Hi all,
Just a quick message that I’m sure many of you have discovered already. Cover art retrieval from Amazon is now broken due to a change in API that Amazon has introduced in it’s web service.
We will release Amarok version 1.4.9 very soon which will re-enable cover art downloads.
Thanks for your patience.
For those of you wondering where I’ve been, it’s Malaysia and Indonesia for the past two months (stories and photos). Not that anyone wants to hear about that, though!
Has anybody noticed a remarkable spike in wordpress comment spam in the last week? I’ve had to defer all comments for moderation due to the massive amounts of crap that’s coming through. More importantly, does anybody have any suggestion of a way to get around it?
Update: Just noticed that all my permanent pages and comment captcha is missing. This disturbs me greatly.
I’ve been getting up to a whole lot of everything and nothing at the same time, if that is even possible. Bali’s full on scene of Kuta was a little too much for me to handle (expensive prices, filthy beach and infuriating touts shouting ‘transport?’), so onto Lombok it was. Even the more relaxed locations of Bali, like the incredible temple perched on a cliff in Ulu Watu, the cultural centre in Ubud and the quiet resort beaches of the East coast couldn’t compare to the beauty and chilled out atmosphere in Lombok.
We cruised up through the West coast of Lombok, through the cheap resort town of Sengigi (a great town with a beautiful reef surf break and excellent food), until we arrived in the Gili Islands. Spent nearly a week diving, surfing and relaxing on the beach. Life couldn’t have gotten much better. Lots of fun people and plenty of things to do (I spent my days surfing between dives, and Jared spent them lying on the beach reading books). We enjoyed our stay so much that we even conveniently missed our boat back to the mainland and stayed another day. When my time in the Gilis was up, I headed down south to Kuta Lombok to check out the awesome surf breaks. Kuta Lombok was my favourite part of the island. Being totally remote, there are no ATMs and the internet connections aren’t even worth touching. The only way to get around is on a motorcycle and an attached surf rack. There weren’t many travellers and everyone was there to do one thing - surf! The beaches are some of the most beautiful, transparent blue and white sands with headlands of massive proportions and cliffs punctuating the horizon.
I’m also back in Bali for the Balinese New Year, Nyepi. Strange thing about this festival, is that there is no mention of it in any guidebook. I would also rate it as one of the most important, since the entire island is sent into a state of house arrest for 24 hours. There’s a big party the evening prior to purge all of the evil spirits from houses and souls, and then everyone stays inside because they are lurking around through the streets. So here’s a tip: if you ever get stuck in Bali on Nyepi, find a nice hotel with a pool and food for the entire day.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when we arrived at Medan Airport in Sumatra to be told that our AirAsia flight had been cancelled. At 6am, nonetheless. By Murphy’s Law, it shouldn’t have been unexpected that it also meant we’d miss our connecting flight from Jakarta to Solo. So when it all came crashing down, it was all frustrating because we lost a day of travel and had to spend more time in the terrible city that is Medan. Really, it’s terrible - for the third largest city in Indonesia, they don’t even have grid electricity until about 6pm (they use generators other times). Then, AirAsia were real bastards and made us sleep at the domestic terminal of Jakarta airport until 4am on the hard wooden roach infested benches outside the check-in counter. This led to that and eventually we got on a plane and arrived in Solo to get straight on a bus to Jogjakarta.
We broke the trip in two by stopping at the Hindu Prambanan temples, which are impressive, but nothing compared to the Buddhist monuments of Borobudur (which we visited the next morning). Enormous stone temples dedicated to the path to nirvana and illustrated with carvings of the stories of the buddhist ways of life. Back in Jogjakarta, life is brimming with busy streets typical of a city deemed the cultural capital of Indonesia - tacky shirts and terrible handicrafts (except for the impressive works of the Batik artists). Hostels are smacked in the middle of lanes which are impossible to navigate around, especially in the middle of torrential downpours. The Kraton, or the Sultan’s palace (Jogja has a sultan), is a huge mini city with over 25,000 inhabitants. They get free tea, coffee, accommodation and work within the premises so they have a pretty good life. I expected the palace to be a little bit more over the top, but it was quite sparse. The villages inside were also very nice, and we found a little shop making Wayang puppets for the Sultan’s performances. The Wayang puppets are two dimensional items made out of buffalo leather, stenciled and elaborately painted to make representations of important Hindu people such as Krishna.
We left Jogja on a two day tour to Gunung Bromo and then onto Bali, which seemed to be cheaper than actually going it alone. Gunung Bromo is a large national park around the volcano of Bromo, where we woke up at 3am for a trip to a viewpoint to see sunrise. Being wet season, we saw absolutely nothing but fog, and I froze because I had not many clothes. Our hostel had this magnificent view of the volcano which we hadn’t even realised until about 10 in the morning, by which time we were leaving for Denpasar. Indonesians in Java can be filthy liars. I don’t know why, maybe it’s a bad habit, but they seem to make stuff up or lie even when it has no direct impact on their lives. For example, we were told that our bus would arrive in Bali at 7:30pm, only to be frustrated, impatient and annoyed when we pulled into the bus station past 11pm.
Spent the last few days in Bali with Dani, Nikki and Jared, relaxing at the beach, lots of surfing and eating disproportionately large quantities of excellent food!
Danau Toba is a lake. A very big lake. Infact, I’m on an island (Samosir), in the lake (Danau Toba), on an island (Sumatra), in the ocean (Indian). Recursively, Samosir itself has an island on it.
I didn’t intend to write about Danau Toba after my spiel on Sumatra. I didn’t think there would be much to say. Then again, there aren’t many things that could beat an unexpected marvel. Having rented a motorbike, Jared and I cruised around 100km of the island, taking in the sights and culture of the local Batak people. They have recently been converted to Christianity, but still hold their traditions and heritage in high regard. The architecture of the houses are unique, hard to describe - wooden with a roof pointy at the ends. All the columns, door frames, beams and furniture is decorated with stylish patterns carved into the wood. Batak cemeteries litter the island, intermittent with the ongoing tessellations of the rice paddies and their different shades of green and yellow.
It’s a shame we can’t spend more time soaking up the lifestyle of relaxing in beautiful cabins alongside deep blue lake. Instead I’ll be hopping on another local bus that is a cattle car to ship me back to Medan for the flight to Java.
