None the less we go and I am very pleasantly surprised!

The speed boat transfer we hired on Gili Trawangan for 250KRp/pp includes onward transport from Padangbai harbour, so we get to Denpasar without issues.

We stay in a place listed in the Lonely Planet, which I booked ahead of arrival. It’s fine.

Most impressive of all, wherever we go, no one hassles us to buy things.

Even when we visit the larger markets, people surely advertise their wares, but people glance at you with a smile and nobody’s pushy. It’s really pleasant!

Had I known this I’d surely have spent some more time in Bali exploring the place and trying to find food that I like. (Nope, unfortunately we still don’t find any food we can go crazy about here, but we had a couple of dishes that were OK.)

We navigate the town itself by scooter, which we hire at the hotel for 60KRp/day.

(A reminder that scooting around in Asia is very different to scooting around in Europe. – It’s AWESOME!!)

And there are plenty of interesting things to see.

We arrived smack-bang in the middle of the 6-monthly Dhamma ceremony, which is a Hindu festival celebrating something to do with enlightenment, forgive me for not being able to be more specific. But for those interested here are some Wikipedia translations:

Dhamma (Pali: धम्म) or Dharma (Sanskrit: धर्म) in Buddhism can have the following meanings:

The state of Nature as it is (yathā bhūta)[1]
The Laws of Nature considered collectively.
The teaching of the Buddha as an exposition of the Natural Law applied to the problem of human suffering.
A phenomenon and/or its properties.[2]

The roads are lines with tall bamboo poles, carrying intricate patchwork of pleated leaf decorations.

People are out in their Dhamma-best (to coin a phrase).

Everyone is making a rainbow of offerings, carefully prepared at home,

in temples and at shrines in forecourts and aside the streets.

The nice ladies at our hotel are kind enough to give us some background information on the even, recommend some temples to visit, and clad us in the suitable dress, so that we may visit respectfully.

Our flight out of Denpasar air port concludes our Asian adventure. Six months have flown by and it’s hard to believe that it’s over. Of course we’re looking forward to seeing Australia and that side of the world but we’ve had such a wonderful time in Asia we just know we’re going to miss it!

Our boat from Bali lands at Trawangan and we get off there as we know we’ll find accommodation and hope to strike a good balance between action and secluded relaxation here. The first impression is pretty good, the sand is fine and bright, the water is clear and deep blue and it doesn’t look very crowded at all. There are a few touts trying to sell us into one accommodation or another but we just sit down on the beach for a while until the new arrivals crowd has dispersed and then we begin our search.

It turns out the island is pretty busy on the Southeast side, lots of people, bars and restaurants competing late into the night. Diving resorts and bungalows packed neatly next to one another. – Thank goodness we’ve come off season! If you walk further inland there are a few more out-of-the-way guest houses with cheap rates, but in a place like this you want to be at the beach!

After about 3 hours walking the coast line and bargaining for room rates, we find a nice accommodation on Northeast side called Beach Bungalow (120KRp/night, quite cheap compared to the centre). The breakfast (included) leaves much to be desired though and the staff are rather lethargic. But it’s away from the party zone, well away from the mosque which threatens to wake us up at inhospitable hours of the morning, and it’s right at the beach front. Of course we have a 15min walk to get to the main market, but this is a price worth paying. (This is confirmed to us several times by other guests that move up to Beach Bungalow from accommodations in the centre, due to lack of undisturbed sleep.)

Not keen to entertain more blood-boiling encounters with Bemo drivers, we decide to spend the rest of our Indonesian stay here and take it easy.

We get up in the mornings, have a breakfast and then commit ourselves to the sea for a few hours, swimming or snorkeling. Sometimes we take a walk to the centre to buy food and drink supplies and drink a good cup of coffee. In the afternoons I generally swim out and go fishing from one of the boats anchored out in the channel while Ebru sunbathes or does more snorkeling. It’s a great pace of life.

The snorkeling is fantastic around the North side of the island where the reef extends over a hundred metres out and depths reach at least ten to fifteen metres. Fish are abundant and a spectacular show of colour! We’re really gutted that we don’t have underwater camera equipment. It’s less spectacular on the East side but even here we encounter lion and scorpion fish on one occasion. Also they have a turtle sanctuary on the island, so sea turtles can be seen almost daily.

Unfortunately I cannot say that much for the fishing. I do all my fishing in the channel on the East side and occasionally off the diesel tanker that brings the generator fuel daily. But all I catch is so small it’s only good for fish food. For anyone going, please note that fishing supplies can be found in a couple of shops just around the back streets behind the night market. (Make sure you go alone so your wife/girlfriend doesn’t see you buying more fishing tackle AGAIN!)

(Mainstream media failed to inform you of the latest threat: the Suicide Fisherman!)

We get to know some good people at the Beach Bungalow as well. As I recall it, each couple moved in next door to us after a rather disturbing episode closer to the town centre (noise, obnoxious guests etc), so they decided to find a place where they could get some sleep. Here they are:

Ruth and Roel from Holland. It was really funny having a dinner with them one night, as it turned out they seem to be undergoing the same interesting behavioural phenomena on their travels: she plans everything and pushes to keep on schedule; he doesn’t care how long it taked as long as the beer is cold and they’re having a good time. LOL!

Cecelia (Uruguay) and Carsten (Denmark)

At the History Bungalows just a few metres down from us we meet a chap called Chaia. He’s from Lombok, a rice farmer, but has come here to earn some extra cash. He’s helpful and honest, and we immediately become befriended.

This is a place where everybody will bargain with you for the last buck but not him, and that is something we really appreciate. His bungalows are pretty quiet at the moment but we spend a few nights over at his bar, hanging out and talking about life in Indonesia and elsewhere, and he introduces us to a local rice wine, which is non-alcoholic but gets its kick from a type of tree bark – lovely stuff! Chaia I hope you read this some day. We were so happy to have met you and really enjoyed spending time with you on Gili. If we make it to Lombok again some day we’ll try to look you up. And thanks for letting us plant our tree for our Planting Around the World mission!

Walking around the rest of the island (about an hour) there’s not much to be found but a few resorts which look rather empty, there is one great secluded bar on the north side and on the West somewhere they have the full moon parties, but that’s about it. The only place we visit in town worth mentioning is a night at Sama Sama where they have live music and a good vibe.

Regarding food, we’re unfortunately still struggling to find something we like, as with the rest of Indonesia, but the our best meals and definitely the best value for money is to be found at the night market. Several stalls are waiting to grill you a fresh fish to serve with salad, and some other stalls sell various vegetable dishes to accompany. I don’t think we ever spend more than 50KRp for a fresh fish meal for two. And aside from that, a must try is the pumpkin curry from the old lady’s shop in the alley just off the market. Just ask around and you’re sure to find it.

Now in truth, there’s nothing much I can muster in words to convey to you the absolute tranquility and awe we felt in this place, waking up to its simple beauty day after day and letting the picture-perfect vistas wash over our optic nerves with the sound of the water rushing over coral sand. Shorts & flip-flops day in, day out (no shirt required). Sun tanning you right to the bone. We were transported away. Hypnotized. Conscious, yet dreaming.

So instead I give you these photographs to explain as best they can. Enjoy….

Tree number 8!

We have come through Indonesia starting from Jakarta on Java, and moved our way East, over Bali, and found a most restful spot on the North-Eastern tip of the beautiful Island, Gili Trawangan.

We spent about two weeks here in total, not keen to move from this spot of blissful sunshine, clear snorkeling waters, brightly coloured coral fish, a bungalow overlooking the bright beach and good company in form of the Indonesian, Chaia, managing the HiStory Bungalows next down the road.

Chaia was very keen to support us in our tree planting mission and kindly allocated us a spot in the garden before the HiStory Bungalows.

Here we planted a local breed called “Magnolia”, according to the local sellers whom we bought it from. They came down the street with these trees and plants in a cart, probably a day-trip from Lombok. A mobile nursery – who’d have thought?!

It should flourish in this climate and hopefully, in years to come, provide some much needed shade to guests of these bungalows.

Our thanks to Chaia and HiStory Bungalows for allowing us to plant in your garden! May the tree grow strong and healthy and grace your space, attracting many good, peaceful guests.

This tree is for Indonesia. May if flourish along with the wellbeing and prosperity of your people. – Something indeed needful, given a painful history (and in part, present) of brutality and exploitation.

Along the way we get an idea what the city outskirts and the countryside look like.

The carriage is comfortable and clean, much better than we expected. There are electric sockets next to the seats so we can make use of your laptops and get on with some overdue blog work. We do order some of the on board food just to try it, but when I bite into my leg of chicken the smell is so bad that I can’t continue eating it. That’s the only complaint though.

Yogya looks a bit chaotic. We arrive in time to find us some accommodation near the station before sunset. The place is called Monica Hotel and they charge 150KRP/night for the double, which is in reasonable condition and clean. That night we head down the street to a bar called Lucifer, quite a simple place but there’s beer and live music. One thing that is impresses me in Indonesia is the fact that there are so many bands doing really good impressions of other artists’ songs; their voices sound almost identical to the original.

The problem with the accommodation is that it’s right next door to a bar which has live music several nights a week and, following the first night, which is fine, we get progressively less and less sleep as the noise from next door keeps us awake at night and some looney early-risers in the hotel decide it’s a good idea to be loud and cheerful at seven in the morning. As you can imagine, by the fourth morning I’m not the friendliest person to talk to. Of course we could have left to another place but taking time to check out and search for another accommodation of acceptable standard is an annoying waste of time.

Yogya is a vibrant market town where all the streets are bustling with stalls selling bags, clothing, batik art and various hand-made souvenirs, but especially textile goods. We meet a young chap there running a stall for his father and as we’re asking about wholesale prices for some of the goods there, he takes us on a tour of the wholesale market off Malioboro street. They really do produce some wonderful stuff! They use materials such as coconut shell or bamboo in such creative ways.

Walking the streets around here is quite pleasant though, aside from the traffic. With so many stalls and sellers around we expect to be harassed no end, but people are very civilized. They offer their wares but they’re not pushy about selling to you as they are in other places we’ve been.

With the batik sellers you’ve got to be careful though. Many of them around, selling cheap machine-made goods as originals, and there are touts on the streets that will guide you to an alleged genuine batik gallery of store, which is in fact not genuine. It seems the way you can tell the good places from the bad is by the price list: the con artists generally don’t have one and will try to sell you batik at hefty Dollar or Euro rates whereas the artisan shops where batik students and some known artists allegedly produce the wares, they have a price list in Indonesian Rupiahs. Batik art is a very interesting process and some of the work is really impressive. Sadly we have to keep our hands in our pockets as usual.

Aside from the street markets there are a few shopping malls and (besides Pizza Hut) you’ll find some interesting shops there…

Good food is a problem for us here, as it has been in Jakarta. Half the time we’re starving because finding decent food is such a mission, and that tends to affect our mood negatively. The sad result is that we end up spending every other night at Pizza Hut. Once we even walk into a McDonalds to get lunch but the smell in there puts me off and we get cakes and pastries from a nearby bakery instead. The food situation becomes really frustrating. Once we sat down at a nice place near the palace and they served up a snack which looked delicious; bananas made in every different way you can imagine; but for us… naw.

There is one pretty good eating experience we have on one of our scooter excursions though: we happen upon a place called Steak & Shake where they serve a variety of steak dishes with milkshake or cool drink at reasonable prices. We order some kind of a steak sizzler, one of those hot metal plates. Though the steak is under a centimetre thick; it comes with potato chips and a pepper sauce and tastes good, so we’re happy.

The following day we try to find the place again but fail miserably and are sentenced to Pizza Hut again. Incidentally, several times on the main Marlioboro road, we passed by a Dunkin Donuts place, but when we decide to go there for a bite to eat it also seems to have mysteriously disappeared.

Talking about scooter excursions, we head down South from yogya one day and drive along the coast, Parangtritis and Eastwards. Though we don’t really meet with any spectacular beaches as we expected, we do journey through many villages and the landscapes and atmosphere is beautiful.

Another day we ride quite a way out of town to visit the Borobodur Buddhist temple

and the Prambanan Hindu temple.

This is a good day out. The temples are of course ancient and riddled with old base relief sculptures depicting stories of the Buddha’s life. The journey there and back is in itself quite nice, as you can see a couple of volcanoes sticking up on the horizon along the way – quite a beautiful sight.

As for the royal palace in the town, though we did not really find it that interesting over all, there are some interesting items to be found inside.

And it seems that Ebru is also quite the attraction

Right near the train station entrance there is a small bar, which is a must visit! It’s more of a shop with a bar in it, but we see they sell beer and we just have to check it out. The owner is a fun chap and he introduces us to the local wine which is drunk mixed with beer and actually it’s quite nice. He also teaches us what a “ML drink” is (and it seems to me there are plenty of people coming around for these potions).

Over all, Yogya is a good experience. If you can put up with the food or opt for Pizza Hut most of the time, it’s a worthwhile experience. What I like most about the place is that the stuff they produce here, unlike at other Asian markets, does not simply mimick popular western brands, such as Nike, Timberland or Reebok. Here everything is about Yogya – the T-shirts, the caps, the key rings – and it seems to convey a sense of pride in their own place, which I think is cool.

Before leaving Yogya, we undertake a journey for a few days to visit the Dieng Plateau, a few hours drive to the North. On our return we catch the late night train out to Malang, where a volcano awaits.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
– Top places to eat: Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts
– Travel by train. Executive seats for long journeys are excellent
– Avoid Monica Hotel if you’re a light sleeper (aside from Mon-Tue when there is no music next door)

We land in Jakarta at night, about 9PM or something like that. We don’t expect to be arriving in the most pleasant nor safe city so we’ve booked a room ahead for a couple of days, now all we have to do is get there. Before exiting the airport terminal I walk to the glass pane several metres down from the doorway and peer outside to check out the situation. I see lot of people, mainly men. I try to figure out which ones are touts and taxi drivers likely to give us a hard time, and check whether there are any obviously marked official taxi or bus terminals. We know from the guide book there should be buses going from here.

We exit with our bags on the trolley. Soon someone is approaching us; it’s a supposed taxi driver asking us where we’re going. But he could be anyone really. We try to avoid him and decline his offer but annoyingly, he sticks around. We find the booth selling bus tickets. The taxi driver is still hovering close by. The girl in the booth can’t speak English very well. I ask her how we need to get to the area our hotel is in and she suggests a bus and destination. The taxi driver talks to her and suggests another place, “Block M”. This is alarming to us – not only does “Block M” sound fictional, but does he want us to get off at some derelict location and make a phone call to ensure his accomplice is there, ready to have his way with the western couple with the rucksacks? We don’t have much of a basis to argue so we go with it and buy two tickets for 10KRp each. There’s a conductor who calls up all passengers for the various buses that arrive and I confirm with him; he seems to see no problem with what we’ve been told so that’s positive. 

Our bus leaves about 22:30. Once we get out of the airport and move along the highway traffic at snail’s place, our jaws drop. This is completely not what we expected. This city is colossal! It reminds of Istanbul – large and sprawling, large clusters of small buildings interspersed with impressive skyscrapers, massive malls, and towers. At this time of night there’s a sea of of lights washing around tall cliffs of neon signs and LED shows and huge screens running video advertisements high above the ground. What on earth was I thinking? This is not some third world jungle village but the largest city in Southeast Asia’s most populous country – 240 million people, that’s nearly as much as the United States!

The bus stops under a fly-over on the highway and we’re called to get off. Apparently this is our stop (Block M) but there’s nothing here but a fly-over and highway. It seems strange but another chap has disembarked here, so I guess it could be right. Hardly has the bus moved off, a blue taxi has pulled up in front of us. The other chap who got off the bus approaches to assist us. (Did he flag the cab for us?) He asks us our destination and assures us we can go with this taxi: it’s a Blue Bird cab and it’s the most reliable service in the city; charged according to the meter. The taxi drives us on through a rather shabby looking area and 15 minutes we’re at our hotel.

We’re relieved to have arrived with so little hassle. The Rasuna Icon Residence is rather plush.

It is a slightly pricier place (40GBP/night) but it’s only for a couple of nights and it had great reviews. Once checked in we head out to look for some food. When we asked, the receptionist said it was safe to go. We’re a bit nervous walking down this tatty street in the middle of the night, but all the people we pass seem to be smiling and friendly – even the beggars on the footbridge over the main road. At the end there’s a shopping centre with a number of franchise restaurants. Nothing small and “local” to be found. We order some rice based dishes but they turn out unpalatable. The piece of plastic in mine puts me off completely – we pay for the one and we leave. By now the other restaurants in the complex have all cashed up and we’re left with a McDonalds burger as our only option. But it’s edible.

We spend two more days in Jakarta. It’s really huge and not much a place for walking. It’s a concrete jungle: buildings, roads, vehicles, exhaust fumes, hardly a shrub in sight. Quite soon we’ve figured out how to use the “Busway”, a public bus system which runs along certain highway routes with stations along the way. It’s super cheap (3500Rp/pp) and easy to use, but only covers some main routes so it won’t get you close to everywhere. All the local people travel with it so it’s an interesting way to get around.

We visit the Lapangan Merdeka (Freedom Square), a huge monument which commemorates Indonesia’s independence from centuries of foreign rule. It’s surrounded by some impressive sculpture and inside, there’s a walk-through exhibition telling about the history of this country. People are very smiley and cheerful here. Several times we are asked to pose for photographs with some of them.

The flea market in Taman Fatahilla in Kota is interesting. People are selling all sorts of bits and pieces from clothes to bicycles to hand-crafted boards of wood and electronic components, which you can slide on to the neck of your acoustic guitar so that it then behaves like an electric.

People are also quite friendly in general, a few people request photos with us again, and we have our first good meal at one of the little food stalls.

The only annoyance however, is that there are a hundred opportunistic guitar gangs walking around the place, trying to whack out a few notes on their instruments to elicit a few Rupiahs from diners. We have a beer or two at Cafe Batavia later on, which is an old colonial building housing a bar and restaurant. It’s quite nice in there, lots of interesting old black & white photos of various famous people hanging all over.

Then we make our way back to the busway station closest to home and attempt to walk the rest of the way. Again it’s night time and we’re all on guard walking along the main road with everybody looking at us as we pass by. But it turns out people are quite friendly and it almost seems they’re glad to see you strolling by. When you ask for directions people are happy to help out. It’s not at all what I expected to find in Jakarta!

All in all, it seems Jakarta is not such a traveller friendly city, mainly due to its size, the pollution, traffic and difficulty in getting around conveniently. Finding good food also proved difficult. However there is definitely a lot going on here and a lot to discover. I’m told this city has HUNDREDS of shopping malls (!) for example.

But what I will always remember fondly about this place is its people. When coming to Jakarta I expected to be screwed right, left and centre by touts and con-men out to make a quick buck off me. And certainly I was not expecting be friendly and safe around here in the big city. But I don’t recall being hassled even once, aside from the guitar kids. Everyone was welcoming, cheerful and ready to help. It’s certainly a place I would recommend to anyone and I wish I’d been able to explore the place some more. Maybe next time I’ll find the good food too