Home to Boston

On the way for our excruciatingly long flight back home. Singapore to Seoul (an enforced exit from the plane for an hour of duty free shopping) to Vancouver (more airport wait time and a double customs – Canadian and U.S.) to Chicago (time for a Big Mac we dragged in about 1:30 am.
What better way to combat jet lag but a 6:00 a.m. breakfast at the local Townie haunt. It was John and Debbie and a few locals (including our postman) dining on fried eggs, greasy home fries and toast. Welcome back to the USA!

Bali to Singapore

Back in Singapore…with time to visit Raffles, the British Raj Hotel (and a $60 bar bill and a taste of a Singapore Sling) and a visit to our favorite restaurant for fish head curry. It was Sunday night and the Indian section was filled with migrant Indians and Pakistanis milling in the streets, enjoying their day off. They do all the jobs that the Singaporeans won’t do. It was hard for the taxi to even get through the streets. Our window table gave us the chance to take in the view.

Bali – Nusa Dua, Banoa Harbor, Jimbaran Beach

Our last full day in Bali, so we headed to the “tourist” areas. Nusa Dua and Benoa Harbor was the first stop. Nusa Dua was nauseating- a gated, enclosed tourist community of Hyatt’s, Sheraton’s and Club Med’s that protect the tourists from the locals.

It was a short trip through Nusa Dua and we headed off to Ulu Watu, another water temple. We were warned about the monkeys. but were caught totally unaware when a large (very large) monkey jumped on my head and grabbed my earring. It happened so quickly- and we watched the monkey chew on the earring and head into the temple area not accessible to tourists. The locals “volunteered” to retrieve the earring and headed into the temple area. A few minutes later, they came back with the earring in hand - and a request for a donation. “Most tourist’s give $10 or $20”…. We’d been down this road before and, since the locals probably trained the monkeys to grab tourist’s earrings, cameras and glasses, John wisely gave them 2000 rupees (about 25 cents)…. and made his point.

We wandered through Jimbaran Beach and found a group of warungs on the beach…. grilling fresh snapper over coconut husks. It was the best meal we’d had in Indonesia. Wonderfully fresh snapper grilled with chili sauce, served with additional sambal for that added spice.

Finally, we had to drive through Kuta, the original surfer town. Jammed with traffic and aging surfers, it was a place to avoid. Back to Ubud and our final night…. Can’t believe we’d be heading to Singapore tomorrow.

Bali – Tanah Lot

Off to the western coast of Bali and to Tanah Lot, one of the most photographed temples on the island of Bali. It was perched on a rocky inlet and you could walk over to the island at low tide. We fortunately made it before the major tour buses.

Then, it was a last chance for shopping in Ubud. After 3 successive, consecutive missions, the shopping portion of the trip was done.
Dinner at the Luna Café—pepper steak and wine.

Bali – Pura Besakih, Tenganan

Breakfast on the terrace and we were off again.

An Indonesian "Road Dog"
A drive to Pura Besakih, the Mother Temple. Again, it was an active temple filled with locals. We got our UIG (uninvited guide) who informed us that a guidewas required to enter the temple. While our “shit detector” was going off, he did have some interesting information that got us hooked. We learned about the different temples- the Mother Temple is a complex of 23 related temples- for Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu. We also got to play dorky tourist doing “prayers”, offering flowers, getting holy water sprinkled on our heads and rice on our foreheads… for a small donation -“Most tourists give $20”. At the end of our tour, we got conned. The “whatever you want to give” for our tour became a push for 50,000 rupees. In disgust, we gave the guide the money- and a piece of our mind.

After our touting experience, we headed to Candi Dasa and had lunch at an empty luxury hotel for a surf side lunch. Then off to Tenganan, a Bali Aga village. No tourists, but hundreds of local men crowded into a large building for cock fighting.

The yelling and betting was frentic as the owners strutted their fighting cocks around the ring. The cocks were fitted with a long blade on their leg. Fortunately, the crowd was too dense to actually see the fighting….don’t think I could have stomached it.

Back in the village, we got a local guy to show us his village. I

It was a center of original Balinese walled village- rows of houses stepped up a hill. The central area was dedicated to public meeting areas and most of the town appeared to be dedicated to Ikat weaving (warp and weft is dyed and woven together), basket weaving and raising fighting cocks.
The driving in Bali was stressful…. lots of narrow roads, trucks and motorcycles and crazy drivers.
The end of the day, we stopped at Beggars Bush, a British pub, for a cold beer and views of the river. The “star concept” of traveling is a great way to see Bali. We got a chance to go crazy during the day, but didn’t have to deal with luggage and new towns/hotels every night. It was nice to head back to the “palace” and to our A/C room.

Bali – Lake Batur

Breakfast was served on our terrace…what a way to start the day!
Our first official touring day and we headed to the northernmost loop around the island. Our first stop- Gunung Kawi. Since most of our visits would be to temples, we finally caved and bought a sarong for John…a lovely navy and white batik print that will make a great tablecloth when we get home.

The hike down (about 300 steps) wasn’t too bad since it was still early and the heat of the day hadn’t hit yet. Gunung Kawi is Bali’s oldest monument- 10 rock cut candi. Each is believed to be a memorial to the members of the 11th Century Balinese royalty.

Then after the painful climb back up (the humidity was definitely starting to kick in), we headed to Tirta Empul and Candi, the holy springs of Bali. We amused ourselves watching a group of idiot American tourists dressed in traditional Balinese outfits immersing themselves in the holy spring. The holy springs are believed to have magical powers. The temples were fascinating- still very active. Tirta Empul was crowded with local people in traditional dress bringing offerings to the temple to be blessed. Every where in Bali, you can find temples and shrines and offerings to the gods.

We drove all the way to Lake Batur- and the rim of the crater. The views were amazing. Then it was a drive to the northern coast.

We made a few stops at several of the more bizarre candi’s in the area- Candi Meduwe in Kubutambahan (one of the reliefs shows a Caucasian on a bicycle) and to Candi Gagaraga, the “Temple of Death” (with reliefs showing airplane dogfights and Europeans with guns in cars).

Then it was off to Lovina Beach for a quick lunch on the beach. The beach was pretty disgusting- lots of vendors, black sand and no tide.
We headed back across country over Mt Catur on our way back to Ubud.
Dinner was not stellar…. mystery curry and campur…. More Balinese legong dancing back at the hotel.

Photo courtesy of Flickr

Ubud

Bali’s famous beach town, Sanur was an interesting place- like a tacky Florida beach town. Definitely not our style…so it was off in the Kliang (a Toyota “truck”) to Ubud.

We navigated in 4-km increments since there are no signs in Bali and lots of touts willing to help you with directions (while they point you in the direction of their cousins’ shop). Once in Ubud, we explored the town by car before checking out the hotels. We looked at hotels ranging from $215 to $35.

We finally came upon the Puri Ubud. It’s the home of the Ubud royal family, still in residence. There were no signs and it was sheer opulence. The central courtyard opened into beautiful courtyards filled with vegetation, birds, fish ponds and rooms with individual terraces filled with antiques. All that, plus A/C, for $60 a night.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around Ubud. It was a charming town- lots of shops, restaurants, and really charming people. It was hard to believe that we were still in Indonesia. There were a lot more white faces and a lot more Western influence…it was obvious that they had become accustomed to hordes of Western tourists. Fortunately, the numbers are down significantly. We had a great dinner, complete with cold white wine. When we headed back to our hotel, we found that they have Balinese dancing every night in the main courtyard. It was an amazingly beautiful setting and we took in our 20 minutes of dance before calling it a night.

Our Room!

Outside our room, John communed with the frogs- who seemed to understand his “bratz” and responded in kind.

Malang – Tretes – Sanur, Bali

5:30 am came very early after last night. We had to lock horns with our driver. We were under the impression that we had a car and driver for the day to take us wherever we wanted…. he seemed to have a set agenda that didn’t include all of our sites.

So, we compromised and visited the Candis, a group of Singosari temples, mostly funerary temples dedicated to the kings of the Singosari dynasty (1222 to 1292 AD): Candi Kidal, Candi Jago, Candi Singosari Candi Jawi.

We managed to see them all before lunch- where we relaxed at a tiny hill town, Tretes at the Natour Bath Tretes Hotel. It was just John and Debbie and the Islamic conference. The views were spectacular- Gunung Penanggungan (volcano).

After a long lunch, we headed for our last site- Candi Behalon. According to Lonely Planet, it was a few kilometers off the main road on a dirt road. We drove for what seemed like forever on ever disintegrating roads. As our time evaporated, so did our patience and we turned around 200 (very rough) metres from the site and did a mad dash to the airport for our flight to Denpasar.
The flight got us in about 10:00pm…and we negotiated a car and found our way to Sanur and our hotel. Bali…

Malang

It was finally the end of the “group experience”. Our last (short) bus trip and we were in Malang. Within 30 minutes, we found a hotel room (90,000 rupees for their top of the line suite…about $10 at the Splendid Inn), a car for tomorrow, and we were onto the “Kuda Lumping”.

Every Sunday, they have “horse trance dances” where young men dance with plaited cane horses until they go into a trance and –supposedly- do things like eating glass. Except for the “medicine man” who seems to be a part of the trance process, it was really just a hokey dance for the local Indonesian families.

A wander through the maze of the bird market…there was every variety of bird, mostly prized for their song, but they also had owls and parrots, etc. Watching the bird food vendors pick the crickets out of a cage with their bare hands was quite interesting. Then, it was on to McDonalds. This time we were on a quest to determine if all chicken in Indonesia is “road chicken” or if the western restaurants actually serve chicken with meat on the bones. Success at McD’s- the chicken was excellent- in fact, better than the Big Mac.

After lunch, we stopped at Tako Oen, an old colonial restaurant serving mostly bakery stuff and ice cream.

As we were watching the street scene, the streets filled with trucks packed with young Indonesian men waving banners and flags and blaring loud speakers, hoards of motorcyclists carrying flags and a parade like we’d never seen before. First came the PDI, the red flags with the bull head representing Mega Wati (Sukarno’s daughter). They were followed by the PPT and the PAN parties, each wearing their colors (green and blue respectively). The entire afternoon was filled with these parading youths driving through the streets of the city singing, yelling and chanting for their political parties. We unfortunately missed “the” picture of the day—a guy riding down the street on his motorcycle with his feet first, his head resting on the license plate.

The Political Rally

We escaped the insanity by popping into the local Chinese temple (Eng An Klong), a “Tri-Dharma” (covering Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism).

Back on the streets, we watched more parading. In a show of solidarity with MegaWati, John bought a Pro Mega Wati red headband and proudly flashed it for the parading MegaWati trucks and bikes. The crowd went wild. We “grazed” through Malang- another Chicken taste test at KFC (not even close to McDonald’s) and a taste of the local specialty, “Martabak Agong”—egg surprise, a thin crepe filled with egg and onion and green pepper fried.

On the way back to our hotel area, we stopped at the sound of the “clocker”, the local food cart clocking sound. Each street vendor has a different sound made with various bells and wooden instruments. We’d been locked on to this particular “clocking” sound since we were in Vietnam and decided to see if we could acquire our own “clocker”. We finally got the concept across to the local vendor and when we got to a price of 20,000 rupees (about $2.00), the guy ripped his “kentongan” (Pronounced kungdongen)) off of his cart (it was nailed on to the cart) and cut the nails out and proudly handed it to us. As the new owners of a kentongan, John amused all the locals on our walk back as he played his new toy.

Our kentongan

(Basically, it’s a hollowed out piece of wood with a striker that makes the most wonderful noise).

We found a quiet little restaurant and sat back to watch the street scene… a quiet evening with tomato soup and white wine. Back at the hotel, we came upon a huge group and a band taking up the entire hotel lobby. With full volume kareoke going on, we decided that there was no sense in trying to sleep, so we headed to the outer rooms to watch the show. We found a Dutch guy with his cocoa beauty girlfriend and a group of locals who invited us to join them …and we got the story on the evening. Evidently, people in the town put money into a kitty every month and at the end of the month, they have a huge party with a band and food. At the end of the evening, someone gets the money (a lottery of sorts). What a scene - bad American songs being sung by a three piece band with Muslims sitting on the side of the room clapping. The drinking crowd was sitting with us—proof that Muslims do drink! In the course of a few hours, we got into discussions of politics, Indonesian history, current affairs and business opportunities. What a strange and wonderful day!

Blitar

Another bus trip- this time about 6 hours to Blitar. Blitar was a small town without much in it. And since it was a Muslim holiday, almost everything was closed. A quick trip to Sukarno’s mausoleum and a search for a Sukarno plate (no luck). A becak trip back and an early dinner and an enjoyable evening in our “upgraded” room. We went from a twin bedded dorm room style room to a beautiful room with 4-poster bed, high ceilings, mini-bar, garden bath and CNN…. for a mere $10 upgrade price.

Prambanan to Tawangmanggu

Back on the bus for another long day’s drive. Our first stop was Prambanan, the largest Hindu temple complex on Java. All of the temples here were built between the 8th and 10th Century AD when Java was ruled by the Buddhist Sailendras in the south and the Hindu Sanjayas in the North. They were abandoned when the Hindu Javanese kings moved to East Java.

We actually drove through Solo (Surakarta) and stopped only long enough to get some bread (at the Holland Bakery) and some fruit for our “picnic” lunch. We looked longingly at Solo—what a fascinating city- and it was treated as just a pass through to Candi Sukuh. This involved a bus and transfer to a mini-bus to drive on some very steep roads to get to the ruins.

They were some of the only “erotic” ruins in Indonesia. The group was supposed to continue on for a 3-hour walk to a waterfall - until the daily torrents of rain arrived. So, we all headed back on the bus for our drive to Tawangmangu, our evening stop. Tawangmangu was yet another one street town with very little to do. The group headed off to see a waterfall and John, Drew and I headed to the local market.

Drew with the locals
The market was filled with veggies and fruits (we just couldn’t figure out where they use all these great veggies. They just didn’t seem to make it into any of their food.). Joking with the locals was so much fun. We stopped to buy a “ding-dong” (not the right word, but it’s the closest thing we could make of the word)….a soybean paste deep-fried and served with hot sauce. They were excellent and the hot sauce was fiery. After a wander through the market, we “chartered” a bemo to get us back up the hill towards the hotel (5500 rupees if you want to wait until it’s full, 7500 for a private charter!). The town was not awash in restaurants. We finally found one that has beer “yang dingen” and settled in for the night.

Drew was definitely on our frequency. We had some great talks. A few years ago, he had a bout with cancer and decided to buy his own biodegradable coffin for 30 pounds. Since he fortunately didn’t have to use it, he propped it up in his bathroom and put in a store dummy. It serves several purposes- the cat sleeps in it and it’s definitely a conversation piece (as well as a quick way to check out his date’s sense of humor- she either comes out laughing or runs out of his flat in horror!)
Once again, the skies opened up and we managed to get back to the hotel, a bit wet.

Yogyakarta

Another motorcycle day.

This time, we headed for Kota Gede, the silversmith town. It was a quaint little village to the southeast of Jogya and we found “Tom’s Silver”.

Tom’s was quite a large factory filled with young men and women doing hand-worked silver pieces. A few minor purchases and we were off to Tom’s wife’s place- Yoni Tom’s Puppets. From the SE corner of town, we headed to the NE corner and stopped by an old 60’s Sukarno style hotel that was built next to an old Javanese palace (Ambarrukmo Palace). We’d heard of the local KFC competitor in the chicken market—supposedly far superior to the Colonel. Well, the coating was great- but the chicken was still Indonesian “road” chicken”…. very little meat and what’s there was very stringy.

Our next stop was the Kraton, the old palace of the sultans of Yogya. It was basically a small walled city within a city, with over 25,000 people living in the greater kraton compound. The innermost buildings, where the sultan still lives, were built between 1755 and 1756. Our guide was cool--- we joked with him about the lack of wine, cheese and knives in Indonesia. After the Kraton tour, we continued on with him to the bird market and to the Water Castle (Taman Sari).

The Water Castle was reported to be the pleasure palace of the sultan and his harem. We finished the day with a minor shopping excursion down “antique alley” and found a great little place for cold white wine and cheese, the Dutch Café…. plus a charming waitress.