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Bali and Lombok

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.

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Javanese Adventures

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!

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Danau Toba

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.

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Sumatra

We left the island of Penang, Malaysia on an epic 7 hour ferry ride across the Straights of Melaka for the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Before we had even left Malaysia, the sights, smells and atmosphere of the Indonesian way of life was thrown into our faces. No rules, no boundaries. Chain smokers, old men spitting, jumping the queues, and Indonesian women making fun of two tall whities crossing the border. In fact, the Indonesian women seem to be infatuated with us - photos, blowing kisses, screaming “hello sir!” just to get a response back. And they fall into more riotous laughter when they receive an unexpected response in Indonesian. At the Sumatran immigration, we took our own back and skipped the hundreds of people in the queue by claiming we didn’t have a visa (which we did) and we needed to get one (which we didn’t). This meant we got all the way to the front of the queue, so we feigned ignorance and got our stamps.

Leaving the port we found no less shocking. A thousand people trying to harass us and we found a minivan with Lara and Dave to the remote jungles of Bukit Lawang. We obviously got ripped off a bit (at least it cost us more than the public bus), but it paid off because we arrived in the small village in the middle of a torrential down pour. Quite possibly the biggest storm I have ever had to walk for 5 eternal minutes for, across a bridge over a thundering river then through some alleyways of mud and septic sauces. It took 3 days to dry off, as we trekked through the jungles playing with the Urang utans, Thomas Leaf monkeys and watching the Gibbons trapeze through the tree canopies at an incredible speed. We slept in the jungle, had excellent food and spent hours solving riddles that the guides gave us. Swimming in the fresh water streams and waterfalls were a nice way to cool down, just like the tubing trip we took back down to the village. Bukit Lawang is a beautiful little town which has still not recovered from a crippling flood a few years ago. Quiet and serene, until a big Indonesian company weekend trip invaded and played some Mosque mix-tape karaoke style for long periods in the night.

Local buses in Indonesia are quite the experience. Cramming 20% more people than a bus can comfortably fit, playing extremely loud Indo-pop music, cruising (bumping) along the Trans-Sumatran highway for 200km (6 hours), weaving in and out of traffic (a few near head on collisions) can give new meaning to the term adrenaline and squished at the same time. By the end of the trip I think I knew what it felt like to be paraplegic, with no feeling from the waist down.

By now we’re recovering by the shores of Danau Toba, the biggest lake in South East Asia. It’s calm, cool and has an anaesthetising atmosphere.

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Malaysia - A Thousand Shades of Green

Yikes, it’s been a frightfully long time since my last update. Let me recap on what I’ve been up to. My scuba course in Kota Kinabalu (KK) was excellent. There was me and two Malaysian naval officers who didn’t really know how to use their legs and fins, but they learned okay. We dived around the reefs of the tropical islands surrounding KK and saw more than I would have guessed. I could have been placed in the middle of a scene of Finding Nemo - clown fish, a sea turtle, swarms of barracuda, moray eel, sergeant majors, crabs, pipe fish and more. So much more!

White water rafting was next - that was fun! Racing through the rapids of the Padas river we were thrown about everywhere and capsizing and went body rafting (going down the rapids on your back). As Australia Day’s go, it was pretty good, aside from having to take a friend to the hospital for CT scans after a really bad concussion in the rapids.

I flew back to Kuala Lumpur and met with Jared. KL is a pretty neat city, very Asian, but somehow very clean and functioning. The Petronas Towers and the KL Tower are enormous, and stand out in the city skyline like stairways to heaven. Just outside of the city are the Batu caves, a religious site for Hindus built inside the caves and at the top of a long staircase. The rest of KL was uneventful really - just hanging out by the Chinatown where every third stall repeats itself (watches & wallets, pirated dvds then jeans). It also rained harder than I’ve ever seen before, and we got savaged by ruthless bed bugs at the cheapo hostel. Live and let live.

Getting to the national park, Taman Negara, was an adventure. You know the like - buses not taking us where we needed to go, then waiting a few hours at the local bus station in small highland villages under curious pairs of eyes. After a few bus rides and a wonderful longboat ride through the jungle rivers Kuala Tahan approached as the gateway to the park. Floating restaurants on the river and little huts to sleep were the only attraction of the local town. The most exciting thing about the park, aside from being an awesome jungle, is the longest tree canopy walk in the world. We got to play with our balance swinging in between the trees 50 metres above the ground. Being the monsoonal period, it rained and rained some more. The river level went up by about 5 metres whilst we were on a night river safari and that was fun. We saw deer and birds and otters playing by the river bank.

Have now arrived in the Cameron highlands, the altitudes of the Malay peninsular famous for its tea plantations and agriculture. We’ll be here for the next day or so until we head to Palau Penang, and then on to Sumatra!

Selamat Malam!

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