South of the Equator

Java, Indonesia

I headed south for a 5 day weekend thanks to labor day and coronation day here in Thailand. My Indonesian experience started off very well. At the border in the Jogjakarta airport, I made friends with some people from my flight and agreed to share a car downtown, conveniently hitching a free ride. As I had not yet accessed an ATM and did not have any money when we arrived at their hotel, I shrugged and offered to find an ATM, but they did not want to wait. I’m saving this scam for future use.

I took a bicycle rickshaw to a cheap area of town and walked around looking at various places. Bahasa Indonesia is a fairly easy language to pick up. They write using the same alphabet that we do and most words are pronounced in a logical way. Sosrowijayan is an area of town with lots of budget guesthouses and hotels. The neighborhood is really cool, full of 3 to 8 foot wide little alleys that no cars can drive down. I walked around looking at various homestays, most of which I found a bit overpriced. A small boy asked me to come with him to his house, so I obliged (knowing full well that he would get a commission)- I stayed in a great no name house for $8.

A big "gang" (alley) in Sosrowijayan

I walked around the bustling market street (full of Indonesians going shopping)- unfortunately I only had our nice camera so I’m a bit light on pictures. One thing that was cool was the motorcycle valet- one side of the street had thousands of motorbikes lined up in 3 to 4 rows with motorcycle valets attending to them. Jogjakarta is a really cool city and I recommend it to anyone considering Indonesia (most people head past the cultural to the resorts of Bali- a sort of Cancun equivalent for Australians).

Moto Valet (there are two to three more rows to the right)

I spent two days on a round trip to Mount Bromo, being driven at crazy speeds across the island of Java. There are many volcanoes dotting the landscape, but Mount Bromo is particularly famous and I wanted to see it firsthand. I signed up for a cheap tour and only later realized this would involve consecutive days of 10+ hours in a minibus. Waking up at 330 AM, we headed to a viewpoint, shrouded in clouds to see the sunrise, which we were unable to see, though I snapped a few other pictures. I should mention that being at 2500 meters was a refreshing experience- it was only 40 degrees or so at dawn by the volcano.

Mt Bromo in the clouds

At Bromo

Though I was travelling alone, I was rarely lonely. I made friends with many travelers- there weren’t too many foreigners around so it was easy to strike up a conversation. Indonesian people also speak English pretty well, and are constantly trying to practice. In fact, on our 10 hour minibus odyssey, I was approached at a pit stop by a girl who just started chatting me up. He older brother/father then came and asked if she could ride in the car with us for an hour, speak English and then get dropped off. I found this to be a bit ridiculous and refused. Luckily the other people in the car were German or French, so they were not asked.

Borobudur in the Morning (See the Volcano?)

After returning late and grabbing food with friends, I set my alarm for 4:30 and got up for another early morning tour to the temples at Borobudur. This Buddhist temple is the laragest in the world. It was pretty amazing. Here I was again confroned by scores of young Indonesians trying to practice their English. I was also able to meet up with a friend who is working in Jogjakarta at a sexual health clinic. I went out with her coworkers and had a blast before waking up at 5 AM to catch a plane.