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Monday, July 28, 1997

Elsie in Taiping

To beat the heat, we decided to head to the Cameron Highlands, but to break up the long trip, we would stay one night in the small town of Taiping. After about an hour and a half, our bus made it to the main bus station outside of town. I wandered around, looking for both transport to the Cameron Highlands and a way to get to the town center. An older (ok, she was old) Chinese woman approached me and offered her help, and before I knew it, Beth and I were ushered into a public bus surrounded by staring, smiling locals. The woman and I started chatting, and suddenly she offered to put us up for the night! Although we were a little wary, after she showed us the errors of the Lonely Planet “places to stay” (one had been out of business for the last 2 ½ years, one was…. missing), we gladly accepted her kind offer. Then it started. She completely took us under her wing – buying us lunch, paying for the taxi to her house (thank god, as it was at the top of a very steep hill!), making us feel at home and ordering us to nap for a couple of hours before tea and sightseeing (tea and sightseeing??!). It was hard to believe – one minute we were riding a crowded local bus, the next minute we were sleeping in a large double bed, in an air conditioned room of a 71 year-old Chinese lady! You would think we would have been uncomfortable, but for some reason she put us totally at ease. At 5:00pm, she woke us up, served us tea, and we were off to the Lake Gardens of Taiping.

The gardens were beautiful – huge lakes surrounded by sculpted land formations topped with exotic flowers and palm trees. For a 71 year old, Elsie was putting us to shame. While we were tired and hot, she was strolling briskly while telling us about the local history. After the gardens, we were treated to dinner – this woman was unbelievable. We had noodles, crab and veggies and she proceeded to give us both cooking lessons and introduce us to fresh fruit juices like star fruit juice, watermelon juice and sugar cane juice. On our way home (before Elsie treated us again to the taxi), we stopped at the fruit and vegetable night market which was excellent. She allowed us to buy some crepes, and then insisted we eat them all!! We had the best sleep ever in the air conditioned bedroom, but when we woke up in the morning, Elsie informed us that she couldn’t get to sleep until 2:00am because of the heat. The room she slept in didn’t have A/C! We felt so bad, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. We were allowed to pick up breakfast the next morning – Indian roti chanai that came to a grand total of 6 ringgit! After we regrettably parted ways, we took a taxi (stubbornly paid for by you-know-who) to the local station, and we were on our way to the Cameron Highlands.

As I look back now, I can’t help compare our brief stay with Elsie to the experience of the main character in the true story (and movie) written by Jon Krakauer Into the Wild”. The main character in the book, a boy in his early twenties, had taken up a life of solitude and spent a couple of years on a soul searching journey that ultimately ending with him dying in the Alaskan wilderness. On his way to Alaska, he was taken in by an elderly man who lived alone. They ended up sharing a lot and spending a lot of time together. In the movie, when they parted ways, it was very sad – the boy did not appear to give too much thought to their relationship at the time, but he had a great effect on the man, perhaps filling a void is his life. What did Elsie think of our brief stay with her? Were we filling some void left in her life in some small way? I guess we were too young and self-centered to think of those things at the time, but it makes me feel sad now.

Sunday, July 27, 1997

Gorging in Penang

In retrospect, if we had known we had a decent place waiting for us in Penang, we would have taken a day bus because the drive is breathtaking - a modern highway carved out of the middle of the jungle and surrounded by exotic palms and 20-40 meter tall trees. We tended to pass time in the bus with our mouths open wide in awe.

We arrived in Georgetown, the main city on the small island of Penang situated just off the northwest coast of peninsular Malaysia, at the ungodly hour of 4:30am. Of course, we were greeted by several trishaw drivers (like our becak driver friends in Indonesia - we didn't believe a word they said). We had one take us to an all night Indian eatery at the corner of the main streets, Lebuh Chul La and Lebuh Penang, as we got the feeling he was working the commission game. This had happened a lot in Indonesia – it was always better to use a restaurant as your base. One person watched over the bags while another scouted out places to stay.

After having a 5:00am curry breakfast sitting next to three down and out transvestites, we felt right at home in Georgetown, and I set off looking for a place to stay. I checked out a few absolute holes (Paradise B&B, Plaza Hostel and GT Guesthouse) before I stumbled upon D'Budget Hostel. It was decent, had an awesome name and in hindsight after talking to people and reading travelogues, we found out that D'Budget was one of the most popular place to stay in Penang.

Although there were no attached bathrooms at this place, the rooms, toilets and showers were immaculately clean, and the owners were security conscious - enough so that they had a guard posted all night and a security gate. The best thing about it however, was the hot showers which we hadn't had since way back in Ubud, Bali.

There was a saying that went "you'll never go hungry in Penang" that we ended up hearing throughout Malaysia and this had been proven true even before we had gotten a place to stay. Breakfast was great at some of the small Chinese restaurants - whole wheat toast, yogurt, cereal, muesli and fruit… our favorite place was Eng Thai CafĂ© which had a fruit/muesli/yogurt, toast and coffee combo for RM 4.90. For Indian food, you could have great lunches or dinners for 4 or 5 Ringgit at places like Taj or Hemeediyah, or any little local place. We stuck mainly to Indian but if you wanted Chinese, there were hundreds of places between Lebuh Chulia and Lebuh Kimberly.

Our greatest "finds" were the Green Planet and Rainforest restaurants. They were both owned by the same Chinese family and had the exact same menus that offer a lot of local and Western food, but it was a bit pricey. The best part about those places was the 30 or 40 volumes of travelogues written by backpackers passing through Penang. They had books on practically every country (they even had a "Canada" one which was obviously filled with comments from Canadians). These travelogues were the best resource for current information and after reading through the volumes of useful, useless ("don't drink the water in India, I got sick"), comical and sarcastic comments, you really got a feel for great places to stay and things to watch out for. I had a feeling the Internet would eventually put companies like Lonely Planet out of business because they just weren’t current or accurate, in particular the non specific "Southeast Asia" or "Northeast Asia" guides were crap, but that was a story for another day.

The walk from the bottom of Chulia, up to Jalan Penang and towards the Komtar Shopping Center was the main shopping and money exchange area, and there were plenty of mini markets as well. We were also happy to find lots of places to exchange or buy used and new books - in particular Sam's on Chulia.

We thought Penang would give us some relief from the heat because of the breeze from the sea, but we were sadly mistaken. We thought it strange that most of the motorbike riders wore their jackets on backwards covering their arms, but after we rode around on one for the day, we discovered how quickly the hot sun could burn your arms and legs. You had to plan the day around the fact that from 11:00-3:00, you had to be out of the sun. We even watched a movie (Con-air – wow, perhaps we should have stayed out in the sun!) just to avoid the heat at midday. Hanging out in the air conditioned Komtar Center also provided a little relief.

On our second full day in Penang, we rented a motorbike from one of the money changers on Chulia for RM 20 plus gas which amounted to about 3 or 4 Ringgit to fill the tank. The drive around the island was great, particularly from Georgetown, around the northwest side to Teluk Kumbar in the south. Getting lost wasn't an issue as a friendly local would always point us in the right direction. Even at busy intersections, we were able to get directions from fellow riders while waiting for the red lights, as well as a little cultural exchange before the light turned. We headed off towards Batu Ferringhi, supposedly the nicest beach in Penang, and on the way encountered a couple of roundabouts, which turned out to be less scary than "European Vacation" portrayed, but still a little chaotic. To the west of the beach area, we drove to Teluk Bahang, a small fishing village with some nice views.

The road down the west coast was amazing - a winding, weaving roadway up and down the central mountains in the midst of durian and other fruit farms, and jungle like terrain. We did stop at a butterfly farm on the way - hey, you've got to stop somewhere - which was actually pretty good. After that, the road climbed even higher in the hills and after about 20 kilometers we arrived at a small crossroads town named Balik Pulau. By that time it was noon and we were ready to feast so we went in to the first Indian place we spotted. We were greeted by a large, almost toothless man who proceeded to show off his menu (including chicken hearts and throats!) which turned out to be amazing. The best part is always after the meal - he looked at our glasses and plates, glanced at his food, looked at the ceiling in quiet contemplation and delivered his verdict: 6 ringgit. Six ringgit for that meal!?! We were pleasantly shocked!

We continued our drive across the southern end of the island, which was nice, until we reached the airport, where the hellish part of the ride started. We made it all the way to the north by using major roads, which got a little hairy at times, but on the way we managed to see the Kek Lok Si Temple and the Botanical Gardens.

Without a doubt, the Kek Lok Si Temple and the walkway leading up to it is the most tacky, touristy thing I had ever seen - ranking just ahead of Tokyo Tower and Niagara Falls. The covered walkway, maybe 500 meters long, was crammed with little shops selling everything from fake Nike shirts to fake dog shit with fake flies. When we reached the top, the temple was so gaudy, I wondered how anyone could take it seriously.

The Botanical Gardens on the other hand, were very well done. Although it was hot, we managed to walk around for a couple of hours, and it was pretty relaxing after driving in rush hour traffic.

Friday, July 25, 1997

KL, Malaysia

If you use the words ‘beautiful’ and ‘inspirational’ to describe an Asian city - I'd probably say you were on crack, but the heart of KL comes as close as it gets to living up to those words of high praise. Kuala Lumpur was a drastic change from Jakarta, and seeing both in the same day certainly makes KL the winner in every respect. The first thing you notice is the people: Indians, Malay and Chinese. The diversity is almost shocking, coming from Japan, and then Indonesia. The mix of races in KL, and Malaysia for the matter was surprising and welcome.

After arriving at the airport, we immediately noticed the humidity, which apparently averages between eighty and ninety percent. It was nighttime and, being a big city, we were skeptical about finding a decent place. After talking with a couple in the travel agency in Jakarta who said that Chinatown in KL was a hole compared to Jalan Jakas in Jakarta (the biggest dump we'd ever seen!), we vetoed staying in Chinatown, the main backpackers haven. Instead we tried phoning (with the free phones provided inside the airport - a great service) some places in the northern part of the city. We made a reservation at Ben Soo's Homestay and got a prepaid cab for 29 ringett,

It's funny about the Ringett, which is broken down into 100 Sen. One dollar was equal to about RM 2.7. However when you go shopping, they always quote prices in dollars and cents (but meaning Ringett and Sen!) which had us doing double takes. And if you look at the one Ringett coin, it has a dollar sign on it!!! It's kind of strange and can cause some communication problems, so after negotiating a price, we always confirmed that it was "Ringett" - especially in Chinatown.

Our less than friendly cab driver eventually kicked us out in the vicinity of Ben Soo's. We kept looking for signs to his place, but had to ask around to find it - it's actually located in an apartment building just off Jalan Tuanru Abdul Rahman (TAR), north of central KL. When we showed up, Ben informed us that another couple had showed up and taken our room - so much for reservations. But Ben is a really nice, helpful guy, and offered to take us to any hotel we wanted. Then he started asking single travelers if they could share their rooms with us. We were pretty grateful as it seemed like a nice place (for a big city) and we sure didn't feel like moving after coming all that way - not at 11:00pm. We ended up staying in separate rooms that night - Beth with a girl named Joe from England, and me with an Aussie.

Ben Soo's Homestay truly was a homestay - we ate breakfast in their kitchen! It was run by Ben and his mother (who couldn’t speak a word of English but smiled and laughed a lot) and sometimes his cute 4-year-old nephew did chores. Ben has plastered tons of info on the walls of the rooms, toilets and common rooms. Everything from schedules, to my favourite "don't befriend any sweet talking humans by the liquor store outside this building". Having a friendly owner really makes your stay so much more enjoyable. We talked to some backpackers who hated KL, but invariably they stayed in some crack in the wall in Chinatown. Cleanliness and friendliness of the place can make or break your entire stay, anywhere.

Malaysian food was awesome, and by Malaysian, I'm talking about the three varieties - Indian, Chinese and Malay. Malay food is similar to Indonesian, but better. It seemed to have a greater variety, especially noodle dishes. The meat was also of much higher quality, and you could actually lose the feigned "I'm a vegetarian" act when eating in Malaysia. Experiencing eating at a small Indian restaurant is great. We ate at a couple of places in the central market where you go up and try to order, but they literally start slapping food down on your plate and give it to you - and it was always incredible.

Our first day, we decided to get oriented with the city, so we set off with Joe and a Swede named Patrik. Getting around in KL is pretty easy, as it's a fairly centrally concentrated city. Everywhere you looked there were new buildings springing up, but the expansion was balanced out by lots of trees and acres of parkland in the center of the city. There were tons of buses flying around, cheap taxis, the new LRT which was good to get from the north end to the Central Market, or you could easily get around by walking. We set out for the Malaysian TIC where we met a really helpful lady, Anna, who gave us loads of info on the national parks and getting around, and even suggested a route for us based on our time constraints and budget. Since we were staying with a friend in Singapore on August 25th, we decided to that after leaving KL, we would start in the northwest of the country, work our way down the coast, arrive at Singapore, then go up the east coast making our way up to Thailand.

Anna said that we "must go up the KL Tower" so we did and got a first hand look at the new emerging modern capital, slightly shrouded in what we thought was a layer of pollution but ended up being the beginnings of a terrible haze from huge forest fires that were burning in nearby Sumatra. After that, we caught a cab to the central market with the friendliest taxi driver we had ever had. He was an Indian guy and he was so enthusiastic about his city - he gave us so much information that it probably made our stay in KL that much better.

The Central Market was coincidentally in the center of the city (!), right next to Chinatown and surrounded by buses and taxis. It was a great jumping off point for most sights, and almost anything of interest is within easy walking distance. The market itself was an indoor warehouse of small gift shops. The second level also had some excellent hawker food and Indian restaurants.

We were pretty tired, so we started making our way back to Ben's. On the way we walked by Merdeka Square - a cricket ground surrounded by amazing Moorish designed buildings that were beautifully lit up at night. Medeka Square also boasted “one of the highest flagpoles in the world” – I love how no matter where you went in the world, every location boasted of some world record or another. “I can’t believe I found it… the highest flagpole in the world! My quest is complete”.

On our second day in KL, we took a public bus out of the city to the Batu Caves. After an interesting 45-minute bus ride surrounded by smiling locals, we got off and got a peak at the huge natural caves. It's also the location of a yearly festival where they put hooks in men's backs - you see pictures of it everywhere. At the foot of the stairs leading up to the caves were hundreds of pigeons - which seemed to amuse the visiting Chinese tourists - and quite a few monkeys. We even saw two newborn monkeys with their mothers. The climb up (272 steps - why do they always count the steps to these places? Mt. Bromo was 24 steps….) was made a little hairy by camera grabbing monkeys. When we got to the top and inside the caves, we really felt the overwhelming size. It was definitely worth it because A) it was cheap (70 sen) and B) it didn’t take long and gave you a breather from the city.

At night we went to Chinatown to eat. We came up to two identical street restaurants - one completely empty, one totally full. In front of each one was a young Chinese guy trying to woo customers to his respective restaurant. I wondered if ours (the popular one) was really better, or if it was just the first place to get some customers that night and the rest of us followed like sheep? We weren't expecting a traditional Chinese meal (where you order a bunch of dishes and share them all) so we ended up ordering a ton of food.

Beth couldn't resist anymore, so we went through all the crowded street stalls and found a cheap "Esprit" tank top. I sarcastically wondered if it was the real thing? You could get anything there. After reading reports about pirated CD's, videos and software, I finally saw what they were talking about: just released in the theater movies on video and DVD for $4 USD, Windows 95 for $8 USD, CD's for $5 USD and any brand of clothing you could imagine.

We had two more days in KL and it was about one too many. The first day we walked around the Central Market and from there to the train station - another magnificent Moorish building. We then walked down to the National Museum, which acts as the southern gateway to the acres of parkland in the western section of KL. There's plenty to do there, but we only had the energy for the Planetarium and the Bird Park. The Planetarium was great - that is, it had air conditioning. Let me make this abundantly clear: KL is hot and humid. KL is hot and humid. KL is hot and humid. That said, the Planetarium show was crap, but there was the A/C…. When I say, "I went to the Bird Park" I know what you're thinking. But we had a lot of time, and I would recommend it. It was a huge, net-covered park area with thousands of tropical birds with astonishing colours and sounds. The impact was even greater when we looked around at the jungle surroundings and realized that we were standing less than two kilometers from the center of the capital of Malaysia. We were so desperate for something cool, when we got out of the park that we tried durian popsicles. Durian was a strange looking local fruit that was described to us perfectly as “looks like shit, smells like shit and tastes like shit” – I can confirm that that description was apt, even by trying it in the form of a frozen, diluted version of the fruit. We had to catch a cab back, and since the driver held all the power (it was pretty deserted) he got us for RM 10 for the 20-minute ride back to Ben's.

Indian was the night's choice for food, and we played it by the book and went "Bangles" - a slightly upscale place with lots of variety, good food and unfortunately an annoying middle-aged matron who pressured us to buy more the entire evening. She was so pestering I would boycott the place on that fact alone! Little India, right near there, proved to be dead at night, but just beyond we were able to see all the lit-up trees in the center of the city - no doubt to the bane of local taxpayers.

Our bus up the coast to Penang left at midnight so we had to blow time. What better thing to do than see a movie - unfortunately we (I) chose the latest Batman installment "Batman Forever" which must have been named after the perceived length of the movie. We did find an Internet café on the 3rd floor of Kotaraya - a shopping complex right near Pudaraya Bus Station and convenient to Chinatown and the Central Market. After we claimed to be students (hey, we had no job at the time!) we were charged the absurdly low rate of RM 5 for 30 minutes or RM 8 for 60 minutes! We discovered that our new free web browser email account at mailcity.com was working like a charm. Luckily, it was cheap as we had a lot of stuff in our inbox.

Monday, July 21, 1997

Jakarta: Leaving Indonesia

The decision was a no-brainer – we wanted to arrive in Jakarta in the morning – the earlier the better. We’d heard nightmarish stories of the lodgings there, so we prepared to arrive early and perhaps pay a little more for some added comfort. Well…… we arrived early anyway. The overnight bus cost 17,500rp per person and it was a pretty nice bus, although we soon discovered it was invested with small cockroaches. We arrived at some horrid, nameless bus station way outside the Jakarta city centre at 4:30 in the morning and were shocked to see vendors up and running, hundreds of buses zooming through the station and even a traffic jam on the main street… at 4:30am!!! We were relieved when a local couple on our bus offered to help us get into the city and eventually we made it to a main corner near Jalan Jakkhs – the main backpacker’s area. As tired as I was, a huge smile appeared on my face when I noticed we had gotten off the bus opposite a huge McDonald’s!

Our search for a place to stay on Jalan Jakhs confirmed that we didn’t want to stay in Jakarta very long. After trying a few places (20?) we settled on “Nicks” which had glowing reviews in Lonely Planet for its cleanliness, even going so far as calling it the backpackers “Hilton”. All I could say is “bull-shit”. We were surprised to make it through the night in the glass enclosed steamy-hot cubicle without spotting a cockroach. To top it off, the staff were completely unfriendly and the 30,000rp room fee didn’t include breakfast.

Fortunately right across the street was Pt. Saksa Holiday Enterprise; a travel agency where a helpful guy name Bonardo helped us get a $100US flight to Kuala Lumpur the next day on Merpati Air.

The City center of Jakarta was nice enough, with its wide avenues, huge modern buildings and monuments and fountains strewn about the streets. But there was the ever-present garbage all over minor streets, and the people didn’t project the friendliness that we were accustomed to elsewhere in Indonesia – bright lights, big city-effect I guess.

After sending our emails and picking up some mail at the General Post Office, we were ready to close the book on Indonesia. We caught the 4,000rp airport bus from Gambir Train Station for the one hour journey to Terminal 2. The airport was great – just six years old and stocked with cheap fast food restaurants and every kind of store imaginable. Our time in Indonesia, the first country on our journey, went by quickly. Overall we had a great time and it was certainly cheap: not including scuba diving, the totals for the two of us were…..

6/29 – 7/21 (22 nights)

Average Daily Costs

Travel – 18,000rp ($7.50)

Accommodation – 18,600rp ($7.75)

Food – 32,000rp ($13.00)

Miscellaneous – 12,000rp ($5.00)

Saturday, July 19, 1997

Pangandaran

Since going the public route had saved us a lot of money, we chose to go to our next stop, Pangandaran, by train. Indonesia had three classes of trains: “Executiff”, “Bisness” and “Ekonomi”. Our train, bound for Bandung was Ekonomi, and at 7,000rp a piece, the name fit. Had the ride been much longer, I might have called it a nightmare, but at just over five hours, I would call it more of a bad dream. The worst part of the ordeal? The smoking – it was unbearable. Just about every male in Indonesia by my count smoked, and the heavier addicts seemed to be in our car. The seats were acutely upright, hard and extremely uncomfortable. The train stopped every 10 or 20 minutes at either a small station or to wait for express trains to pass. One of the most disturbing things was the hawkers that would be constantly walking up and down the aisles like zombies pushing their wares. Imagine one woman-zombie saying in a low, toneless, repetitive voice “rice…..rice…..rice…..” while another zombie says “cola…. cola… cola” and yet another chants “noodles….. noodles…. noodles….” To this day, Beth will occasionally break into a little “nasi goreng” chant for old times sake. It was painful to the point of humorous. When we got to Bandung, we happily hopped off and caught a public bus to the beach town of Pangandaran.

We stayed at three different places during our stay there. Our first night, Mini Tiga was alright at 15,000rp, but after we discovered a swarm of wasps in our bathroom we decided to move up the street to Villa Angela, a slightly upscale place that turned out to be our nicest bungalow stay in Indonesia. We could tell we got a good price at 25,000 because we bargained with the owner’s sister and when she told him of the price he was pretty pissed off. We were forced out after two nights due to a “prior booking” (Read: it was high season and he could get a much better price) but we were happy to move down the street to the owner’s sister’s place called the Vindy at 15,000rp. The Vindy was a set of four bamboo bungalows with “mandi”. Mandi is a traditional Indonesian toilet/shower that everyone shared. We toughed it out for one night!

Indonesian food was great, but very basic. Throughout our time in the country, we all but avoided most of the meat dishes except for the occasional satay. Satay is like Japanese yakitori; meat (usually chicken) on a stick with various sauces, although predominantly peanut sauce was used. My favourite for a couple of weeks was the staple Indonesian food “gado gado”, which is boiled vegetables, sometimes including green potatoes, topped with a great peanut sauce. Nasi goreng (stir fried rice with vegetables) and mie goreng (fried noodles) were good and safe items. A lot of tourist center places had good pizzas and other pseudo Western food, and there was always a Chinese section on the menu, of which I usually had “cap cay” (or “chap chai” – stir fried vegetables in a nice sauce, add in white rice). Drinks were pretty cheap and you could always choose from pop, coffee, tea, bottle mineral water and great pureed fruit juices. Walls” was a life saver when it got too hot to move. Like Dickee Dee’s back home or any similar popsicle and ice cream vendors at home, Walls was everywhere there, offering cheap popsicles (or “icey poles” as our Aussie friends laughingly informed us) and ice cream. Finally, back to meals, were soups and if you wanted to splurge a little, barbequed food. Pangandaran offered some of the best food we had in Indonesia.

By far, the best restaurant we ate at in Java was the Bunga Laut restaurant. At night, the friendly James Brown look-a-like owner would hop from table to table asking how things were and even toting a photo book of most of the meals, a key to winning over the European (mostly Dutch) non-backpacking customers there. One night, we had the BBQ’ed white fish and it was delicious. Another good place was the oddly named “Skandinavian Restaurant” which served great soups and had huge portions, as a lot of the area’s eateries did. We also discovered, too late, that the upscale Adam’s Homestay run by Germans sold freshly baked whole wheat bread, something Beth and I had been craving after living in Japan, the crustless white bread capital of the world.

Everyone in Pangandaran was trying to sell overpriced tour tickets to nearby attractions; The Green Canyon and the National Park. We found it was easier and much cheaper to do it ourselves. One day, we walked to the western gate of the National Park and waited around for a guide. We were approached about 10 minutes later and negotiated for a 3-hour tour for 10,000rp. We were a little skeptical at first, but he proved an excellent find as he led us through the park and told us of the local legends. He even hunted under some rocks with a little stick and pulled out a 15 centimeter long black scorpion.

The next day was the Green Canyon, which proved to be the highlight of our time in Pangandaran. We set off in the morning to the town bus depot where we caught a public bus to Cijulang, and then another short bus ride to the jetty point for the canyon. Unfortunately, it was Friday and everyone was at the local mosque, so we had to wait two hours until 12:30 when the ticket office opened. We hooked up with four Dutch people and rented a boat for 24,000rp, the standard fee. The boat ride to the canyon was magnificent – it was as if we had dropped into the middle of a jungle along the Amazon River. When we got to the rock canyon, the boats had to stop and we continued on foot. Luckily we were one of the first boats there as it was pretty narrow going. We’d been told that we could swim so we had brought our swimsuits. The water was amazing – totally clear and nice and cool and we swam around the small waterfalls for about an hour. When we got back to the jetty, we counted ourselves lucky – there were at least 200 people waiting on the docks for the chance to go up the river. In all, the day cost us about 12,000rp – the tour would have cost 60,000rp!

Tuesday, July 15, 1997

Yogya

The trip to Yogyakarta was a long day to say the least. What made it even longer was the tour agent in Probolingo. We caught a minibus down the volcano and into the nearby city of Probolingo. We were ushered to a bus terminal to supposedly catch a large, air-conditioned bus to Yogya. We (Beth, Kylie and Andrew (the Aussies we climbed Bromo with) and two Dutch guys) were pretty used to switching buses and ferries since we had come a long way from Lombok, but we didn't expect to encounter Mr. Unfriendly tour agent from "International Tours". Probolingo has a reputation for rip-off artist tour agents, and knowing this was to our advantage. When we arrived at 10:30am, we were told that our bus just left, but that, please be patient, the next bus leaves at 12:30pm!!! Our reaction was not good. But there was a catch, and I quote "or you can take a new, aircon bus that includes a meal and leaves at 12:35pm, up to you". We later learned that the oft used expression "up to you" was kind of the equivalent to "up yours" or "you'll pay buddy!". We could take the better bus if we each coughed up 2500rp. Now that's only a dollar US, and he knew that we would probably take the deal given that we all looked dead tired and a little stressed at the prospects of a two hour wait, but we didn't give in, and boy did he get pissed off. It was pretty funny to see this skinny, five foot nothing, 20 something year old kid rant and rave. As soon as he started his tirade I knew we'd called his bluff and he was bullshitting us. Our bus left at 12:30. We didn't see any other buses, but we did get a free meal….

Arriving in Yogya just extended our bad day, as we had to search for a place to stay at 10:00pm, but we did all right. After a good sleep, we set off in the morning and found our new home base called the Hotel Indraprasta.

A ride in a bemo, or a bus for that matter, can be quite the experience in Indonesia. They're used by both the public bus system and the private companies (like Parama in Bali). If you chartered your own bemo somewhere, you would usually feel like you paid too much, so it was always good to ask people who had already done it - then offer half that amount and bargain from there. Of course, any mode of transport you used in Asia, it was advised that you agree on a price before you go to avoid getting shafted or yelled at. Using the public bemos in Bali, we usually had to wait until they filled up before they got going - which can be pretty exasperating and pointless if you're going to a destination unpopular with locals - i.e. a tourist spot!! At home, a bemo could legally fit maybe 12 people, and that's stretching it. In a bemo to Prambanan, we had 22 inside and 2 hanging out the side door - though there were only 3 in the front - Beth, the driver and I. It pays to try hopping in the front of bemos and buses, because inevitably they do fill up in the Asian sense of the word and the front will prevent serious cramping! Buses weren’t much different - in Yogyakarta buses were a great way to get around and the cheapest thing going, but we had to be prepared to get in and out on the run, and to be squeezed in like the contents of your backpack.

We decided to do most things in Yogya by public transport, and we saved a bit of money. It took a little more time (although in some cases.. less!) and effort, as well as some courage, but we saved some money and got to see so much more of the people.

The first thing we did the first morning at Hotel Indraprastha, was to bargain with Jumat (one of the friendly guys running the place) to do our laundry. After 20 minutes of hilarious back and forth bargaining which featured Jumat and his little helper friend chasing each other around the courtyard because they crossed wires on how much each thing would cost and told us different amounts, they arrived at 7000rp. We did do laundry ourselves occasionally, but it was a hell of a lot easier to pay two or three dollars to have it washed, dried, ironed (everything!) and folded.

Our first day in Yogyakarta, we accomplished everything we had set out to do, as well as discover some bonuses: we found our first Indonesian McDonalds (OK, this was one of MY goals!), talked to the Traveller Information Center (TIC) (which was excellent) and got ourselves acquainted with the city as well. The bonuses were: email and learning of the batik scam before we got scammed ourselves. As well, we learned the city mantra we would never forget: from "transport, transport" in Ubud, the cry had evolved to "becak, becak" (BAY-CHAK) in Yogya. A becak is a 3-wheeled bicycle with a small carriage in the front with seating for one and a half tourists or a whole family of Indonesians. The driver is usually an older man with the most sinewy, muscular legs and a conical bamboo hat. They run a scam of their own - 1000rp for one hour seems like a good deal, but as in similar scams all over Asian cities, they proceed to take you to commission shop after commission shop, silver and batik shops in the case of Yogyakarta. We always agreed on a price (roughly 500rp/km) after we said "Hi, no silver, no batik, here's where we want to go, and here's how much we're paying". After they refused and you took a little walk, you usually heard a disgruntled "OK", and then you were off.

After Mickey Dee's, we went to the train station for some information. As we were coming down Marlioboro Street (the main shopping/market area) an older man struck up a conversation by first pointing out that my shirt and his watch were both Guess – well, I knew mine was genuine anyway. He then asked the customary “where you from?” and when we told him he said “I have a nephew at University in Q-Beck (Quebec?).” And the conversation went on… and on…. and on….. Beth and I were kind of shuffling away when he told us about the 2-day “batik art show” that ends today at 4:00pm and is moving to Jakarta. Well, that ended our interest – any sort of time related pressure to buy always felt like a scam. Perhaps we were skeptics, but when we arrived at the TIC we noticed notices in every conceivable language (except Japanese for some reason…!) warning about the “batik art show” and to watch out for people posing as teachers or professional artists.

Our next stop was to the post office, and when I asked about email, I was surprised when the clerk pointed next door. I imagined a supped up VIC-20 with its innards exposed, but was pleasantly shocked to find 4 Windows 95 terminals and knowledgeable staff. It was great! The National postal system operated these internet/email centers in 28 cities across Indonesia and allowed us to received email for free. They charged 3,000rp for a half hour and 5,000rp for an hour which included email and high speed net access so I could check how I was doing in the sumo pool back in Japan. The staff even pointed me to “mailcity.com”, a free, traveling email account accessed through a web browser (a predecessor to Hotmail, Gmail etc). If it worked, it would make corresponding with friends and family a whole lot easier. When we returned to the bungalow, our Australian friends said “hey, guess what, we met a professor who has a friend in Australia and he took us to a batik show that ended today at 4:00pm”. They didn’t buy anything, but were pretty damn close to blowing a couple of week’s worth of room and board. From then on, whenever someone came up to us saying “you looking for batik?” I replied “yeah, I’m looking for a show that ends today at 4:00pm and by the way, do you have and friends or relatives in Canada?”. They always flashed me a knowing smile and walked away. Gotcha!

On Sunday, July 13th, we decided to check out the major sites in the heart of the City. This began with the Kraton or Sultan’s Palace. We were paired with a short, stout, elderly Indonesian lady who spoke what can only be described as a far removed dialect of English and she guided us about the grounds. It was disappointing to the point of laughter – we walked along walls lined with Sultan memorabilia such as his scout’s uniform, camera, leftovers from the kitchen etc.

Not far from the palace, was the bird market, an interesting little area with thousands of birdcages lining narrow alleyways. On our way out, we noticed the “bird feed” section was filled with huge red ants, cockroaches and larvae… it reminded us that is was time for lunch. The food stalls in Yogya around the palace were amazing, although with the amount of oil from the deep fried food, we probably could have powered a car. There were spring rolls, pancakes, potatoes and lots of different kinds of rice crackers and rice cakes.

After lunch we discovered a home country direct phone right next to the central post office. Home country direct allowed us to use calling cards by connecting us directly with Canadian operators instead of calling collect or messing around with phone cards.

We’d been looking around at tours to the 2 main attractions in the area; Borobudor, a Buddhist temple, and Prambanan, a Hindu temple, both outside the city. Thankfully, our friend at the TIC pointed out how easy it was for us to do it ourselves. The next day we set out early for the main public bus terminal. Our timing seemed amazing, as soon as we got there we were ushered into a bus and we were off – 42km to Borobudur. We arrived without incident an hour and a half later. Although I had seen many pictures of the temple, and it was highly touted in every guest book we’d read, I was truly overwhelmed when I first laid eyes on it. Compared to our guide at the Kraton the day before, our guide that day was amazing. He spit out so many facts and figures, but the two things I remembered were 1)It took an estimated 100 years to build in the 8th or 9th century, and 2) it took over 2,000,000 heavy (I lifted one) volcanic rocks carried 35 kilometers from nearby Mt. Merapi. The three levels of the temple signified the three levels of the Buddhist world – hell, earth and nirvana. Each level had its own unique story and images, but I was most amazed at the lower level which consisted of carvings of people that if you walked around the outside, showed flip-it book style figures performing a dance.

In the afternoon, we decided to visit Prambanan, a huge Hindu temple just northeast of the city. Again, we went by public bus and it was no problem. As the guide was telling us about the temples built for Shiva and Vishnu, I couldn’t help wondering about the spread of Hinduism from India all the way to Indonesia over 1000 years ago. As it was, we felt like India, our final destination in December, was light years away, and we had the luxury of planes, trains and buses. How had this religion spread so far, so long ago? And how had this amazing structure coexisted for so long that close to a “competing” religious structure in Borobodur. Quite the example of religions getting along with each other!

Thursday, July 10, 1997

Detour at Bromo

The next two days represented the downside of backpacking – getting from place to place can be much easier said than done. Often we looked at a map and said “that’s not that far!”, and two days later, we were still crammed on a bus, crawling our way to our destination. The trip to our next destination consisted of a myriad of nightmare bus rides, long waits, junk food and even a bad ferry ride. In the middle somewhere, we managed to see the sunrise from the peak of Mt. Bromo, one of three volcanoes sprouting from the caldera of a larger volcano.

The buses had been running fairly smoothly since we started using Parama, and it was pretty straightforward from Tulamben to Gimanuk, the jumping off point from Bali to Java. The ferry wasn't too bad… until we were almost docked and they turned on Indonesian music loud to the point of throwing up, and we began to circle in the harbour for the next thirty minutes. Oh well, we thought, we're here… let's go get our bus. But after waiting an hour, at 5:00pm our "guide" announced that the bus "be broken". We were forced to wait if out. Three middle-aged German women were huffing and puffing and demanding better treatment - which is fine in a "package-tour-world" - but not of too much use when dealing with small-time Indonesian businesses. The rest of us just sat patiently, for the most part, and waited.

When 7:00pm rolled around, so did our bus. We figured out what might have gone wrong as soon as Beth chatted up an American couple we later dubbed the "bad luck couple". They had had everything bad happen to them that you could imagine - money stolen, attacked by a rat in there bed, witnessed an accident etc. By the end of their sad story there was even talk of them visiting a clairvoyant in Kuta Beach to find a missing manuscript the guy had been writing. The theme of his book? Why Americans are perceived badly when they travel abroad. On that note, when we told him we were going to Vietnam he replied "Oh, I could never go there". Why, you ask? "Because of what happened during the war" he said with obvious surprise. Maybe it's just as well he lost that manuscript.

During our ride, the German women came collecting! They said that they were on the phone for over two hours, calling travel agencies to complain on our behalf (ummm… we asked you to do this?!) and they needed 2000rp each to cover the cost of the calls. I bit my tongue and paid them, and regret it to this day.

It came as no surprise when our bus broke down in the middle of the highway in the middle of a deserted forest area. We were on a narrow one-lane-each-way highway (the standard in Indonesia) with trucks screaming by at over a hundred kilometers and hour. We knew right away we had to lose the "bad luck couple", and we did just that the next morning when we arrived at Mt. Bromo at 1:00am. They talked about climbing to the summit the next day, so we decided to go that morning.

Bromo was a breeze compared to when Beth and I climbed Mt. Fuji, and predictably, less crowded. The sulfur spewing out of the crater as we waited on the rim for the sun to rise was hard on the eyes and lungs, but the sunrise was worth the wait. As we headed back after getting our share of pictures that would never come close to how a postcard captures the view, we were amazed at seeing in full sunlight the long way we'd come early that morning.

We were exhausted by the time we got back to our base camp, a lodge 3 km from the rim where we'd left our bags, but we were off to Yogyakarta (“Jog-Jakarta”) at 9:00am. We had just a couple of hours to relax and eat.

Wednesday, July 9, 1997

Wreck Diving in Tulamben

Missing the ocean, we decided to head out of Ubud to the northeast coast of Bali, to a place called Tulamben which reportedly had an amazing ship wreck just off the coast. The wreck, the USAT Liberty, a WWII supply ship that was destroyed near Lombok and towed to Bali, sits just 25 meters offshore, which made diving it very easy. Although Beth had decided she didn't want to see anything bigger than her in the ocean, there was absolutely nothing to do in Tulamben, so she opted to go.

The dives($50USD for two dives) were fantastic! We were greeted right away by a 1.5 meter napoleon fish and we saw lots of large, colourful butterfly fish and even some stingrays skulking in the sandy bottom. The actual wreck was incredible - completely covered with colourful fans, coral and giant clams, and there were lots of nooks and crannies and swimthroughs.

The most amazing part was that the dive shop was located about 400 meters down the rocky beach from the dive site, so our equipment had to be transported. Now, I had seen women in Ubud carry fruit and other market goods on their heads, but when I saw this little woman as scrawny as my 80 year old grandmother put on a BC and tank, 3 weight belts, a tank on her head and a tank on her shoulder, and proceed to walk quickly over the painfully rocky shore, I knew I had seen it all.

After the dives Beth was quite alarmed to learn that the native guides only had their open water licenses, but they did seem to make up for it with experience - 700 dives in a few years for one guy.

We stayed in the beautiful bungalows attached to our dive shop (Blue Coral Divers) for 20,000 Rupiah. As we were waiting for the bus the next morning, we were lucky enough to see dolphins playing 100 meters offshore. The drive up and around the northeastern coast in Bali is a must - the scenery is unbelievable - from dense tropical jungle, to lush farmlands, to land scorched and bombed by volcanic lava years earlier.

Tuesday, July 8, 1997

Ubud

We bought a shuttle bus ticket to Ubud when we arrived back in Bali for 20,000 at Nomad (a competitor of Parama - prices and times were the same with every company. The ticket included all methods of transport from A to B and was much less hassle than doing it yourself. We left at 8:00am and eventually arrived at 6:00pm after a fairly long day of travelling. Unfortunately we broke rule #3.

After checking out a few bungalows, we found a spacious affair called Puri Ulum Carik, halfway down Monkey Forest Road, which we were pretty happy with. It was like a bungalow in the middle of a jungle and it absolutely dwarfed the size of our apartment in Japan, but that's not saying too much.

Ubud was fantastic. Our trusty (Hmmm… really? More on that later) Lonely Planet guidebook boasted that it was the 'cultural capital' of Bali, and that was pretty much confirmed the minute we began exploring the laid back city. The streets were lined with artisan's galleries and shops selling everything from batik and woodcarvings, to paintings and sarongs. We stayed in Ubud just three nights, but you could easily amuse yourself for a week with all the day trips available. Lots of people were hiring (wow… I was beginning to speak like a Brit) bicycles, jeeps and motorcycles to enjoy the amazing scenery in and around Ubud.

Beth and I debated going on one of the 'day tours' (we're not 'tour people' as a rule, but we had read that they were 'good value') and after checking around we decided on the Kintamani - Volcano tour. It cost 15,000 each and was to run from 9:00 to 3:00.

As expected, there were highlights and lowlights to the tour. We started out at a temple called Goa Gajah or Elephant Cave, which was… all right. Then we went to another forgettable place. It required a donation (as opposed to an entry fee of roughly 1,000rp required everywhere else) of any amount and after entering the gate and seeing, well not much, you immediately regret donating a single rupiah. Of course, after writing in your donation of 1,000 in the 'donation book', the guard writes in an extra zero which fools some people into donating more "how much should we give? Oh, look, they gave 10,000 so….".

Next, it was off to Gunang Kawi, which was excellent! It had a great walk through a rice-terraced valley, and some impressive stone sculptures that were carved out of both sides of the valley with a picturesque river flowing between.

Near Gunang Kawi was the Holy Spring of Tirta Empul that was fairly good. After the temples, it was off to the heights of Bali where we stopped at a lookout point for impressive Lake Batur. The lake sits at the foot of Mt. Batur, the island's largest volcano that had a minor eruption in 1994. The lunch stop was a bit of a joke, or a scam. We were ushered into a restaurant by our guide Wyan, and after hearing the price for the buffet lunch and seeing the number of elderly German tourists in line, we decided to find something on our own.

On our way back, we stopped at a place along the road called Pujung which had a magnificent view of a narrow valley covered with lush rice terraces. I couldn't get enough of seeing the beauty and relatively primitive farming that provided the lifeblood of Asia. I guess I appreciate it more when rice had been my primary staple for three years running!

We found Ubud full of email service shops and were at once relieved and thrilled at the ray of hope that this was a sign of things to come throughout our trip. The place we used was called Pt. Kartika Chandra Telecommunications, located across from the supermarket on the main road. It cost 5000rp to send one message - so we sent one group message to our friends and family. You could also receive messages for 1000rp per page (the operator printed them out) but we didn't want to risk losing any message if we left too early.

Just down the road from the supermarket was the hands down best restaurant in Ubud, called Casa Luna. Unfortunately we only heard about it on our last night, but it was cheap, upscale in appearance, had great desserts (Beth is a bit of a chocoholic… and by “bit” I mean the same “bit” as when John Candy was describing his weight problem in Stripes) and seemed to be the only place that actually drew a crowd. As soon as we got to our table, we looked back, and a line of around twenty people had formed at the front door.

Two other sights in Ubud were the market and Monkey Forest. The market was a typically bustling place filled with fruit, vegetable, and spice vendors, clothing shops, jewelry places (silver was the precious metal of choice) and many other trinket vendors. What we were most intrigued by was the making and selling of the "offerings to the Gods" that you see everywhere around the Island (and Indonesia for that matter). Put out three times a day in front of every shop and temple (and taxi!), these little bamboo boxes are filled with small flowers, incense and other things.

Monkey Forest was a little disappointing - not for the lack of monkeys, but for the preponderance of annoying tourists trying to agitate the animals by taunting them with food. I was pretty happy when one large monkey bit an Italian guy who had been teasing the animal.

One night, we went to a Legong dance performance at the palace, which featured traditional Balinese dancing. There were 5 or 6 dances separated by short musical interludes performed by an orchestra of about 20 people lining the dance floor on both sides. The dancing was beautiful, although a little long (one and a half hours), but when I got bored, I watched the band leader. He made subtle movements with his hands and head to control the tempo and volume of the music that was as mesmerizing as a snake charmer.

Saturday, July 5, 1997

Gili Trawangan


The "Gili" islands (gili means "island" but anyway…) are three small islands located just off the Northeast coast of Lombok. Gili Trawangan is the largest of the three, but to say the word large would be totally out of place - you could walk around the island in an hour and a half. It was known as the "party island" although it was a pretty mellow place when you wanted it to be. The other two islands are even smaller and quieter - Gili Air and Gili Meno.

We got there in the morning (according to rule #3 - always try to arrive in the morning) via private bemo to Bangsa then a public ferry (1 1/2-hour wait) which took about an hour to reach the island. As soon as we stepped foot on the beach, we felt like our journey had finally begun. After all, this was supposed to be our 'relaxation destination' after our time in Japan. We quickly found a great place called Eky Losmen which, situated about 300 meters from the beach, turned out to be a great deal - clean, nice staff and a great breakfast served at your doorstop veranda. Beth did the bargaining and got the price down to 20,000 and we were quite happy spending all five nights there.


We got to know our neighbours a bit - two British “gals” in their early twenties. They had just graduated from University; where they majored in… get this… “Leisure Studies”. I know, I know, it’s a legitimate major (cough.. cough), teaching people how to work in the travel and tourism industry, but these two were the epitome of leisure-seeking beach bums. We would bump into them later on in our trip.



After dumping our stuff, we went to a dive shop/restaurant (every place there had a restaurant attached!). We chatted up a Swedish girl (Jenny) that was reading at a table next to us and it turned out she was the instructor at Dive Indonesia/Blue Coral Divers and had a course starting at noon. Beth had been thinking of getting her license, as she was sick of waiting on the beach while our friends and I dove, and because we were headed to Koh Samui in Thailand to meet friends for diving.

Despite being a little nervous, she went for it. Over the next four days, she battled her fears (ok, it didn’t hurt that she was enrolled with three Swedish…. Beth’s words…”hunks”) got her license ($270 USD) while I did 4 dives ($30/2 dives). We were both in awe of the visibility and beauty of the water. There were lots of turtles, black tip reef sharks and some luck people even saw dolphins. Depending on the season, they also get whale sharks and manta rays. Diving sites surrounded the islands, so you didn’t have take full day trips - you dove and came back via speed boat.

We were amazed at the four Swedes – it seemed like they could all speak at least half a dozen languages fluently. Beth and I had spent the last three years diligently (ok, semi-diligently) studying Japanese, and we were only up to a good conversational level. Where did these Swedes get the time to get so fluent? Not to self: investigate Swedish education system….

Almost all of the restaurants had videos showing in the afternoon and night, and being a movie buff and coming from the land of $20 movies, I was in seventh heaven. My first night watching a movie on a restaurant TV, I’ll never forget this, was Liar Liar. I’m watching it with a half dozen other people, and there are some funny parts, and we’re laughing away, but something struck me as unusual – I couldn’t put my finger on it. All of a sudden, on-screen, a black shadow of a man stands up and walks off screen! I was no longer a pirated-movie virgin. There’s nothing like watching a movie with a built in laugh track and a few hundred on-screen guest performances. We watched a wack of these pirated movies that wouldn't have arrived in Japan until sometime next century. There were plenty of used bookshops for buying or trading, and the usual assortment of sarong and other clothing shops.

The food was great - one night we had a BBQ organized by the dive shop featuring fresh mackerel, rice, noodles, and sweet and sour vegetable for 7,000 rupiah. We found lunch usually cost about 9,000 and dinner about 15,000 for the two of us.

The things that I remember clearly about Gili Trawangan other than the beauty and serenity of the island was…. Wait for it… the cats! They're everywhere! Whereas on Bali, where things were overrun with dogs, Trawangan had literally thousands of cats (half of them without tails due to inbreeding). Scandinavians! They too were everywhere - Norwegians, Swedes as well as their neighbours the Dutch. We were in total awe as everyone communicated in almost perfect English and we felt almost ashamed to be from semi-unilingual North America. Lastly, I have strong memories of the greeting/sales pitch 'hello, hello, where are you going' from the horse and buggy drivers (there were no motorized vehicles on the island but you could hire bicycles) and the Parama shuttle operators.

After five nights, our beach paradise vacation was over. On the morning of July 5th, we worked our way back from Lombok to Bali.