Feb 4, 2013 - Bangdung, Pandangaran, Yogyakarta, Seloliman, Mt. Bromo, Kalibaru, Tanah Lot, UbudJava,Indonesia

Monday 4th February 2013 - Jakarta to Bandung Group left hotel at 7am in taxis to Gambia Station for 8:25 am train to Bandung. Station busy with platforms above road level. Some trains coming through station with carriage doors open for ventilation and people almost hanging out. Women only carriages also evident. Train left 15 mins late. Reclining seats with foot rests and pillows; food service and sale of toys, puppets, wallets etc like duty free on aircraft. First sight of rice fields after leaving the city and the outskirts with lots of...

Mar 14, 2012 - Day 2 (Surabaya trip'2012)

Day 2 (Surabaya trip'2012) It was 7am, surabaya time and I was queuing up for breakfast. You may think that the food comes in packets and you have to seat on long benches. Well, fortunately it was buffet style so there was a wide variety of food, ranging from rice to omlettes to toast with jam or nutella. We ate in an open air restaurant with the view of greenery everywhere. It was not as hot like Singapore but instead, cooling as if there was a gigantic air conditioner blowing at us, reason being the fact that we were on the mountain. ...

Mar 14, 2012 - Day 4 (Surabaya trip'2012)

Day 4 (Surabaya trip'2012) It was 5.50am to be exact and I was woken up by a loud scream. I learnt that the person was afraid of insects and she had seen a gigantic moth which somehow managed to enter the cottage. Anyway, once I was dressed and ready, I headed for breakfast. There, the buffet table awaited me. I filled up my whole entire plate because everything just seemed so enticing. Once I all of us were done eating, we gathered at the main entrace and boarded the vans which took us to the village school. My teaching group and I went...

Mar 12, 2012 - Day 1(Surabaya trip'2012)

Day 1 (Surabaya trip'2012) It was 5am when I reached the airport. As I walked through the well polished automated glass doors, it was not long before I spotted the group of students and teachers going to Surabaya City in indonesia for our internationalisation trip. We checked in our baggage and soon, it was time to leave our parents and begin our six day trip to Surabaya. I felt butterflies in my stomach. This may not have been my first time going overseas without my parents, however, I felt once again like I was a young fawn, finally...

Mar 10, 2012 - Mount Bromo

Hi all, We had a great time here at Mount Bromo. The 15 hour minibus ride and 4am hike to see the sunrise was well worth it. Pictures soon. We stayed at a village next to the volcanoes and above the clouds which looked more like eastern Europe than the tropics. Were 2000 feet above sea level and my fleece and coat were on for the first time proper. Petrina gets cold very easily and has been wrapping up all over Asia. After the hike back to our accommodation it was time for some breakfast with veiws over our latest conquest. Anyway the...

Mar 3, 2012 - Surabaya Sleeping after a sad goodbye

Hi all, After a good flight from Bangkok we arrived in Indonesia, Java, Surabaya. The flights in Indonesia are really cheap so we slept in the airport and waited until the morning for a flight. It was a sad goodbye to Nat and Jacob who we are going to stay in touch with and hopefully visit on our Scandinavian tour in 2016 hehe. xx Much love C & P

Nov 24, 2011 - Java - Day 14 - Train to Yogyakarta

Checked out of our hotel in Surabaya at exactly 12 noon. Walked over to the terminal and waited 3 hours for our train to go to Yogyakarta. A local Indonesian street band (made up of older men) setup their instruments in the main train station foyer and started jamming away. I must say they were really good. Half of their songs to our surprise were English, songs by Eric Clapton & Kenny Rogers. One of the band members spotted me in the crowd of awaiting train passengers and waved a hello and sported a big smile. Jason provided them with a...

Nov 23, 2011 - Java - Day 13 - 3am Sunrise climb on Mount Pananjakan

We woke up at 3am, gathered ourselves and started our journey down the road to climb to the viewing point on Pananjakan mountain to see the sunrise. The sky was clear, you could see the stars shining above and all you could hear were the hooves of the horses passing by, loud engines from both the motorcycles and the 4x4 jeeps gracing the air with petrol fumes. As they pass by they ask you if you want to take the horse or motorcycle up the mountain rather than walk, of course we always decline. It was so dark to begin with that we could not...

Nov 22, 2011 - Java - Day 12 - Climbing Mount Bromo

Woke up, checked out of our hotel and made our way to the main street to catch a yellow mini bus. The yellow mini bus goes extensively throughout Probolinggo, where we were 'dumped' off last night. Generally, a cost of $3,000 rupees per each person is required. As we flagged down the bus and asked him to take us to the local bus station the driver of course tried to rip us off but Jason said no, $3,000 and started to walk away...of course the driver then agreed to take us to the terminal. As we are driving he asked us if we were going to...

Nov 21, 2011 - Bali- Day 11 - Sad goodbye to Bali, Rude Welcome to Java!

We had one last delicious Mango smoothie with breakfast and made our way to the street side to take a mini bus ($2.40 each) to West Bali, where we took the ferry to East Java (Ketapang). It was rather sad/difficult for us to leave Bali. The people are extremely friendly and seem to go out of their way to help however they can. We quickly discovered that this does not seem to be the same in Java. Even before boarding the boat, we had security trying to get us to buy our bus tickets from an overpriced vendor for our trip onward from Ketapang...

May 10, 2011 - Mount Bromo

The next morning, all hung over from partying the night before we climbed on a bus direction east. the plan was to climb mount Bromo and than hit bali. The bus ride was long and tiring. We hardley managed to sleep. We arrived at the remote mountain village near promo late had dinner and than off to bed. We were picked up at 2.30am having slept only 3 hours and brought to the hotel closest to the volcano. They offered us a guide but we figured that we could manage to find the waz on our own. So we started walking through the pitch dark! The...

Apr 23, 2010 - Surabaya

A four hour train journey through the lush green paddyfields of Java brings me to the port of Surabaya where the country's bid for independance began. The city is very spread out without an obvious centre and its the same story with accomodation, I did eventually end up at the Hotel Bali thanks to some help from some Surabayans I met just outside the train station. Now I celebrated my third year of being on the road whilst here, still lovin' it but the time flies by way too quickly, its just a shame there's very little in the way of...