Indonesia

Kuta del Sol
In other words: loads, loads & loads of fun, shots & partying!!!!!
August 15th, 2007 

The first 2,5 weeks Gea came out to see me, I have been bitching about her wanting to go to Kuta, Bali: “That is way to touristy for me!”, “I usually don’t go to places like that”, etc, etc…. – you get the picture, right?? Well: as promised: I TAKE IT ALL BACK, POPJE! I had an amazing time and it took just two partynights and hooking up with a bunch of really cool people to have me admit that I was very wrong & didn’t wanna leave this place anymore

On our trip to Bali we had already met Sean & Craig, who landed us the room. They introduced us to Curtis & Steven. Which lead to pretty enjoyable beers at our porch every evening. During one of the first nights out partying we hooked up with Marcus, Calle & Jochem. Over the next couple of days that little group kept expanding as we met Thijs, Richie, Dennis, Davide, David, Gordon & of course the lovely Eline.

Our days were mainly filled on the beach where we met to compare war stories of the night before, fumble around with surfboards, go for a swim or get a tan. Fortunately for me, Craig showed up every now & then to give me some proper surfing lessons – not that they helped much, but that was definitely the student not the teacher . Then watch the beautiful sunset with a cold beer. A couple of beers with some South African entertainment, after which Gea somehow always found somebody that had a hot shower, who she’d kick out of his room for a bit, so the lady could get pretty for dinner & party-time!

And party-time it was! As soon as our little group hit the Expresso bar, it would take us about 5 seconds to turn the place upside down. The soar throats from singing along with all our requests were easily soothed with a complete range of shots – which naturally kept increasing the party atmosphere The rest of the time was filled with dancing, joking aroung & more drinking and one night even a very impressive demo of how to play the drums by Calle. Maybe I should keep it at that & not mention the not so “impressive” acapella song Marcus, Thijs & Calle produced the other night. If we figured we’d lifened up the Expressobar enough, it was time to hit Bounty’s; a completely insane place. But by the time we got there, we usually blended in just perfectly

So have we seen anything of Bali?? …….. uhhh well yeah……. one day we managed to get ourselves out of bed at 7 (or actually the driver managed to get some of us out of bed – others needed some more convincing ) and we went to do some sightseeing… of course by the time everybody was actually in the van, fed & reliefed, we didn’t have time for half the stuff we had planned to do anymore…. but we had an amazing day, visiting rice fields, coffee plantations, the biggest volcano, the black beach near Lovina & relaxing at the hot springs.

Since a day like that deserves a perfect ending, we left the backpacker-thing for a night and treated ourselves to a gorgeous dinner at a seaside Italian, being completely spoiled with great food and lovely wine, while lounging in some massive couches. Naturally nobody was willing to inform Marcus & Calle why you might not wanna have black pasta on your first date

The inevitable goodbye!

After all that entertainment Gea & I spent a girls day out on Binging beach, having caught a lift from our South African neighbours, cause parting time was coming way too close, way too quickly! Even though the beach was beautiful and we tried avoiding the subject as much we could, the knot had already settled in our stomachs. Fridaynight there was no avoiding the tears anymore at the airport, when the moment we had been dreading arrived and I put Gea on a plain back to Holland…..

I had an amazing time with you, babes & I’m gonna miss you like crazy! Thank you sooooo much for the laughter, the tears, the silly stuff & the good conversations. It has been an amazing holiday for the both of us! HVJ

 Welcome to my paradise!
August 3rd, 2007

So where did life take us? Well to the Gili’s. After another day of boat-bus-boat thingies we arrived on Gili Trawangan. A beautiful little white beached paradise just of the coast of Lombok. We practically walked around the whole thing to find a room that was not exactly up to the “paradise standards”. But being too tired to care, we decided that you sleep with you eyes closed anyway

The next morning we got up early to beat the “crowds” to the better bungalows… and man did we find our paradise…. We landed ourselves a beautiful two-story cottage, tucked away in the village (close enough to walk, but far enough not to hear the noise of the partying). Downstairs we had our chill-out area, complete with TV, DVD and a stack of DVD’s that would have taken us a month to get through (all though we do get credits for trying), a front porch terrace overlooking a beautiful little garden and an attached “open-roof” bathroom (you now what it feels like to take a shower while your looking at the moon and stars???). Upstairs we had a very romantic gorgeous bedroom and off course a cute little balcony. To top it all off the very kind staff of Black Sand Homestay, would bring us a fantastic breakfast every morning, while we were recovering from last nights party with a DVD Now you have to understand that for a backpacker like me this is the ultimate treat! Although I didn’t hear Gea complain either

What did we do apart from chilling out and watching DVD’s at our little cottage? Eat, sleep and add some colour to the beautiful white beaches every now (Gea) and then (me) Of course, I couldn’t resist checking out a few of the reefs up close, so I met up with the sharks a couple of times more! In my enthusiasm I convinced Gea to join me for a dive. So she agreed to get wet as well…. I have to admit that my life wasn’t exactly save when she was supposed to start breathing under water, blaming me for having talked her into this … but that all disappeared as soon as she took the plunge… the first words out of the water (remember, this is still in the pool) were “wow, this is soooo cool!!!” naturally accompanied by a smile that was worth a million bucks!

With all the safety instructions behind us, there was nothing keeping us from going to look for some turtles. And although the backwards boat entry looked scary, Gea plunged in like a pro and joint me in the big blue! By then I was more nervous then she was, fearing for my life if the ocean didn’t agree with her… but that was wasted energy. Even without speech (it’s kinda hard under water) she was getting her enthusiasm across to me, glowing and shining with happiness, pointing at everything that moved. And as promised (this was part of the deal) I found her a turtle. We had a blast (or splash rather) and I’m pretty sure I will meet this particular pretty lady under water more often!

Our nights were easily filled in the little beach cabins covered with pillows for a relaxed dinner and in the bar who-ever’s turn it was to make that nights party! The entertainment provided by 3 Dutchies; Bart, Rens & Gijs, did not only guide us through our first full moon party, it even turned the dull nights into an early morning!

The nights were also always accompanied by this one song “Welcome to my paradise” … And we couldn’t agree more!

So what do you do after paradise?

Look for another one of course! Yesterday we tore ourselves away from our little home and made for Bali again. The boat ride from Lombok to Bali was scheduled on Indonesian time, so after an hour and a half of waiting it took us 6 hours on the ferry, rather then the promised 3,5… But thanks to a couple of surf dudes we ran into, we landed a good spot on the boat, were duly entertained and on top of that they sorted out a pretty sweet guesthouse for us as well, what more could a girl want?

Some surf lessons maybe… OK, surf lessons coming up, ladies!

About getting stuck, getting with more fishies and getting company!
July 24th, 2007

Knowing that the road I chose to travel wasn’t exactly easy, I had been looking for a Lonely Planet for quite a bit… unfortunately, that proved an impossible task. So off I went, into Kalimantan (the Indonesian side of Borneo) without any guide book…

… I arrived in Indonesia in Tarakan, a small harbour city. Even though people were very friendly and helpfull (as far as that’s possible without speaking English), I had quite a bit of trouble trying to figure out how to get to Derawan (a small island where I wanted to dive). Via boat and bus trips I ended up in Berau – an even smaller harbour town – where I was completely harrassed by people trying to get me to charter a boat… Of course this is completely impossible in my budget, but for the rest… there were no boats to Derawan.

Feeling uneasy with 10 guys around me and not knowing where to go, I walked into the only decent hotel Berau has, hoping to find somebody who’d speak some sort of English. This turned out to be my lucky shot. There was a group of 20 Indonesian tourists staying in this hotel, who had chartered a boat for the next day and who were more than happy to take me along. This, of course meant, I got to spent the night in the “buzzling” town of Berau. But, with yet another stroke of luck, I ran into an Indonesian guy who had studied in the Netherlands, and therefore ended up having a real nice conversation about “boerenkool met worst”, herring & bicycles.

After a 6-hour boattrip the next morning I finally made it to Derawan. The first people I ran into, were some Germans I had already met on my way to Tarakan… they did charter a boat and it took them 4 hours from Tarakan… whereas it took me 2 days ! Unfortunately, they were also able to tell me – after rubbing my stubborn backpacker “I can get there cheaper”-attitude in for quite a bit – that it somehow proved impossible to arrange dives from Derawan. Either people would ask for impossible prices or they would just refuse to go. My good luck spell had not ended yet, though! The Germans were not the only ones fed up with the Derawan-way and had hooked up with 3 English. Our little rebellious group decided not to go along with all this hasseling. With me there we were with 8 people, called some posh resort on a private island and asked them for a deal. As it turned out, they had a slow week and made us a great deal. So we chartered a boat and went to Nabucco Island Resort (yes, that’s right it’s located on a private island!). From there on, we enjoyed a perfect little spoiled life. Really posh room, five course meals, enough staff to provide to your every wish and amazing diving!

The dive sites are not as crowded with sharks and turtles as Sipidan – but quite spectacular in a different way! With beautiful coral gardens, a lot of diversity and strong currents – which brings in enough big stuff -, the memory of Sipidan couldn’t bring down the fun I had on my dives here! For the first time in my life I did reef hook-dives (which is quite exciting enough without trying to look at the sharks and barracuda’s), drifted along “the channel” at amazing speed and even had to “climb” back up a coral slope on a rope!!

My original reason to go to Derawan was Lake Kakaban, a prehistoric jellyfish lake, where you can snorkel with jellyfish without getting stung. From Nabucco this was easily arranged as a nice surface interval in between dives. Sissy as I am, I was already floating in between the jellyfish for quite a bit, before actually daring to touch them. Wow! Seeing and feeling jellyfish everywhere, without getting stung… it’s quite a psychedelic experience! Combine that with the spectacular diving, the good company I found myself in and you will soon understand that planning to stay 2 days, soon turned into 4 days

Does diving ever get boring?
Without a guidebook and ready to do some more diving, I completely used Carel as my compass and – on his advise – flew from Tarakan straight to Manado on Sulawesi (OK OK, I also wasn’t quite ready to get stuck in more places ). From Manado I took the boat to Bunaken…. after all I hadn’t exactly done enough diving over the past couple of weeks

Bunaken was nothing like Sipidan or Nabucco. First of all to visit the dive sites here, you get to stay on the beautiful island of Bunaken that actually does cater to budget travellers (which was by now a very welcome and necessary change). Second of all I was quite ready to find a place where I could feel at home a little bit. I landed in this little dive resort called, Daniel’s, where – though the catering wasn’t nearly as posh as on Nabucco – being looked after, means being looked after. From three meals a day, to drinks, to putting up your hammock or – of course – to diving as much as you like, when you like and where you like, usually being outnumbered by the staff on the dive boat – for the same price as with a group, even if your the only one that wants to dive!

Now the diving is a bit different, rather then looking for the big stuff, you are looking for the small stuff and enjoying the beautiful coral gardens. Think for example; pigmee seahorses, ghost pipe fishies, manderine fish and crabs almost too small to see with your bare eyes. My dive guide, Obe, proved to be a complete wizz in spotting all the tiny, (and for me) extra ordinary stuff. After 2 days, I just let him tell me where to dive, cause he seemed to have figured out what I liked anyway… This is how I made my first early morning dive ever (even if that meant getting up at 4.00 a.m.) and ended up seeing the sun come up through the water for the first time.

During the evenings, especially if you put up some money, the crew is more than willing to make a party. Which means they bring in the local wine and music. This combination did land me some really short nights, but fortunately I got to spent my lazy afternoons with a very nice English “gal” named Kat. So we happily chatted away the lazy mornings, boatrides and hammock-moments. Of course I planned “my” party – which means I spotted the money – on my last evening… This was not my brightest idea ever, cause without the help of Ferdinand (talk to him for the diving stuff at Daniel’s), I probably never would have made my flight to Jakarta

It almost feels like home!
And if there has ever been a place on my trip so far where I needed to get to on time, it was Jakarta. For the first time in months I finally got some company from back home (and real cheese!!!!). One of my girlies flew to Java, just to visit me…. and have a nice holiday of course!

I was so excited by seeing one of my friends, that I hardly slept the night before and ended up being on the airport 2 hours early ! But she got here safe & sound and despite our plans to do some siteseeing in Jakarta, all we did was talk, talk, talk for the first 2 days… This was – what else did you expect? – accompanied by a huge amount of beer. But even we outdid ourselves. In order to add up your bill at the end of the evening, the beerbottles don’t get removed from the table… which for us meant that almost everybody from the bar came up to us to ask if these two girls REALLY drank all that beer Of course we did! What did you think… we had some catching up to do!

With soar throats from all the girltalk, we headed for Panangdaran. Gea was completely set on going to the beach… so off we went… The beach, however, was more crowded with monkeys than with people, to which I don’t take a particular liking. But, as with a lot of things this past week, Gea’s reaction reminded me that monkeys, dirty toilets, everybody smiling at you, like a lot of other stuff is not a common thing for us, but something quite out of the ordinary Whereas I from my part I have to admit that Gea is adjusting really quickly to the “backpacker-style” – although thinking she will get used to the toilets, might just be aiming a little bit to high -. She does, however, adjust really well to the other stuff, like coming up with a way of blowdrying your hair I hadn’t figured out yet

Something else out of the ordinary is 2 blond girls – especially the really tall one – in bikini . We were a more photographed site than the monkeys. All the local tourists wanted a picture with these two “beach babes”, so we wanted a picture for ourselves as well…

On our second day in Panangdaran, there was a memorial for the tsunami that hit this part of Indonesia on the 17th of July last year. Even though the tsunami took 500 lifes and devastated much of the beachline shops and houses, people here honoured the victims by celebrating life, rather then getting stuck on the grieving. For us, this meant we got to enjoy free surfing lessons, join a blessing by an imam for the victims and endulge in a traditional Indonesian lunch on the beach. For the both of us, this meant a very special start of our travels through Java.

We took the “long” but scenic trip from Panangdaran by boat and bus to Yogya. Once in Yogya we started out with the “standard” thing and visited the Borobudur, where we of course made a wish by touching Buddha through one of the stupa’s (although we didn’t really agree that the men got to touch Buddha’s hand, whereas we ladies got stuck with the foot sole). At the Borobudur, we ran into a yearclub of students “ut Grun”. This, of course – what do you expect with 12 students – lead to some heavy duty partying in Yogya. We did, however, in between manage to visit the beautiful temple of Prambanan and enjoy a beautiful sunset there. On the other hand, it helped us to practically sleep through the entire – 10 hour bustrip – to mount Bromo.

As it turned out, we really needed that much sleep, in order to get up at 3.15 a.m. to make it to some mountain to see the first rays of sun touching mount Bromo. It was a spectacular beautiful site, but f***** freezing!!!! Despite all our layers of clothes and Gea’s rented coat (I personally believe they couldn’t have landed her a more beautiful one ), we completely froze our butt’s off up there!

Wanting to change the cold for the heat, we made straight for Bali on the same day…. Which turned out to be a bit of a mistake… after the steep hike to Bromo we had comitted ourselves to a sixteen-hour bus-boat-bus ride… which is not exactly a piece of cake after getting up at 3.15 So it was time for some well deserved resting.

But we made it and landed on the beach today…. HMMMM

Where will life take us from here????