Indonesia.

We leave tomorrow! Eek! Priscilla, Tamara and Maddison are about to take on Indonesia in a very uncommon way. We fly out of Calgary landing in Jakarta after a connection in Vancouver. We’re hoping the flight goes well and the flight attendants are cute. It’ll be a long haul and good looking men will help.

We have our passports and tourists visa packed and ready. The visa is only good for 30 days so we’ll have to leave before then no matter what kind of good looking men we meet along the way. (Insert Julia Roberts love story here). We’re working on our Indonesian as much as we can, including useful phrases like “Pantatmu seperti 2 sendok es krim karamel” Translation : Your bum is like two scoops of butterscotch ice cream.”

There are a couple places the Government of Canada reccomends we stay away from, we got all the info here: Travel Advisory and Info
Our itinerary now doesn't take us near there so we should be just dandy.

The money will be hard to get used to too. It’s not an easy do-it-in-your head conversion. For example a meal from a street vendor should be around 8,000 Rupiah… which is roughly $.75. It might be a couple days before we fully understand the money system. There is also a lot of bartering we’ve been told. I’m a terrible barterer, so that should be pretty entertaining.
Off to bed! We have an early start with a quick taxi ride to the airport. Here’s hoping all goes well!

Priscilla (Tamara and Maddison are currently fighting over the alarm clock)

The welcome monument of Jakarta (Hansel and Gretel)

Hot! And wonderful! Jakarta is loud, and smoggy, and a combination of beyond our wildest dreams with snippets of childhood nightmares. If those nightmares were about getting hit by wild rickshaw riders we suggest not going out on the street. On our groggy way from the airport to our hotel we passed by the Hansel and Gretel Monument. It’s technically called The Welcome Monument but our friendly taxi driver explained it’s been renamed after the European Folklore….why? No one’s really sure. But we took a picture of it anyway. We made it to our hotel safe and sound. We’re staying at the Sunny Days Hostel where $244,060 Indonesian Rupiahs (about $27CAD) gets us a private room and cold shower. We’re happy.

Showered, fed and happy we explored Jakarta a little. Tip of the day, don’t wink at men walking by, they like it very much. Tip number 2 of the day, have a scarf handy. We’re going to see one of the biggest mosques in Asia and a head covering is pretty much mandatory. It’s called Istiqual Mosque and it caters to the large Muslim population. We were a little surprised to find out so many Muslims were in this part of Asia but respectfully covered up.

Istiqial Mosque

Sukarno's Last Erection

Jakarta has a pretty exciting night market too. We picked up a couple of pirated dvds, and kebabs to snack on. It’s lively and pretty entertaining.
It was a fun couple of days in Jakarta, we’ll miss the fruit stands and cute Aussies in our hostel. We’re going to explore more of the Island of Java or the next few days. Here’s hoping there’s more horse races in our future.

Priscilla (Tamara and Maddison are currently fighting over the karaoke mic in the hostel lounge)

I thought leaving Jakarta would mean the crowds were behind us. Apparently that’s just a mean rumor a cute British guy in the hostel told me. There are 120 million people crammed onto the Island of Java half the size of Great Britain. Pretty sure that means crowds will be everywhere we go. If you every head down here, make sure you prepare yourself for that.

Crowds or not we headed a little east to Pangandaran. A coastal town where jungles, white sand beaches, black sand beaches and volcanoes greeted us. Tamara dutifully rented the first surfboard she saw and spent the day getting pummeled by waves and reefs. Maddison and I opted for more land based activities and soon hooked up with Green Canyon Tours, with the lovely accented Marco from Spain <3. We took what they called the Home Industry Tour which brought us to home run business that create things like tahu and krupuk or prawn crackers. A little fishy tasting for me but apparently a big hit in the cities. It was just nice to see people supporting themselves in an sustainable way, and close to home. Too often the parents have to ship the kids off to the city to make money, it’s nice to see home based-businesses.

Marco promised to take us to Paradise Island tomorrow. It’s an uninhabited island nearby that we’ll boat to. It’s beaches are amazing sounding and we’ll all have surfboards with us this time. Marco said he’ll head to the fishmarket early in town here so that when we get to the island all we have to do is build a little fire and enjoy seafood as fresh as it comes! There are no restaurants, or fruit stands (sad face) but I’m looking forward to the solitude of this island. It can get a little testing having people constantly bumping into you or watching you. They are friendly and polite but I miss my western-personal-space-bubble.

Once plans were made with Marco we headed to the restaurant Nuri Indah II, right on the beach it looked like a good idea, but the combination of Chinese seafood and no hotties to be seen left us unsatisfied. Not sure whose idea that was but they’re fired. We need to make sure we get plenty of water for tomorrow, mmmmmm beaches….

Priscilla

Borobudur

After a couple days of surfing and sun, we took a rickety bus inland to Yogyakarta, a central major city. Tip of the day, travel light! If we’d had big rolling suitcases it would have been a struggle, our medium backpacks made it pretty easy to hop on and ride with them on our laps.
Yogyakarta surprised us. We expected an uneventful overnight stay before our trek out to the ruins of Borobudur but it is actually one of the main tourist cities on the island of Java. We were fascinated by an old Dutch Fort that is still standing. There is also a maze of a market with an entire floor dedicated to rempah rempah (spices).

Our trip out to Borobudur itself was amazing! We took a bus from downtown Yogyakarta for 10,000 Rupiahs ($1.20 CAD) it was only an hour and a pretty authentic Indonesian experience. Borobudur is a giant Buddhist temple complex and for sure a full day trip. Its unclear who built the buildings or even why. Its an obvious religious site and it’s unique because it is a place where Buddhists and Hindu can come together. There have been several marriages between the 2 religions at Borobudur.

It’s a little eerie to walk around because not only has it stood the test of time, it’s also withstood earthquakes, volcanoes, bombings and the wear and tear and thousands of tourists flip flops. It hard to forget it’s a religious site. It’s now protected by UNESCO which will hopefully help the giant stone buildings last for thousands more years.

We arrived early early morning with the intention of climbing the main hill for sunrise. The stones absorb the heat of the sun very quickly and we’d have started late in the day I doubt we’d have gotten far. It’s hard to describe specifically. We’ll post a couple of pictures and hope that it helps.

We head to Bali tomorrow! It’ll be nice to be back at the beach

Priscilla.

Today Maddison, Priscilla and I landed in Kuta! We took a taxi from the airport to our hostel which was about 6500 Rupiah or 75 cents, killer deal for sure! We are staying in a very cute beach inspired hostel called The Island Bali, the perfect name for this place really. We decided to stay in the dorm and when we walked in the first thing we saw was an old Che Guevera poster, which was pretty sweet. I decided to take a picture to show you from my bunk. Today we decided to get lost in the bumpin’ city of Kuta! Streets were lined with surf and skate shops and there were tons of street vendors. We figured that Roxy and Billabong clothing were not legitimate souvenirs so we headed to the Art Market where local artisans sell their works. Maddison bought a couple of cool rings, Priscilla bought some Glass Mosaics and I picked up a couple cool prints. While getting lost in the town of Kuta we saw a cool place that might be good for dinner; so we went back to the hostel and dropped off our stuff, got freshened up and headed back into town. It was a little Bar called Ocean Beach Club and not only was the food fantastic but the locals were friendly, the sunset was remarkable and the dancing/drinks was awesome. Eventually (somehow) we made it back to our hostel and crashed (passed out). All in all, a great day!

Tamara