Caroline and Steve Abroad: Indonesia

Back on the road again……!

Java

We landed in Surabaya (East Java) in the evening local time flying in via Dubai and Brunei with Royal Brunei Airlines and were welcomed to Indonesia by a mob of taxi drivers, one of which took us to our ‘homestay’ (local term for hostels / cheap hotels) close by.

The following day, we got talking to an older German couple over our noodle breakfast and decided to share a Grab taxi to Gn Bromo national park. Our driver cheekily only took us part way before declaring he could drive no further and we needed to continue via 4x4 (and pay more). We had no choice, and took the 4x4 after they could find one that would start! This took us on an unarranged tour around the main view points of the national park before we reached our expected destination in the mountain village of Cemoro Lawang. It was getting dark by the time we arrived so we took the first homestay we found and arranged pick up to get to a sunrise view point for early the next day. After our early morning, we walked back towards the village and then up to the Bromo crater – a booming, smoking, crowded attraction with tourists and locals touting horseback rides up and down.

We travelled on at around midday the same day, feeling like we had accomplished a lot in our short time. A minibus took us to Probolingo and from there we arranged another bus to Bondowoso, a mid-way stopover enroute to Ijen a larger volcano closer to the eastern edge of Java.

Bondowoso was a cool stop for the evening, and we walked the 2km to our next homestay through a busy but friendly and welcoming area of markets and local shopping streets.

We arranged our plans for the following day again, sharing with a couple of Italians with a tour up to Ijen plus unimpressive waterfall and swimming bath/coffee plantation. Our early morning journey turned out the most alarming part of the day when our dosy driver cut up a scooter with a dangerous overtaking manoeuvre, sending the poor local couple flying off the road in a painful looking heap.

Ijen itself was more of a positive highlight, and we hiked the steep few kilometres up to the crater where views of the crater lake when the belching toxic sulphur gas blew in the right direction. Yellow solid sulphur deposit was being painstakingly mined from inside the crater by locals suffering the extreme conditions.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/photos-from-inside-the-volcanic-sulphur-mines-of-indonesia/news-story/27daa23f607d4358314fd0a4c5335985

After Ijen, our driver took us on to the port in Banyuwangi for our ferry to Bali.

Bromo National Park

Cemoro Lawang

Unusual cargo!

Satay Ayam

Our German travelmates squashed in the 4x4 Bromo 'tour'

Mt Bromo (smoking on the left) at sunrise

Bromo's innards

Donkey taxis

Queues to the crater

A sulphur miner glad to make a tip for a photo

Belching toxic sulphur oxides from the Ijen crater lake

A waterfall stop-off, part of the Bondowoso to Banjuwangi via Ijen tour

On the way down from Ijen crater

Ijen crater lake

Sulphur miners lugging their yellow gold up from the crater lake

A miner take a rest with a view

Hot spring water!

Bali

After our fairly intensive travelling and trekking in Java, we were ready for a couple of days of downtime and we booked in a few day in Banyuwedang in north-western Bali, close to Mengaggan island renowned for snorkelling and diving. It was a nice spot and the snorkelling and local beach made for some good relaxation time. We explored the area on two wheels with a scooter hired from the homestay.

Transport away from here was tricky with anything other than a private car, and it was here that we understood the lock-down of tourist transport in touristy area (including most of Bali and parts of Lombok). Reasonable taxis booked via Grab or Uber or the local company Bluebird metered taxis were banished from these areas so that the locals could extort much more in fares for private car transport. It turned out to probably be the most frustrating element of the trip and we paid over the odds in places where we couldn’t get round it.

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g294226-i7220-k9506776-WARNING_Uber_and_grab_car_Bali_Courtyard_Marriott_Seminyak-Bali.html

We planned to scoot through Bali reasonably quickly as we had happy memories of the main areas to visit from our previous trip there. We stopped at Balian Beach further round to the south and east and Ubud in the central south, then on to Padang Bai where we got a ferry to Gili Air.

Balian Beach consisted of a main touristy strip down to the surf beach with restaurants, homestays and surf shops. The surf there was for more advanced surfers. Steve gave it a shot but only managed to get chewed up and spat out but the current and swell!

Ubud was packed with high-season tourists. We only factored in a short stop here enroute to get a ferry to Gili, since we had been there before. Whilst in town, we took a hot walk through the markets, shopping streets and to the monkey forest before we took in a local dance show in the evening. It felt rude, but we could only stay for the first hour of what Caroline described as a bad school percussion lesson! Imagine an instrument consisting of off-tune cow bells being hit with a hammer + djembe drums + yodelling and you’re close!

We had probably the best ‘Mie Goreng’ (spicy fried noodles) of the trip at a local Warung (small restaurant/shop) in Ubud.

By the time we arrived in Gili Air and found some last minute accommodation, we were ready for some more relaxation.

We were in the right place. Here we refreshed our diving training and did a few fun dives around the three Gilis, plus some snorkelling right off the beach in Gili Air.

Gili Air felt familiar and reminded us of the more popular and developed Gili T where we stayed five years ago. When we’d visited Gili Air back then, there was barely any development or people, now there is tourist development pretty much all the way round the island perimeter. Interesting to see how places change so dramatically over time.

Hired scooter from our homestay in Banjuwedang in north western Bali

Enthusiastic kids didn't need much encouragement for a photo with Caroline!

Happy smiles / scared smiles!

Those kids again - all of them on one bike!

Port for boat tours from Banjuwedang to Menjangan island for snorkelling / diving

Wacky flowers at the homestay in Banjuwedang

Decorations for independance day

Black sand and big swells at Balian Beach

Balian Beach swells rolling in

A fancy resort a Balian Beach with its own beach

The best Mie Goreng in Indonesia (in our experience) at a tiny Warung in Ubud

Thieving monkeys at monkey forest stole our water!

Glad of the hat

Traditional Balian dance

Audio needed for the full sensory experience

Googly eyes and jazz fingers!

concrete sculptures everywhere in Ubud

Another dirty greedy thieving monkey

Gili Air. Wash your horse in the sea at sunset to attract the ladies....

Gili Air at sunset

Lombok

We were excited to get to Lombok which is where we would have liked to continue travelling last time we were in the region, but ran out of time. Our first stop was Senggigi. Our first impression was that there was not too much here, even though it seems to have a thriving tourism development. The beaches were different and interesting because they consisted of black volcanic sand, with a picturesque Hindu Temple built out on a rock peninsula overlooking the best beach. We explored the area by bike, in between heavy rain showers – the only wet weather of the entire trip.

From Senggigi we taxied down to Selong Blanak which has one of the most spectacular surf beaches on the south coast. We stayed three nights, exploring the other nearby beaches, Mawi, Mawan and Lancing by scooter and surfing/relaxing at Selong Blanak.

The south coast area started to feel more dodgy though when some fellow homestayers had a bag snatched whilst on their scooter rided back from Kuta. We saw plenty of other reports of similar and worse in that area.

We moved on to Kuta where we planned to stop for a further three nights. However we quickly changed our plans after seeing town was a dusty mess while a large re-construction project all along the beachfront was underway. Our accommodation was out of town too which meant walking along the road to for food after dark where it didn’t feel safe.

Plan B was a big success when we diverted to the north coast of south western close to a town called Sekotong. The accommodation was probably the best of the trip with a bunch of thatched bungalows right on the quiet and beautiful beach front next to a sociable restaurant serving great food. Clearly tourism hadn’t made it so big here yet, probably because it was further out of the way and harder to get to. We did an excellent snorkelling trip around four nearby small sandy islands including Gili Rengit, Gili Layer, Gili Nanggu, Gili Sudak.

Senggigi by bike

Hindu monastry at Senggigi

Monastry and black sand beach

Selong Belanak beach - the best one on Lombok!

Selong Belenak at sunset

Perfect for posey chinese wedding shoots

The same beach

Mawi

Mawun

Some crazy fruit on the beach

Surf at Selong Belanak

Lancing beach

Cows herded along the white sand beach

Surf and turf

Fresh coconut refreshment

146 Lancing Beach

Splashdown

Infinity and beyond.. is our bungalow (one of the best places we stayed) at Sekotong, southwestern peninsula of Lombok

Southern Gili snorkeling trip

Komodo

Our original plan had been to travel overland from Surbaya to Flores, however part way through our trip it became clear that this would be too ambitious and too much road time. We decided to fly from Lombok, back via Bali, to Labuan Bajo in Flores.

We were lucky to make it to Bajo with our back to back flights – the first was delayed by 2 hours which should have meant we would miss our connection in Bali, however the second flight was also delayed. We landed in Bajo just in time for an epic sunset from our first base at Ciao Hostel on top of a hill overlooking the port and national park.

From here we booked a 2-day / 1-night live-aboard boat trip stopping in Rinca and Komodo islands for short dragon spotting walks, Padah island for hike up to a stunning view point plus snorkelling spots in Manta Point and Pink Beach. We were lucky to see 5 or 6 huge manta rays swimming right near us so jumped in to snorkel with them.

We spent our two remaining full days on and under the water – the best place to be in the area since Bajo town really only comprised a short strip of restaurants, dive centres, warungs and busy traffic. Once on the water though, it was incredible views, sunshine and sea breeze and crystal clear fish-filled diving beneath. We packed three dives into each day.

Our first dive was to the central area of the park to Siaba Besar, Batu Bolong and Manta Point. The first two dives were full of fish and life including rays, turtles, big colourful coral and fish. Manta Point – where we’d seen several mantas the previous day was empty!

We went to the northern area of the park on dive day two where we experience some of the best diving we’ve ever done. Strong currents are renowned here, but they were only mild currents at the time we dived, however these conditions mean that huge numbers of fish come here followed by sharks. The sites we dived at were the Cauldron, Castle Rock and Crystal Rock – allegedly some of the best in the world. For our last dive, we hooked onto the rock at the bottom of the sea heading into the current to relax and watch the schooling big fish and cruising sharks – incredible!

Our internal flight to Bali a day ahead of our big flights home allowed us an evening in Kuta Bali. We’d been here five years ago too, and were intrigued to see how things had changes compared to our memories of the place. Again it appeared far busier and built up than we remembered. We strolled from our hotel close to the airport up to Kuta Beach and central Kuta past lots of hotels and resorts with many tourists and parties spilling onto the street.

First epic sunset of Komodo

The view from Ciao Hostel in Labuan Bajo - arrival just in time for sunset

A dive boat out in Komodo national park

Dragon!

20km/hr top speed!

Nesting female

Our luxury live-aboard!

Swirly current from mixing oceans!

Mind the gap

Ginormous forked tongue!

Sunrise on the live-aboard

Sneaky timer snap of the live-aboard family

Pulau Padar

Postcard perfect view

Boat taxi (aka inflatable mattress bed!) - only the finest luxury on our live-aboard!

All aboard the inflatable mattress rescue boat

View of a lifetime

4 of us on the mattress!

Birthday surprise

World-class scuba in Komodo

GOPRO footage of the fish tank!

Flattering GoPro close-up!

As if it could look any bigger!

Sun sets on another awesome day of diving

Bajo fish market

Brunei and Dubai

Our main flights home setting off early the following day transited in Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei for 10 hours and Dubai for 24 hours.

Brunei was more fascinating than we thought. Its main city had a fairly small centre to walk around separated with a river. One side had all the main impressive glitzy mosques and official buildings, the other was a sprawl of stilted old and new houses above the river. We did a trip up the river and into the mangroves with a taxi boat and cheeky driver who detected Caroline’s discomfort on the boat. He took full advantage, pretending to drive into trees and bridges before swerving at the last second and giggling (with Steve) like a pair of school girls! He earned a good tip! After this we walked around the main sights of the city and inside the main mosque.

The same evening we flew on to Dubai. The day was four hours longer than normal due to the time difference and we landed at midnight local time, got to our hotel and slept.

We had the next day to explore, although the jetlag, the heat, the crowds and the coincidence of our visit with Eid (main Islamic festival) slowed our movement. We managed to get to the Dubai old town and Souk markets, Downtown and the Burj Khalifa (world’s tallest building) and to the Dubai Marina near the Palm Islands before our final flight home that night.