Gliding through the Gilis

Leaving Bali was just as chaotic as the rest of our trip there. Yes we were picked up on time but we got stuck in Bali’s ridiculous traffic and then hung around the port for about 90 minutes with no instructions until we were shepherded towards a series of boats. There were no instructions though, again we just had to wait and eventually we skuttled onto a boat in accordance to the colour sticker we’d all been issued.

The trouble with Indonesia, and Asia as a whole, is that everything takes longer than you’re told it will. I don’t mind that the speedboat takes 3 hours, but tell me it’s going to take 3 hours rather than saying it will take 2! A girl we sat next to on the boat had obviously been told the same thing as she kept getting phone calls from her driver demanding to know where she was!

We were heading to the Gili isles, a set of three main islands, made up of Gili Trawangan(known as the party island), Gili Meno (good for honeymooners) and Gili Air which fell somewhere in the middle. As I was in charge of the Indonesia leg I ummed and ahhed about where we should go and eventually settled for Gili Air, and it was worth it! It’s roughly 5 square kilometres in size and we walked a loop of the island in 90 minutes. It was a little bit of paradise after Bali. There isn’t a lot to do on the island aside from sunbathe and snorkel or dive. We’re not divers so we settled for snorkelling. I spent my whole childhood and early adulthood basically being terrified of water and whilst I’m still not the most confident swimmer this trip has slowly built up my confidence and my skills so I am very proud of the achievements that I made in actually being able to go and snorkel and swim quite far out of my depth away from the shoreline.

There are no motorised vehicles on Gili Air so walking, pushbike or horse and cart (not recommended due to potential ill treatment of the animals) are your only forms of transport. Thankfully it is a tiny island so you don’t need to worry about transportation. Interestingly there are also no dogs on any of the islands to prevent the population getting out of control. There are lots and lots of sweet cats though!

The coral was beautiful! Indonesia is part of the coral triangle and there were so many beautiful fishes of all sizes! It was stunning to see and we had a great time splashing about. Unfortunately the amount of coral means that inevitably dead coral washes up on the beaches which makes getting in and out the sea a challenge! You either have to wear water shoes or choose your path very carefully! I opted for shoes whilst Joey did the ‘try and avoid stepping on stuff’ thing before getting in and swimming as soon as he could!

We had a blissful few days in Gili Air, either hanging around our pool or snorkelling. The size of the island meant that we could watch sunrise from the beach next to us and then in the evening we could walk over to the other side and watch the sunset!

I hope you can gauge the size of the island from these shots

We were headed to Lombok from Gili Air and we booked a boat / bus transfer through our hotel. That was an experience! The boat was fine, it was a very old public boat and the journey itself was only 15 minutes, we were met off the boat and then walked to an office where we were kept waiting for 90 minutes for our bus. In that time the owner was shouting and swearing at various customers which certainly made for an interesting experience! The bus driver asked the name of our hotel and then proceeded to drive right past it!

Lombok was very different to Bali, we were back in Muslim territory so back to the early wake up calls! We stayed at Sengiggi which has definitely seen better days, however let’s not forget that this area was devastated by an earthquake in 2018 and then Covid hit. It had a nice beach with a calm sea and beautiful sunsets though. From one sunset point we were able to clearly see Mount Agung on Bali and it was gorgeous! Finally that dream sunset we were after!

Sunset with Mount Agung in the background

Unfortunately for me I was unable to really enjoy Lombok as much as we would have liked as Bali belly finally caught up with me so there was much resting time!

Indonesia itself was a really varied experience and we were able to experience so many beautiful unique things, such as finally seeing dolphins and climbing an active volcano. It’s a huge country and hard to pick a few things to do in the time the visa allows but I’m content with the choices we made and it gave us lots to talk about!

November 4, 2023 0

Java Jaunt

We arrived safely into Yogyakarta (also referred to as Jogja) on the island of Java. I’d read that 50% of people who make it to Indonesia only ever go to Bali so I was determined that we would not be amongst those! We resisted the urge to get a Grab from the airport and hopped on a shuttle bus instead which allowed me to practice my best Indonesian for ‘here please’ when we neared our stop. Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country and we’d read some reviews of our guesthouse which highlighted that it was located pretty close to a few mosques and every morning and at plenty of other times of the day we were woken to the Adhan at 4.30am. It was so loud we couldn’t help but laugh!

We had two main things that we wanted to see in the region – the Prambanan Hindu temple and the Borobudur Buddhist temple. Borobudur is the world’s largest Buddhist temple so we decided to do that one second, so we headed to Prambanan first, it was the weekend so we expected it to be busy but it wasn’t actually too bad. When we arrived we were stopped by a couple of young lads (we later found out that they were only 16) who explained that they were studying tourism and needed to practice their English and tour guide skills so could show us around the site and explain some things to us. They were so good and I think we were both stunned when they said they were 16 years, they were so mature.

They took us inside the temples and explained some of the stories to us which were really interesting and definitely helped us get more out of the experience. There are three main temples, each one dedicated to one of the following: Brahma, Vishnu or Shiva. The temples were constructed of volcanic rock which gave them a really black appearance, we’ve obviously seen a lot of temples but this made this one particularly unique.

We headed back to the city where crossing the road was an experience. We’ve crossed roads in difficult countries (Hello Vietnam) but this was something else. There are no real pedestrian crossings so you had to run across at a suitable opportunity and hope that you didn’t get hit by a scooter, there were times when we really thought we wouldn’t make it and we actually joked about calling a Grab just to get across the road. At least in Vietnam you could trust the scooters to go around you but we didn’t get the vibe that they would here!

The next day we headed off to Borobudur in a Grab of course! Borobudur is a 90 minute drive from Yogyakarta and our driver offered to wait for us and drive us back which we accepted with great pleasure! As mentioned above Borobudur is the world’s largest Buddhist temple, until only a few months ago you used to be able to climb up it freely and it could get quite crowded but nowadays you need to book a ticket in advance as numbers are limited to 1200 a day. We only discovered this the day before when we were at Prambanan and were advised to try and get some online from 4pm. I did this and didn’t have any luck, I thought we would only be able to walk around the outside as I could see tickets available for later days but not the next day. Just after 6pm I went to look something up on my phone and still had the ticket page open and I was amazed to see tickets available! I didn’t hesitate to book some. We arrived about 50 minutes before our slot thinking it would give us time to walk around the perimeter and take some photos and the people at the check in said we could enter the grounds. So off we headed. We had a great walk round and took some great photos, it was fast approaching the time we needed to be back for our tour and we headed to what we thought was the exit but were told we couldn’t go that way so we spent about 10 minutes trying to find a way out, which was obviously in the complete opposite direction of where we needed to be! We were pretty stressed and ended up walking very quickly to where we needed to be! We did make it and collected our free ‘slippers’ that we needed to wear to climb the temple which were bamboo flip flops that we got to keep. So my top tip if you do go is to not go into the grounds before your tour!

The tour was actually really interesting and there were about 10 groups of 15 people so it wasn’t crowded as everyone went different ways. The carvings on the temple were incredible and the guide told stories the whole way round. There are about 9 levels and it was nice to climb each one knowing you were going to get an impressive view from the top. The final level that you can access is covered in Stupas all containing a Buddha, a handful of these have been damaged so the Buddha is now uncovered. It was a great day out and a highlight from Indonesia.

Borobudur also gave the ultimate masterclass in ‘exit via the gift shop’ as you leave via a row of stalls selling souvenirs. Only this row becomes a maze of stalls and it goes on and on and on and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it went on for about 300 metres. It was so vast I started to think I was stuck in a nightmare of souvenir stalls from which I couldn’t escape from.

The next day we had booked a tour to Mount Bromo, an active volcano in the east of Java. The tour was one of the oddest tours we have ever done. Normally with tours you’re picked up and taken care of from start to finish but this one was quite different. We were picked up from our guesthouse and driven to the train station where we were given our train ticket and left to our own devices! We had to find the train and seats ourselves. The train was fine, pretty slow but it was very clean and I was even happy to use the toilet which was cleaned regularly and kept stocked of toilet roll! About two thirds of the way there the train switched direction and everyone flipped their seat around so we were all facing forwards. 8 hours later we arrived into Probolinggo where we were met by someone who eventually put us on a bus and also then left us! We were driven to a tour office where we were called up individually and told what time we would be picked up in the morning, and about our ongoing transport. We were then driven to our guesthouse and it was all a bit Fawlty Towers, there were lots of staff but when we arrived there was only one other couple. Joey commented that it was like the start of a horror movie. We went to bed around 8.30pm as we were getting up at 2am for a 2.30am pick up. It was a lot cooler in this area as we had gained altitude (something I could tell by ears continually popping on the drive there) so this meant in the morning I could wear my leggings and jacket again- the leggings I’d not worn since Armenia and the jacket I hadn’t worn since our balloon flight in Cappadocia.

We waited in reception at the allocated time and there were a few more guests then but it was about 3.15am before our jeep finally arrived! I was starting to think the sun would rise by the time we got collected! We drove further up the valley to reach a sunrise point and the road was lined with jeep after jeep after jeep. We climbed further up a steep hill in the pitch black grateful that we’d had the foresight to pack our headtorches. We found a good spot to watch the sunrise over the valley and light up Mount Bormo. It was very ethereal and seeing the smoke rise from the volcano during golden hour looked just like a painting – it was beautiful!

After sunrise we headed to the sea of sand to climb the crater itself. It was a tough climb with more steepness followed by 254 steps! It was worth it though to say that we’ve stood on the crater of an active volcano. You could hear the volcano bubbling away and the smoke billowing from it looked just like a cloud! We walked a little way around the crater but chose not to venture where there were no safety railings! You could smell the sulphur and it made quite a few people cough including me.

It was then time to head back to the jeep and whilst we were waiting for the other couple we emptied our shoes which were full of volcanic sand! Our feet were filthy when we later took our socks off.

We headed back to Fawlty Towers for our breakfast only they didn’t seem to know what was going on. We waited ages and were eventually bought some sweet tea and I asked (again in my best Indonesian) to order a coffee and they told me coffee wasn’t included! I needed to head upstairs to the coffee shop for that so that I did. We were eventually bought some Nasi Goreng (fried rice, the Indonesian staple food) and prawn crackers, and honestly it was pretty identical to the dinner I’d had the night before!

We gathered our belongings and headed to reception again for pick up. We had arranged a transfer to Bali and were told we would be collected at 10.30am for a 12 o’clock bus. A minibus turned up at about 10.45am and everyone except us was confirmed as travelling on this bus, they asked us our room number about 3 times and it was only on the third time of asking when I typed the room number into the calculator on my phone and showed it to the driver that he confirmed that we were on that minibus! It was like some sort of test!

We were dropped at the tour office from the day before and he said our bus would be about 12.30, then at 12.30 we were told it would be about another 30 minutes. We were waiting with another two couples so at least we were all together and joking about the situation. When we booked the ticket we were told it would take 8 hours, then the night before we were told it would take 10 hours. We messaged our guesthouse and told them our ETA and didn’t hear anything back.

The bus arrived around 1pm and was actually pretty comfy, the seats reclined quite far and there was a toilet – something we’d not seen since the early Europe days! We were given lunch, fried chicken and rice and then settled down for a nap given we’d been up since 2am. The driver was invincible and just kept on driving without ever stopping until we reached the ferry. We were given more rice and chicken for dinner meaning we ate rice three times that day! We got stuck in heavy traffic which obviously delayed us so I think it was about 7pm before we boarded the ferry, the ferry took about an hour and we welcomed the opportunity for some fresh air on deck and a walk around.

Bali is an hour ahead of Java so we drove off the ferry around 9pm local time. We still had another 3 and a half hours before we reached Denpasar and the bus seemed to stop every 500 metres to let someone off. We were following on Google maps and tried to get off when we were nearish to our hotel only the driver wouldn’t let us! We’ve no idea why as he was letting other people off and only kept saying that we needed to go to their office. We checked the map and the office was miles away and we’d still need to get a taxi from there. By this time it was 1.30am and we really just wanted our bed, so the next time it stopped I decided to lie and say we were close to our hotel so could they please just give us our bags and we’d be on our way. It took a bit of to and fro-ing but we got there! We were at the front of a Circle K convenience store and obviously I called a Grab, it didn’t move on the app and then we were approached by two motorcycle taxi drivers and just ended up negotiating with them. I’ll be honest with you here and say that this was not an ideal situation to be in, we didn’t really want to be separated at 2am on motorbikes we’d not ordered through an app so we had no comeback from them, driving through the back streets of Denpasar with our backpacks on but that’s where we found ourselves! We did make it to our guesthouse safely and felt terrible as we ended up waking the security guard who then had to wake the host but she greeted us with a smile. So we’d been awake for almost 24 hours at this point and we were glad to crawl into bed. As is usual with Asia everything always takes longer than you think or expect! The main thing was that we’d made it and we were going to spending some relaxation time on the paradise island of Bali!

Java was a good cultural stop and I’m glad we made the time to visit and we were so fortunate with our timing as the day after we visited Bormo the park was closed due to wildfires.

September 28, 2023 2

A brief introduction to Borneo

Our next travel day was taking us from Singapore to Kuching on the island of Borneo, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. We arrived at Singapore airport with loads of time before our flight as we wanted to have a good look around. I’d been to the airport once before in 2009 and enjoyed the butterfly garden then and was keen for Joey to experience it as well.

We went straight to the Malaysia airlines desk to drop our bags and there wasn’t much of a queue but they were so slow. One desk was manned by someone who was giving out stroppy teenager vibes. There was a problem with her desk and she got out to go and speak to her manager and she did it in a manner that really resembled Kevin the Teenager from Harry Enfield.

We eventually made it to the front and were immediately asked for proof of onward travel which we didn’t have. As usual we only had a vague idea of where we going and when but had nothing solid booked. We explained that we were planning on catching a bus to the Indonesian side of the island and then intended to fly to Java but they wanted proof, so we had to quickly panic buy a bus ticket. We only had WiFi and Joey quickly found a site to book a ticket, only it was such a cumbersome site that it was only when we received the email we realised that we’d booked a ticket from Indonesia to Malaysia. Not what we needed! Now I stood over him whilst he was booking it so I know he put the right information in but somehow a glitch switched it! We tried again and eventually we got a ticket proving our exit. We managed to check in eventually and headed off to see the Jewel. We weren’t lucky enough to see the waterfall in action but it was certainly an impressive structure. We also made it to the sunflower garden but we didn’t want to venture to another terminal as we had less time than expected so we didn’t make it to the butterfly garden.

We arrived into Kuching on a Sunday afternoon and we had booked another apartment with kitchen, washing machine and a balcony overlooking the river and a beautiful pool. It was just what we needed as I was feeling the travel burn in Singapore, my feet were blistered from too much walking and I was exhausted. We had planned to do some cool stuff but we opted to choose things that we really interested in doing and spend some time resting.

The next day we got up to go to the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. The centre was established in 1975 to care for orangutans which had previously been kept illegally as pets or had been orphaned and injured. Since then a number have been rehabilitated and released into the forest reserve and some have even had babies, the orangutans are classed as semi-wild and they spend the majority of the time in the forest but some do appear back at the forest twice daily for supplementary feeds. It was fruit season whilst we were there so the chances of seeing some was reduced, however we got lucky and were able to see two guys, an uncle and nephew and they were absolutely fantastic creatures to watch. We made our way to the feeding area and on our way the uncle was also making his way there swinging above our heads in the tree and I swear that was a sight that I will never forget. We spent 40 minutes watching these two guys interact with each other and feed the fruit that was left for them. They had coconuts which were whole and the uncle picked one up, took it and then bashed it to open it before giving it to his nephew. His nephew was pretty lazy – he kept pestering his uncle to get him more food! They were also given bananas and cartons of milk! Watching those guys get the cartons, open them and then pour them into their mouths (but mostly miss) was incredible. I had tears in my eye as it was so joyful to see these creatures. We also got to witness the little guy do his business! It was such a magical experience and chatting to the staff there you could really tell how much they loved the animals and the care they took of them. They talked with particular fondness of the oldest orangutans and how she’d been ill recently and you could tell they loved her so much. It was a shame that they felt that they had to justify the fact that we ‘only’ saw two – we felt lucky as it was fruit season and actually it was better because if they’d been loads we wouldn’t have known where to look.

We had a rest day the next day and then the following day we headed off to Bako national park, to get here you can catch a bus but we opted for a Grab to get us there. Grab is the Asian version of Uber and we have been using it for EVERYTHING in Borneo and subsequently Indonesia! Once you’re at the park entrance you then need to take a boat to the start of the trails. Another couple approached us to share a boat which helped to reduce the costs. There are various trails you can do and we picked one which would give us the best chance of seeing Proboscis monkeys. Spoiler alert: we saw no wildlife on the trail whatsoever! The trail was pretty nice, we were deep in the jungle complete with all the sounds of the insects. It was a hard climb up a hill to a viewpoint and then back down and my knees and thighs were dead! We hitched another trail onto this one which took us to a beach but I wasn’t keen on hanging around too long given all of the ‘beware of crocodiles’ signs. We walked back to the start of the trail and bumped into a ranger who showed us what we think was a flying lemur up a tree and he then led us to a viper in a tree! It was incredible to see it and you’d probably have missed it if you’d walked past and I was not keen on getting too close!

We took the boat back and then got a taxi back. We had a day exploring Kuching itself, Kucing in Malay/Indonesia means cat and they really milk it in the city – there are cat statues everywhere! There’s also a cat museum apparently and I’m gutted that I missed it.

We enjoyed our time in Kuching, the city was nice and there was lots to do on the doorstep, I would love to come back another time and explore more of Malaysian Borneo.

Our time on the island of Borneo wasn’t over though, we had a bus to Indonesia to catch! Our friends Wun and David had told us that the town of Pontianak had an equator monument and we were keen to visit. We have visited the Equator in South America so we wanted to do it in Asia too. Our bus ride was pretty good, it was on time and the seats were comfy, we’d got an E-visa online so the border crossing was pretty straightforward. We arrived into Pontianak in the middle of an almighty thunderstorm, it was torrential rain but everyone was still riding their scooters in flip flops just with ponchos on!

We got a taxi to our hotel and enjoyed a cocktail on the rooftop to toast our first night in Indonesia.

The rain gave way to a very pleasant sunset

The next morning we had a packed agenda, we got a Grab to the equator monument and had fun recreating some of our pictures from when we visited the one in Quito. We’re determined to visit the equator in Africa next! We wanted to head back but didn’t yet have a local SIM card to call a Grab so we asked the very helpful staff to help us only there were no Grabs to be had! We went to the office and he called a friend and then printed out a certificate for us to say that we’d visited the equator!

We made it back to the hotel, packed up our stuff and then called another Grab to take us to St Joseph’s cathedral. The cathedral was very modern and we enjoyed our visit. We met a very enthusiastic lady there who showed us around and then proceeded to give us a thousand warnings about walking back and to be careful of muggers on scooters who would slash our bags etc etc etc. she said it so many times that she put the absolute fear of god into us and we were really stressed as we headed off! We headed to a phone shop so we could get SIM cards and the process took so long. In Indonesia you have to register the SIM card and it took about 40 minutes. It was after 11.30am before we finished and we had a flight to catch at 1.50pm! I called a Grab but the app placed our location in a weird spot and we spent about 10 minutes trying to find our driver. Once we found him we asked him if he’d wait at our hotel and then take us to the airport which he was happy to do! We ran up to get our bags and quickly check out and we did make our flight but my goodness my stress levels were high!

As I say earlier Borneo was really enjoyable and we got to see some good wildlife and I am definitely adding it to my return list for a time when we don’t have a backpacker budget!

September 24, 2023 2