Brastigi

Waking up refreshed and clean, we spent the morning pouring over the next month’s itinerary – and realized that we’d made a huge mistake in both the group tour concept and in the specific itinerary of this trip. Most of the trip was going to be spent watching sunsets and admiring volcanoes (as well as trekking to them). So, we worked out a plan to blow out of the tour midway through the Bali/Java segment. We’ll see how that will work.

Since we had a month in Indonesia, we decided to learn a bit of the Indonesian language. The people were so receptive when you made an attempt to speak the language. So far, we’ve learned , “How are you?”, Thank you (the word for thank you translates to “tear up my car seat” said very rapidly), “Is there cold beer?”, “Is there cold wine?” and “Is there cheese?” (plus the numbers 1 through 5). We do mess up occasionally. Today in the market, this nice man said, “Hello” and John responded with “Adu keju” (translated to “Is there cheese?”)…. Unfortunately, the guy understood and probably thought we were crazy.
The people were so friendly- probably the most friendly, accessible people we’d ever met. It was interesting - even the wait staff or cleaning people would sit down and just start talking to you. There was a real sense of equality and interest