Java Indonesia

Suddenly we were on our way to Indonesia, minus a plan, not even our first night was booked!!
A little panicked, we decided to get a connecting flight from Jakarta, not feeling ready or prepared to face the capital, we flew to Yogyakarta. I hastily booked us a place slightly out of the town, bad idea! Java is Indonesia’s most populated island and traffic is a major problem!
However, we battled through and wasted no time visiting the two famous temples of Prambanan and Borobudur. On our first morning we visited Prambanan, a Hindu temple, the second largest in South East Asia, only being pipped by Angkor Wat, it was pretty impressive!

The next day we decided to get the hell out of Yogy, we didn’t find much to like about the town so stayed near the temple of Borobudur, escaping the traffic clogged streets. Borobudur temple is amazing, definitely another highlight of our trip! Brief history, it was constructed around the 9th century, then buried under volcanic ash from about 1000AD and overgrown with forest and vegetation until it was re-discovered by that Raffles bloke from Singapore in 1814. It’s the largest Buddhist temple in the world.
We stayed put in Borobudur for a few days, allowing us time to arrange our onwards travel. Giving us the opportunity to do a fun tour in a cool car around the local villages! It was nice to be in a car that was moving, until it broke down!! We also did a little cycling and took a look at a chicken church!! Not going on the highlight list, but was pretty amusing!
After a couple of late nights, drinking Bintang, we finalised our Java adventure, settling on 3 main attractions. The temples (done), Mt Bromo volcano and Karimungawa island. It turns out that Java is way bigger than I realised, travel is slow and we knew to complete our round-trip was going entail some very long journeys.

Travelling from the temples to Mt Bromo was a slog! 4 hours on a train, stop over in a grim hotel, transfer pick up in the morning, 3 hours up to the mountains, stop over in the mountains (another grim hotel). 3am wake up, 30 mins in a jeep up a mountain, watch the sunrise over the volcano, followed by an hours walk to look inside the crater and back to the hotel in time for breakfast. Was it worth it! Hell yeah it was bloody amazing! And this time the pictures really do do it justice.
Also, as a sweetener on the trip up to the volcano, we stopped off at a very beautiful waterfall, walked underneath it and stood at the bottom of a 200 meter cascade.

Unfortunately our next destination wasn’t much easier! After the 3am start we spent that night at a hotel in Surabaya following a 3 hour cab down from the volcano. Next day 3 hour train, 3 hour cab, finally arriving in the small town of Jepara. Here we would catch our boat to Karimungawa island. It didn’t leave for a few days so we found a very nice Airbnb by the sea.

The boat ride was a mere 2 hours across to the island!! Turns out though it can get pretty rough and take significantly longer! Freda and I got very sea sick, it was a really grim few hours. But we made it and it again was totally worth it. A really beautiful island, we arranged ourselves a snorkelling trip, although I was a little reluctant when the boat rocked up at our jetty! Basic, is an understatement, no seats and not really any sides! They did chuck in a bean bag so at least one of us could be comfy for the day!! The boat did its job and stayed afloat and Otto didn’t end up over board. Win win. We even managed to leave him on board with the captain and enjoy a snorkel, as he’s not that keen on snorkelling in open water! Unsurprisingly! I kept popping my head up to see the poor guy trying to entertain him as he threw himself all over the very small and rustic boat!! We spent another day on a couple of scooters and explored the beaches but unfortunately after a very relaxing four night tropical island break we were on the move again. As this it was not the end of our epic travel days, another boat back, (travel sickness tablets bought and taken), 3 hours in a cab to another busy, traffic clogged city, Semarang, followed by a flight to Jakarta!! Was it worth it? Hell yeah we were meeting my bestie Aimee!!!

So far it’s been an eye opening time, we’ve seen some of the most incredible stuff on this one leg of our whole trip. But, unfortunately it’s not all rosey. As a developing country, the grim reality of the causes of climate change, pollution, and poverty, are impossible to ignore. It has made me feel, at times, very hopeless. With Java’s lack of any government funded waste management, all rubbish appears to be burnt. Be it on the side of the roads, on beaches or just where it’s been put in the bins. It’s really hard to see it and then justify being here and being part of the problem. As an example, when we visited the amazing waterfall, the people there sold plastic ponchos. On the way out of the waterfall the other visitors threw them in the bin, where in horror I noticed they were then burnt! Hundreds, every day!!! I’ve had a hard time explaining to Freda there’s no money and no other way here at the moment and that in our country we bury our rubbish, which isn’t a much better solution?

The beaches as well are cleaned religiously every day, as every night tons of plastic washes up, it’s then swept to the back of each beach and burnt. Karimunjawa island that we visited was beautiful of course, but I can’t not mention the horrible impact we are having everywhere. The less money the less options people have to deal with the unbelievable amount of single use plastic being created.
Sorry it’s the grim reality, we find it too easy to ignore it at home, because we can pay for someone else to deal with it. Here there’s no getting away from the fact we are in a right old mess!!!
I write this, hypocritically on a flight, out of an unbelievably smoggy Jakarta.

On a more amusing note, after converting to Islam in Malaysia, we have had to reconsider. Mitch has been majorly put off after every morning at 4 clock at least 2 or 3 mosques, in the immediate vicinity of every place we have stayed blurt out the call to prayer! Seemingly in a rather competitive way, becoming louder and more out of tune as they go on! It’s very disrespectful and disruptive to our sleep patterns!!Read more