OUR JOURNEY THROUGH JAVA

Monday, August 24, 2009 3:00 PM

Idalis:

For us, Java was a mixed bag. On one hand, we were surrounded by pollution, poverty, and loads of traffic. On the other, we saw one of Indonesia's greatest cultural sites, hiked to a volcano, and met up with a dear friend. Here was our experience in the heart of Indonesia, warts and all:

Jakarta

“I tried. I really did try my best,” said Kevin of trying to find something beautiful about Indonesia's capital. Dubbed the “Big Durian,” the name seems to fit Jakarta, as this malodorous city was not easy for us to swallow.



At night we arrived to Jalan Jaksa, Jakarta's backpacker ghetto, tired and hoping to find a clean bed to rest our weary bodies.

Not possible.

Combing the dark streets with our heavy packs (always heavier when we're looking for a room!), there was nothing to be found. “Full. No vacancy. High season, sir. Maybe tomorrow, madam.” We had to settle for one of the most depressing accomodations yet, where the rusty fan blew like a whisper and we were attacked by mosquitoes on that first hot, sticky night. We found better accommodations the next day at a neighboring hostel, but not by much.

We visited several of the sights in Jakarta, which tried to hold our interest. Dodging traffic, open sewers, and beggars, we made our way to the National Monument and took the elevator up for views of the city. We found a beautiful cathedral across the street from Masjid Istiqlal (the largest mosque in Asia), and went in to give thanks for the few minutes of peace and quiet the majestic building provided.











I had given up, but Kevin was determined to find something which would captivate us in the city. We set aside a whole day to visit Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, a kind of theme park to celebrate the nation. The traditional houses were interesting and the cable car provided a reprieve from the blazing sun, but the IMAX theater was closed and the crumbling Disney-like atmosphere was a little creepy. It took us over an hour to get to the park with public transportation, so the hour back we spent switching buses and standing (no seats left) wore us out. We felt that the Bintang beers we enjoyed that night with other travelers we met were well-deserved and (thank the Lord) cold.




The highlight of our time in Jakarta was meeting up with Mr. Stamey, our friend Sarah's father, who has lived and worked in the city several times. Mr. Stamey met us at Cafe Batavia, a refined bar-restaurant in the Kota neighborhood. He treated us to drinks, a delicious meal, and even better conversation! Thank you, Mr. Stamey, for a wonderful evening. We wish you the best and hope that you enjoy your hard-earned rest in Virginia!











Yogyakarta

Our bisnis (second class) nine-hour train ride to Yogyakarta was entertaining, to say the least. It was hot and stuffy, and just when you were at the point of nodding off, another vendor would come through selling gado-gado (an Indonesian salad with peanut sauce), prawn crackers, or squeaky toys, or a female impersonator (long blue fake eyelashes included) would come down the aisles, singing a song and passing her (or his) glittery bag around for donations. It was better than television!

Things started looking up for us in Yogyakarta, Java's cultural and artistic center. We found nicer accomodations at Gandhi Hotel (after searching for over an hour) and spent the first day just wandering the streets and trying not to be run over by motorbikes or accosted by a million batik salesmen. We visited the city's kraton one day, a walled royal enclave where the sultan still resides. Although his palace did not wow us, we did find the grounds peaceful (enough).



We really liked Borobudur, a massive Buddhist temple outside of the city. Relief panels on the terraces illustrate Buddhist teachings and tales, while hundreds of Buddhas sit in chambers and stupas. We took a walk up a distant hill for better views of the temple, and to get away from the hordes of giggling teenagers who kept asking for pictures with us!




One of the other highlights was going to the Prambanan at night, the grandest Hindu temple in Java, to watch the spectacular Ramayana ballet be performed. The cast of hundreds interpreted the Hindu story of Rama and Sinta in front of the floodlit Shiva temple. Awesome!











Gunung Bromo

This was definitely the highlight of our journey through Java: viewing the landscape that surrounds Gunung Bromo, an active volcano and the neighboring peaks that jut out of a vast caldera. Not the cold, or even our musty, dirty room could detract from the amazing experience we had. On the first day, Kevin and I hiked Gunung Bromo to reach it's smoking cone. It's steep walls plunge down to a vast, flat sea of sand and lava. We sat at the top admiring the view (and occasionally pinching our noses because of the overpowering farty smell of sulfur). We couldn't believe our surroundings: We were on top of a live volcano!




The next day we woke up at the wee hours of 2:30 am (ouch!) to hike to the top of Gunung Penanjakan (2770 meters) to get the best views of the entire Tengger Massif at sunrise. Two-and-a-half hours and three diversions later, we found our spot on the side of a cliff (Kevin ignores my fear of heights) and watched the sun come up over the entire landscape. The views of smoking Bromo, the Tengger crater, and Gunung Semeru in the back took our breaths away – and not just because we were freezing cold! The whole environment had an end-of-the-world feeling to it, spooky and surreal, but in a very good way!

All in all, Java was a worthwhile stop for us. It was our introduction to Indonesia, both good and bad. It's off to Bali next . . . our camera and sense of adventure awaits!

A YEAR IN REVIEW

As hard as it is to believe, we have actually been at this for one whole year. Time has flown, which I suppose infers that we have been having fun. So much fun, have we had, that time is flying faster than our ability to get our one year anniversary post up on time! All fun and delays aside, here it is...a world traveler's year in review.

Facts...
We have published 85 blog posts, including this one
We have visited 16 countries to date
We have learned words and phrases in 23 different languages
We have been transported by feet, push bike, bicycle rickshaw, auto rickshaw, motorbike, tuk tuk, taxi, jeep, sangteow, minibus, barely running bus, express bus, luxury bus, narrow guage train, sleeper train, metro, light rail, monorail, subway, ferry, catamaran, hydrofoil, canoe, kayak, long tail boat, coracle, junk, gullet, house boat, cable car, fernicular railway, elephant, camel, horse cart and airplane
We have hiked through 160 million year old rain forest, desert plateaus, highlands, hill stations, snowy Himalayan peaks, forest canopies and seaside cliffs
We have eaten heart, lung, liver, snout, stomach lining, intestine, tongue, duck, cricket, worm, congealed blood, seaweed, jellyfish, fish eyes, lips and cheeks, rambutan, lychee, mangosteen, jackfruit and worst of all, durian!
We have stayed in guest houses, hostels, hotels, tea houses, losmens, tree houses, caves, bungalows, tents, pensions, home stays, grass huts, mud huts, house boats, junks and catamarans.
We have seen Sagrada Familia, the Eiffel Tower, the Parthenon, the Collisseum, the Blue Mosque, the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat and Mt. Everest (from the window of the plane)
We have been 3550 meters above sea level and 5 meters below it
We have been in two different hemispheres, four different continents and fifteen different time zones
We have been in 18 airports
We have been 49 degrees north and 12 degrees south of the equator
We have swam in two oceans, four seas, one strait, two lakes and six rivers
We have gone through 8 pairs of flip flops and four haircuts
We have taken 14,681 pictures
We've had diarrhea, vomiting, indigestion, constipation, headaches, backaches, stings, bites, scrapes, cuts, scratches, bruises, sore muscles, prickly heat, ear infections, coughs, sore throats and toe jam
We have two new tattoos
We are currently 11,016 miles away from Miami

We have been to a million places, seen a million things and met a million people and through it all we still love home the best!

The Vagalongers

SINGA”POOR”

Monday, August 10th @ 22:01

Kevin

Helpless desperation. After almost exactly one year of travel all of our experience and “wisdom” meant nothing. We were stuck. Just before setting out for one of the world's oldest rain forests, somewhere around 160 million years old to be exact, we did what we always do, we prepared for the journey. Only, this time, we would hit a major roadblock that would make the next few days tense and uncertain. We had about 260 ringgit to our names, or about 80 US dollars. After trying five different ATM machines, including the one for our very own bank, we were unable to pull any cash. We knew our trip to Taman Nagara would be, at the very least, a bit more than we had. But, we just couldn't seem to get our hands on any cash. So, not wanting to miss the experience and also having already secured our transport, we headed out, owing the misfortune to a simple mistake that was sure to be cleared up by the time we returned from the forest. We knew our immediate funds were running a bit low, but we also knew there was some money just waiting in the wings to be cleared.

Amidst our four amazing days of “getting back to nature” and meeting the coolest family in the world (Hello Romeros!), we tracked down a woman at the five star Taman Negara Resort that was kind enough to exchange 60 US dollars, at the going rate of 189 ringgit, even despite it being a “privileged for guests only”. Whew, we were out of the woods, so to speak, at least for the time being. Our plan to always have $100 cash paid off.

Our trip to Taman Negara was amazing, as Idalis so eloquently stated in the last post, and we left with only a few bucks to spare. We would arrive back in Jerentut just in time to catch some breakfast, buy some snacks and get to the train station for our eight hour journey to Singapore. The eight hour journey turned into a ten hour journey and we finally made it to the area of Bugis, where we were planning to stay, at eleven o'clock. On the way, we would stop at an ATM machine to get some cash. Strike two. Still, no cash. And, worse yet, a message that would say the card was inactive and a call to the bank would be necessary. We pressed on, a bit miffed, but sure that there was a valid explanation. After all, this ATM card had served us well for upwards of eleven months already. By the time we made it to our hostel to check in and pay, we had only 2 Singapore dollars left from the little bit of ringgit that we exchanged upon arriving. Not enough to eat, not enough to drink and not enough to make a phone call to the bank. Still not shaken, we knew that if we could just find an open wifi connection somewhere in the city, we could call the bank and most certainly straighten all this out.

So, as we have done so many times in the past it was off to McDonalds, no luck, then Starbucks, again spoiled, and then an attempt to sign into the city's wifi service, which is free for tourists, IF you happen to have a local phone number. Strike three! It is now 12:30 at night, or early in the morning if you wish, and still no luck. All around us people are eating, drinking and frolicking in a city that thrives on bright lights, material delights and plenty of cash. In a last desperate attempt, I decided to pay a visit to he Hotel Intercontinental. My strategy was to explain our situation and ask if we could simply sign on to their wifi service long enough to make a SKYPE call to our bank and straighten all of this out. After a long and heartfelt plea and a couple of trips back and forth, probably to the manager's office, Farhana came back with good news, she would patch our call through to the out of country collect number listed on the back of our ATM card. We would wait on hold for what felt like days to final be connected to the Administrative office that would tell us that our card was indeed locked due to the foreign activity noticed by the account reviewers. “Foreign activity?! Yah, NO S@#T! We have been traveling for a year already consistently making withdrawals from points across this great big world and after a year you decide to flag the card?” Well, I couldn't be too mad, the protection and oversight was all in our best interest and after a few tense days and some incredibly intense hours, we successfully made our first withdrawal in far too long. It was time to pour thanks out to Farhana for being our angel in disguise and hit the road running. Which is exactly the way it should be done in Singapore.





Once a bargain shoppers mecca, Singapore, or Singapora (Lion City as named by a Sumatran prince who is said to have spotted a lion upon his first visit here) has become “mall capital of the world”! It seems like any stop on the metro conveniently deposits you right smack dab in the middle of an incredibly designed and gratuitously sprawling shopping complex. And there are many of them. It would take weeks just to cover the interior air conditioned space of the countless retail outlets and stalls. And then, there are the markets and hawkers square, which serving food were our favorite. Singapore is quite the anomaly being a country of 4.6 million (and growing...rapidly), in an area of 604 square kilometers and boasting one of the cleanest and germ free environments in the world. It is approximately 76.7% Mandarin speaking Chinese, 14% Malay Singaporeans and 7.9% Tamil speaking South Indians, with a few other minorities, such as American ex-pats, mixed in for good measure. Touted as an experiment in social morays and behavior, we actually, to our relief, found it to be far more relaxed and easy going than expected. Despite it being impeccably clean, orderly and having a few too many cameras, the people are friendly, the vibe is one of excitement and hopefulness and there is a sense of individuality in the fashion and expression, especially of the youth.

August 9th was Singapore's 44th year of Independence from both British Imperial rule and invasion of the Japanese during World War II. We were lucky enough, once again, to be the beneficiaries of a local celebration. We sat along with the mostly Singaporean crowd in front of the jumbo tron screen as skits, musical acts, displays of military prowess and fireworks were displayed along the marina front in honor of Nation's Day. We stood for the national anthem, observed silently the pledge and celebrated into the wee hours with the thousands and thousands of locals who took to the streets. We also visited the world renowned Singapore Zoo and enjoyed, perhaps, the finest zoologic park in the world. We shopped, a small bit, in a local market, took the time to visit the local cinemaplex and catch a great movie, “UP”, spent a day at the most touristic Sentosa Island, including a trip down the luge, and, of course, ate ourselves silly.



















It was only four days, and despite a rocky start, it all ended wonderfully and we spent far too much than we should have, which is far too easy to do. We lived like true Singaporeans as we spent much of our time in the malls, better known as social centers, shared in a sense of pride for independence and prosperity, ate at the twenty four hour food centers and crammed onto the metro just in time to make it back home to plan the next day's adventure.

INTO THE WILD

Saturday, 11:58 PM

Idalis:

Kuala Lumpur

It was time to experience Malaysia's capital.

Unfortunately, our time in Kuala Lumpur got off to a shaky start. After a five hour bus ride from Penang, it took us over two hours to find accommodations. Kevin and I wandered the streets of Chinatown with our heavy packs in the heat, trying to find a reasonably priced room that wasn't infested with bed bugs. Oasis Guesthouse wasn't quite the oasis we were looking for, especially with its weird smells in the hallway and a never-ending squeaky washer. But, it was a room, we were tired, and it fit our budget. We were now free to explore the city!

We spent one day exploring the Colonial District. We visited Merdeka Square, where Malaysia's independence was proclaimed in 1957. We tried visiting Masjid Jamek, a famous mosque, but had arrived during prayer times. It looked nice from the outside! We saw the old railway station, a beautiful castle-like structure of Islamic spires and arches.

Another afternoon was devoted to the National Art Gallery, which we loved. There was a great exhibit by a Chinese artist who painted the city through his outsider's perspective. Being free and air-conditioned made it that much better!

A short bus ride away from the city brought us to the Batu Caves. A holy Hindu shrine and site of the 42.7 meter high statue of Lord Murugan and the annual Thaipusam festival in the Tamil month of Thai (which falls in late January/early February), where devotees perform amazing feats of self mutilation, including piercing portions of their bodies and suspension by hooks piercing their backs. The festival usually draws millions of devotees, but thankfully the day we were there was much quieter and only had a handful of visitors.



The highlight for us, though, was seeing the Petronas Towers. Kevin and I got up extra early one morning and waited in line for close to two hours to ride the elevator to the 41st floor. It was totally worth it. One of the world's tallest skyscrapers, we were able to see amazing city views from that perspective. We liked it so much, we went back to see it lit up at night!

When we weren't seeing the sights, Kevin and I were busy stuffing our faces. Kuala Lumpur is a serious eating town. Food courts are everywhere, and we took full advantage. From Indian roti canai to Chinese pork in a pot, Thai omlette and rice to Malay nasi lemak, we spent just as much time perusing the hawker stalls as we did pounding the pavement. A perfect balance!

Taman Negara









After spending so much time in a big cities and breathing in exhaust fumes, it was time to convene with nature again and go into the wild. Hence, our time in Taman Negara, Malaysia's premier national park.

Getting to this leech-infested was no small task. It involved a three hour nail-biting bus ride from Kuala Lumpur to Jerantut, local bus to Kuala Tembeling, and then three hour boat ride to Kuala Tahan, the jumping off point for this leech-infested jungle.

First things first: finding a place to rest your head. We loved the little bungalow that we (eventually) found at Durian Chalets. Although it had over-anxious ants in the squat toilet and leaned to one side so that when I woke up in the morning and stumbled out of bed I would crash into Kevin's bed, the peaceful surroundings and jungle noises at night more than made up for the overpowering smell of stinky durian fruit.

On our first full day, we hiked to the Canopy Walkway, a hanging rope bridge constructed of wooden planks and ladders that's elevated 45 meters above ground. In this case, simply walking was an adrenalin rush! Along the way, we met up with the Romeros, a French family we had met the day before on the lunatic-driven bus. Antoine and Carrine have two girls, Odet and , and the six of us spent the day together, pointing out wildlife and trying to scare each other on the high bridge. That night, we met up for dinner and had a fantastic time.

The next day, we all hiked for three hours to Gua Telinga, a cave infested with bats! It's only 2.6 kilometers to the caves, but we stopped often to admire the verdant scenery, take too many pictures, and get mini French lessons from the girls. The cave was awesome, and this is coming from a person who hates both dark caves and bats! A rope guided us through the dark, strenuous walk through the cave, and you had to be careful of not bumping your head into sleeping bats or placing your hand on bat poo, which was everywhere! After our hike back into town, we all jumped into the lake, which served a dual purpose: to cool down our sweating bodies and to wash off the crusty bat poo! That night, we spent hours playing cards, recounting our experiences, and laughing at our hysterics every time a bat had swooped by our faces.

On our last full day in Taman Negara, Kevin and I relaxed. We slept in, had a long breakfast, read books, and rested our tired bones. We met up with the Romero family one last time for dinner and both extended invitations to visit each other in our respective countries. Meeting the Romeros proved to be the highlight of our jungle trip, and we were sad that our time with them had come to an end. Later that night, Kevin and I took the path back home in the dark to our creaking cottage. As we walked hand in hand, we reminisced about all the wonderful people we've met on this trip along the way. People like the Romeros who have colored our experiences, shared a million laughs with, and then have to say goodbye to. We are always saying goodbye ...

To the Romero family: Thank you for the great laughs, amazing company, and French lessons. You are a beautiful family, and we hope to see you one day again. Until then, enjoy your travels and never stop exploring!