More Adventures in Indonesia

After that crazy time in Jakarta, we took a train to Jogja (the cultural center of Java).  We got one of them air conditioned trains, which meant that it was 85 degrees in there instead of 90.  And on the ticket it said we'd get in at 4:30pm, which apparently means sometime around 8 or 9.  But apparently that is how travel here in Indonesia works.

Anyway we took a day to chill out there, went to a shadow puppet show and also saw some Gamelan music in the Kraton (royal family's palace).  The puppet show was cool, and there is one guy who moves the puppets, tells the story, makes some other banging noises and also directs the gamelan music band.  It was all in bahasa indonesia (Indonesian) so I had no idea what was going on, but it was cool nonetheless.

Then the next day the plan was to take some public transport to Borobudur (a huge Buddhist temple).  We set out at 2pm and the plan was to get to the nearby town and spend the night, assuming that was enough time to get there.  We go find where we are supposed to wait for the bus, and some guy tells us it is where we are standing, even though there is no obvious bus stop there.  So we sit and wait, ... and wait ... and wait some more, until it was about 3:15 and we realized that the bus we needed to change onto stops running at 4.  The bus never came.  Many busses here just wait in one spot until they are full, and then they go on their route.  I guess bus 5 never got full....

Later we decided that maybe we should do some organized transport, and booked a day trip to Borobudur and also a 2 day thing to get us to Mt. Bromo, and then on to Bali.  First off, Borobudur is pretty cool.  I have been meaning to look up some more info about it, but just havent gotten there yet.  I just know that it is a big ol' Buddhist temple and you are supposed to walk around each level 3 times before going up.  I'll let the pictures do the talking about how much work had gone into this thing.  To see more picts go to my picasa site: picasaweb.google.com/dave.dayan

Carvings like those above were everywhere!

After wondering around the temple, we thought it would be nice to walk to a nearby hill to get a different view of it.  Turned out to be really nice and there were all these trails and walks around, but they were not advertized at all.  Funny how when something is awesome, but not in lonely planet, no one goes there.  Obviously Borobudur is in there and there were tons of tourists, but once we went for a little walk the only person we saw was a guy climbing a tree to get some coconuts.

  The next morning we head off to Mt. Bromo.  One breakdown and 3 hours late, we make it to the hotel to get about 5 hours of sleep.  We are woken up at 3:30 shoved into a jeep and taken to a nearby mountain to get some wonderful views of Bromo and the sunrise.  Apparently sunrise tours here are hugely popular.  It was kinda weird for me to get way up on a mountain (2700m or about 9000ft) and have just been driven there.  It was too easy.  But it was sweet.

Bromo is the one smoking in the middle

Unfortunately it is so easy that probably about 400 other people were there that morning too!  I of course had to climb down off the viewing platform and then into a tree to get away from them all.  We were then shuttled down to the base of Bromo to go walk up it.  It was quite easy, and then there was a staircase up the steep part!  It just did not seem right to actually have to wait in line to walk up stairs to get to the top of the volcano.  At least no one was adventurous enough to do the 45 min walk around the crater rim, and I at least got to do a bit of walking in peace.

Overall it turned out to be cheaper and easier to do the tour thing to see Bromo and get to Bali, but at the same time it was way less fulfilling.  It was the first time we were with lots of white people since we got to Indonesia, and it was also quite chaotic.  We never really knew what was going on, or where we were headed or where we were staying, yet somehow it all worked out.  We made it to where we were going; although there was one other girl supposedly coming to Denpasar (Bali) who we met and I never saw her after leaving Bromo....

So anyway, now here we are in Ubud which is kinda in the middle of Bali.  There is lots of art and dance and my favorite - trails with monkeys.  We will probably spend at least a few more days here and also figure out where we are going from here.  Our visa is only good for 30 days, so I suppose sometime soon we'll need to buy another plane ticket somewhere.  Till next time...