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South-East Asia

September 2014 - March 2015
A 182-day adventure by Claire Read more
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  • TravelerSouth-East Asia
    3
    Day 9

    Gili Trawangan

    October 1, 2014 in Indonesia ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Eating at the food market: it is always good to discover new stuff.
    "What is that?" "Blabla-don't-understand with peanuts" (yeah, peanuts was actually the only thing I had already recognized... rest looks like cabbage). So I am thinking, let's go for it. First bite: baaaah I don't like it! And when I looked more closely... a looot of very small fishes... beuuh. Buuut, luckily we were able to choose several different dishes and the rest was very good!Read more

  • TravelerSouth-East Asia
    2
    Day 10

    Gili islands

    October 2, 2014 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    So this is how paradise feels like. After 2h in a bus + 2h on a boat we arrived on Gili Trawangan, the "party" island. On the three Gilis, cars or motorcycles are prohibited; only horse carriages, pedestrians and bikers. Yesterday we had one relaxed day at the beach and moved to Gili Air today. We are now on for 2 days chillax, finally starting to read and enjoying the turquoise sea with white beaches which we only thought existed in movies. We found a cheap bungalow with a hammock (Karsten's only request) and outside bathroom. We are now enjoying to do nothing ;). Like today, when we spent all day in a cafe at the beach drinking fresh fruit juices, mango lassi and fresh coconut juice. Awesome!Read more

  • TravelerSouth-East Asia
    1
    Day 12

    Gili Air

    October 4, 2014 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Sea turtles. SEA TURTLES! We went on a snorkeling trip round the 3 Gilis yesterday and had turtles swimming next to us at arms length. Amazing. Also we saw a ton of tropical fish like parrot fish, clown fish, Moorish idol (Gill in Nemo), Angelfish, and many many more in a beautiful corral environment. Now go ahead and Google those yourself, cause we did not have a camera down there ;). The evening we spent for the first time together with a fellow traveler couple from... Germany of course. Now we are on our way back to Kuta to start the next trip from there tomorrow.Read more

  • TravelerSouth-East Asia
    1
    Day 13

    Flight to Labuan Bajo, Flores

    October 5, 2014 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Our flight from Denpasar to Flores was quite interesting. We had never been on a so small plane before. But it came equipped with an invocation card in bahasa and English for all major religions. Quite handy ;). The flight itself was actually very smooth, basically without any turbulences - the puking Indonesian guy notwithstanding. Just the landing got a bit rough. Maybe that is why the airline is on the EU's blacklist ;). But the plane flew pretty low so we had a great view on all the islands between Bali and Flores. Labuan Bajo as a town is not extraordinarily interesting from what we saw. Hotels, diving schools and travel agencies. But we found a nice "hostel" (actually a camp) where we met plenty of nice people so we did have a pretty good time here.Read more

  • TravelerSouth-East Asia
    3
    21
    Day 15

    Komodo

    October 7, 2014 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Lion fish, cuttlefish, and Komodo fucking Dragons is what we saw the last 2 days. We went on a 2 day one night boat trip to different snorkeling places and to Rinca and Komodo island which form Komodo national park and are home to the famous reptiles. Most of the visible dragons sit round the ranger stations where they probably get fed regularly. But we were lucky enough to see one out in the open at a local watering hole, actually moving and not attacking us in the same time. Pretty impressive, huge and scary animals.

    After that, we went snorkeling on pink beach, where red corals give the sand its redish colour. Final spot was Kanuwa island, an amazing snorkeling spot where we saw the aforementioned fishes.

    The night on the boat we spent drinking with a British couple we met the day before in our hostel and an Irish/Australian couple we met on the boat. Everybody else probably hated us cause we weren't exactly quiet playing "heads up" (hint: check your app stores) till AFTER midnight (!) - which is actually quite late when you sleep on deck and will be woken up by the sunrise at 5.30 am. But we left the boat in Komodo to head back to Labuan Bajo while they continued their cruise to Lombok. So all in all it was a great trip to Flores and well worth the money we spent. Now we'll get back on a plane heading back for a last night on Bali. Then: Java!    Read more

  • TravelerSouth-East Asia
    Day 17

    Cemoro Lawang, Java

    October 9, 2014 in Indonesia ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C

    We successfully left Bali behind and arrived on Java today (time difference is only 5 hours now). We hopped on a minibus, rode on the slowest ferry ever built between the two islands and roughly 11 hours and a couple of scares due to interesting maneuvers in traffic later we arrived here. Now we'll try to get a couple of hours of sleep, before climbing Mount Bromo. The picture shows the first glimpse of Java we got - in style with a couple of volcanoes.

    In unrelated news, we achieved a first milestone. We did not overpay for a taxi ride. We respectfully declined a gentleman's offer to drive us from the airport to our hotel for the outrageous amount of FIVE Euros. We then walked blindly along the road for a while to find a taxi with a meter and thus paid only half!    Read more

  • TravelerSouth-East Asia
    1
    9
    Day 18

    Bromo, Java

    October 10, 2014 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌙 20 °C

    We got up at 3.30 am this morning to climb the still partly active volcano Gunung Bromo. Equipped with our torches and all warm clothes we could wear - interesting feeling this "cold" as you Europeans call it - and started our way first through the vast, pitch black plateau toward the volcano where no path or anything resembling that marked our way. We had to get rid of a couple of motorcycle drivers who wanted to make us believe that there was no way at all we would make it to the top in time for sunrise. One would only leave after we made more than clear that he couldn't expect any money from us.

    But after finding our way across the plateau and pretty much running up the really steep, sandy (in fact the ground was covered in ashes) climb including 250 steps we made it and were rewarded with a magnificent view on the sunset, the plateau still veiled in mist, and the great surrounding landscape. Totally worth it!

    After, we hopped back on a minibus for 12 hours - with 4 passengers for 12 seats pretty bearable - and are now in Yogjakarta, the cultural centre of Java.    Read more

  • TravelerSouth-East Asia
    1
    Day 19

    Yogjakarta, Java

    October 11, 2014 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Yesterday it was very hot, so we seized the opportunity to go for a 7 hour walk through the city of yogjakarta. We saw a bird market (on which they actually sell animals of all kind: birds, lizards, snakes, cats, dogs, fish and other animals in small cages which are definitely not fitting European standards), the Kraton (the Sultan's palace) and the water palace, took a stroll along Malioboro street which is basically a big market and went to 2 batik galleries. One for scamming tourists and a real one. Price difference was remarkable. 100.000 or 900.000 rupiah for a piece of comparable size. What is nice in this otherwise pretty loud and dirty city, is that lot of walls are covered with paintings or graffiti. We later also took a so called becak. A bike with 2 seats in front. Quite the adventure in this traffic. And with the 2 of us not being the thinnest persons also not super comfortable ;).

    Now we'll change location into a guest house we will absolutely love. Viavia comes with a restaurant using organic food where possible, having a fair trade shop and offsetting carbon emissions for the trips they sell you. We will go for another walk this afternoon and will see yogja - as the locals call it - from a different side.    Read more

  • TravelerSouth-East Asia
    Day 20

    Yogjakarta, Java

    October 12, 2014 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌙 26 °C

    Now that was interesting. We went for a walk again today to discover a different side of yogjakarta. We went on the guided "Kali Code walk". The Code (pronounced tshode) is the river that runs through the city from north to south. On its shores live lot of people. It is the most densely populated area of this big city. The population in this quarter is generally from a lower social class. They make up for it with strong solidarity within their community. Every neighborhood forms a so called RT. Several of those form a RW. Within those units - mostly in the smaller ones - people organise their social lives themselves. That entails for example paying hospital bills for members of the community, free aerobic classes, the access to information through free newspapers, a neighbourhood watch and a community centre in which children can get help with the homework, children and older people get a free basic healthcare and food packages get prepared for those in need. All of this is possible through the daily collection of the smallest amounts of money. Every family can decide for themselves how much they want to give. This way, everyone in the community is taken care of.

    They also get some help from the outside with for example groups of students going into these communities and teaching about not to throw trash in the river which through fishing is an important part of their livelihood.

    Walking through this neighborhood felt like being in a small village. Everybody was super friendly, offered us some food, wanted to take pictures with us, etc.

    We also learnt a lot about religions. for example that every Indonesian has to declare his belonging to one of the 6 official religions. This information is also stated in your passport. But at the moment all 6 religions manage to coexist peacefully. Quiz of the day: what are the 6 religions?

    We capped of this great tour with some great street food. Fried Tofu balls with vegetables inside, rice with sambol and Quail eggs. Delicious!    Read more

  • TravelerSouth-East Asia
    4
    Day 21

    Yogjakarta, Java

    October 13, 2014 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌙 25 °C

    Cut it, smash it, roll it, steam it! is how Daft Punk would have described our day: cooking class!

    We set out to do a cooking class in every country we would visit and today we did our Indonesian one.

    In the morning our group of 4 and our teacher went to the market. Loud, full, chicken heads and livers, fish, tons of known and unknown vegetables. Just great! And if you have a local with you also very cheap ;).
    We started the cooking with having some cake. Excellent way to start working on something! Green cake to be precise. Looked strange, tasted normal. Then we started making the 2 recipes we chose plus a ton of side dishes. We chose Pepes Tahu Jamur, tofu and mushrooms in a paste of spices, chili, and eggs steamed in a banana leave, and Ayam Kemangi, a chicken curry with coconut milk. Among the side dishes was fried Tempe, water spinach and of course sambol. For dessert we got to try jackfruit. Everything was super delicious and we can't even think of eating anything else 7 hours later.

    In the evening Claire went for a silver workshop and made herself a ring! Just in time for our 1 month anniversary today! Woop Woop!    Read more

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