
lucky necklaces
wooden dragon
Thats all I can remember but I'm sure you'll agree thats more than enough. Anyway, the tattoo guy turned out to be nice, so sat around drinking orange juice with him.
So actually despite the above woke up today feeling far more positive after not feeling very optimistic at all yesterday. That all said, I'm at the real surfy beach here in Kuta. Unfortunately I can't and don't want to learn so that mixed with the hassle (and that I'm just not cool enough for this town) means tmrw I'll move to the northern beach of lovina. I'm hoping it is lovely-na. Kuta is growing on me, so maybe I can come back sometime and do the surfing thing/buy some wallets/watches/lucky charms etc etc.
So here I am in the internet shop letting you know if you're interested. Anyway. the belly is rumbling so will now go and eat something. I think I'm after western food again you'll be sad to learn. Got to keep my spirits up!! plenty of places left to visit!
C.
Day 853 - Bangkok Thailand
It's been a while since I updated this. Well what can I say. I got a job in Bangkok. Kind of settled down. Have still been travelling: I've been to cambodia, Laos (several times) and now tomorrow it's off to a new country........flying there and then traveling around. Should be interesting. Thinking about documenting here..... let's see.
