Hello Misss/ Hello Transport

Hey everybody,

We took a 3 hour plane ride and ended up in a country where transport is an adventure, food is very cheap and men shout hello Misss (sometimes even hello mister, if your gonna shout at me, then at least use the right word!) and hello transport at you all day.

We arrived in Bali late at night and met up with my sister Sarah at a hotel in Kuta. My sister came over from Barcelona to travel with us through Indonesia. The next morning we left for Ubud. We saw our first Balinese temple and went to a traditional Balinese dance show. We didn't really understand the story and the monkey chanting was a bit odd, but the costumes and dancing were really beautiful.

The next day we made a trip around the region. We saw the Elephant Cave, some more temples, lots of rice terraces and a volcano with a lake and mountains around it. Got loads of pictures of the rice terraces, as each one is more beautiful than the one before. At night we saw another dance show, less monkey chanting this time and more dancing. Sarah even got pulled up the stage and got some dance practice!

We left for a small town called Tirta Ganga the next morning, making some stops at temples along the way. Tirta Ganga is a very small town with rice terraces all around and a water palace. We did a guided tour through the surrounding countryside and saw lots of fruit trees and rice terraces (as you can imagine we ate rice every day in Indonesia, with all those rice terraces :p)

We took the local bus to a seaside town on the north coast, Permuteran. As everywhere else in Bali is was rather quiet here, after the Kuta bombings of 2002 and 2004 tourists aren't coming to Bali anymore. But there is absolutely no reason for not coming as the island is safe and very beautiful and the people are friendly. So if you don't know where to go on holiday this summer, consider going to Bali!

After spending a week on Bali we took a ferry to Java. We got a ride from a Indonsian tour guide who guided Dutch groups. So we had a comfortable first bit of our trip to Bromo. Which was a very good things as the second bit was far from comfortable.

We got into a minibus to take us up the mountain and every time we thought, well now the bus is reallly full, they stuffed more people in. In the end the bus was filled with 26 people, one was even hanging outside!! Halfway up the mountain we stopped, waited, and then were told that the bus had gone 'bankrupt' and we had to transfer to another bus. We found this rather strange but got into the other bus and started driving again. Suddenly the driver got out (he was home) and a kid who couldn't have been older than 14 got behind the wheel! In the end we made it up to the town of Cemoro Lawang and went to bed early as we had to get up at 3:30 the next morning for our trip to the Bromo volcano.

We started walking to the volcano at four in the morning, getting lost along the way (don't trust Indonesians directions as they'll send you the wrong way and tell you they can be you're guide when you've gotten lost) We ran into some other Dutch people and found our way in time for sunrise. It was Sarah's birthday, so she had a very unusual but special birthday this year. We walked around the crater and got some beautiful views of the mountains and the smoky crater. Very scary though as you only had about 50 cm to walk on and the side of the mountain on the left and the crater on the right to fall down in!

We went to Solo the next day, the first somewhat big city we went to in Java, and this is where the Hello Misss, Hello transport really started. We went to the palace and to the local market.

We made a daytrip to Borobodur and Prambanan, the two most famous temples on Java. They were amazing and a lot bigger than I thought. A group of school children were visiting the Borobodur and found us more interesting than the ancient temple...so we are now in a lot of pictures!

We made our trip from Solo to Yogjakarta by train (it cost only 7500 roepie, about 70 eurocents!) We bought lots of batik paintings at an artshop (not really sure if we've been scammed, but they're really nice, so who cares) We went to the palace and the water castle and saw a Wajang show (shadow puppet show) very funny when they attacked each other with all the matching noises for the Gamalang music.

Time for another small mountain town after the big city so we had another transport adventure. We first had an eight hour train ride, then a two hour bus ride and when we arrived late at night, there weren't any mini busses to take us up the hill...So we had to get on the back of a scooter. With a big backpack leaning to one side on my back, a bag in my hand, one hand holding the bike and one foot on the exhaust pipe this wasn't a very good first scooter experience! Speeding up the mountain it was like a very scary roller coaster, but then real.

The next day we went to the local botanical gardens, bit disappointing as we didn't see any flowers. Went to the waterfalls afterwards and lazed around for the rest of the day.

Then it was time for our final destination, Jakarta. We had a look at the harbour, nice boats but they didn't look very safe. We walked around the neighbourhood where they still had some Dutch colonial houses, looked a bit odd in the Indonesian surrounding, but also felt a little bit like home. Had a walk round Chinatown and then it was time to take a taxi and go to a hotel near the airport for our early flight the next morning.

Our flight left in the morning and Sarah's in the afternoon, so she said goodbye to us at the airport and spent her last day in Bogor. I'll miss her, but we'll see each other in 3 months when we go to Barcelona.

After flying to Bangkok making a stop over in Hongkong we arrived in Bangkok. We haven't done any tourist thing yet as we've been sorting out our visa for Cambodia and I went to the hospital to get my ear checked. Apparently I've now got a different infection. I've got some eardrops and have to come back on Sunday.

On Monday we leave for Cambodia. We'll explore Bangkok's grand palace and temples and do some serious shopping first as most of my clothes are falling apart.
Hope we'll cross the border without any problems and start exploring Cambodia soon.

Ciao Ciao,
Laura