Woolly Bulleh

Monday night I finally boarded that train to Bandung, provincial capital of West Java, fourth biggest city in Indonesia, yadda yadda yadda. It was a pretty forgettable trip, although I didn't sleep at all before we rolled into Bandung train station at 5.07 in the morning. It was dark, but fortunately all of the restaurants on the street adjacent to the station were already open - their families sitting around in pyjamas, lazily mopping the floors, weaving meat onto sate skewers, preparing for the day. I bought coffee and waited out the twilight before setting out in search of a hotel. The first two I tried were full, which had me worried that I had come to town during some big festival or convention, but there was room at King Garden - a pseudo-ritzy hotel slash ballroom facility that caters for the tasteless Chinese tourist or businessman. I slept until the afternoon and then made my way out to find the city's alun-alun, which - as far as I could tell - had been fenced off and was awaiting its development into an office building. The whole place looks as if it were built to be a better city - the streets are well-paved (a rare sight in Java), and the older buildings are all gigantic and sprawling, with fine architectural detail. But there are homeless people everywhere. Not even just homeless, but limbless and crawling down the street, shaking plastic cups for change. Until now I have abided by my policy of not giving to beggars, but last night, sitting in front of the London Cafe, over my second cup of house-blend, a little girl (maybe five years old) comes to ask for money, checks my plate and the table for any remnants of food, and then sits down on the stair at my feet. She was covered in red spots and wrapped in rags (and Bandung is a relatively cold place). Most of the time it's easy enough to turn a blind eye to the poverty in Indonesia, but this girl was seriously affecting the enjoyment of my coffee. I gave her one thousand rupiah and she left, delighted. Yesterday also I caught a taxi uptown to Jalan Cihempalas, or "Jeans Street". Lonely Planet describes a street full of "squat tailor shops" beneath towering plaster statues of Hollywood action characters, the latter of which piqued my interest. I did see a couple of sewing machines, but mainly these places sold locally mass-produced brand-name clothes made for Western markets. So it was exactly like the Direct Factory Outlets that we have back home. I was not disappointed by the statues however. There were more than I could have dreamed. Multiple Supermans, as well as every action hero I could have named. Sadly, my camera battery died just as I was about to take a photo of Super Rambo Jeans and its 10-foot Rambo. I bought a couple of three-dollar t-shirts and went by taxi to the botanical garden, which was less of a garden than a concrete park, with some sludgy water features and plenty of mysterious loiterers. Dinner was at a local place, where I ordered the Nasi Tim Ayam. I found the nasi and the ayam, but could not figure out what the Tim was - unless it was eggplant (yuck). This morning I woke up early to catch the expensive shuttle-bus to Bogor. After waiting for an hour... I'm told the bus isn't coming, so I caught the first train to Jakarta instead. There wouldn't have been much to see in Bogor anyway - just another great big botanical garden that was bound to disappoint. Coming into Jakarta, I was struck by all of the shiny skyscrapers, the expensive cars, the beautiful people, and the cleanliness. This is a modern city, and it seems that much of Indonesia's resources are funnelled here. Certainly Sukarno's Final Erection (the national monument - Monas) was a fine product of resource funnelling. Its gold-leafed tip reminds me of the tiny male chastity-guard that I saw in the second royal house of Solo. Tonight being my last night in Indonesia, I am yet to plan something suitably exciting, but there's plenty to do in Jakarta. Tomorrow I go to the top of the erection and check out the old town of Batavia before heading to the airport. Good fun.

RE: laatste nieuwtjes

After another confused phone-call and half an hour of waiting around, the Sumatrans picked me up in front of the train station and took me to a traditional Sumatran restaurant. You are given a plate of rice and you take what you want from a window full of different dishes. I made my selection and sat down to eat, discovering that I had taken about three times as much food as my dining companions. After weeks of eating with my right hand only (out of respect for what I understood to be local convention), I was glad to see that the others were using both hands, so I indulged myself. It's damn hard trying to pick apart fried chicken with one hand. We finished eating, I showed them the photos of my trip on my camera. They wandered who were all the Indonesian people I had photos taken with at Prambanan. Allen said "Would you like to pay now?" So, after some confusion, I covered the whole bill as they assumed that I would. I was a bit erked by this, but I remember reading that bills are generally not divided in Indonesia - it was somewhere near the bit about eating with the right hand. From there we drove to their house, which was about half an hour from the city. A tiny little apartment down a street so narrow that we had to reverse the whole way back when we left. Dadi woke his wife and 2-month old son up so that I could meet them. His wife made coffee, the baby farted and I taught them all a new English word, fart. We took the obligatory photos, and then they drove me all the way back to my losmen, I offered them money towards petrol, but they explained that I was like part of the family now. They said, on seeing the area where I'm staying, "You know, there are many bitch in this area." Confused, I asked what they meant. "Bitch, you know, bitch... like, uh... here, you can give money after making love..." Ah, so I'm staying in the red-light district of Yogya. Then we sat up smoking kreteks at Losmen 105 for a bit before they left. Incidentally, they had decided that they weren't going to Bandung afterall, but Allen offered to come if I paid for his train ticket. Ha... So today I checked out the timetable, and showed up for the midday train with my backpack only to find - after a very frustrating interchange with the non-English speaking ticket officer (my fault for not speaking Indonesian) - that the train was full and that I would have to catch the night train. And then it started to rain. So I've spent all day shifting from cafe to cafe, restaurant to internet kiosk, reading my brand new second-hand copy of Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim with hand-written marginal notes in old Javanese. Yogya's a nice place - orientated towards the Indonesian tourist rather than the Western tourist - but I've been here for one day too long now. Tomorrow I arrive in Bandung at five in the morning, but I figure that I can rely on the train being at least half an hour late, which would leave enough time for the sun to come up. There's activity in the streets at all hours anyway. Street vendors work in shifts so that many of them are open 24 hours. Then there's the ubiquitous prostitutes, and I hear that Bandung is yet another place famous for their whores. I'll see what I can during the day and hopefully get the train to Bogor in the afternoon. They're playing Indonesian folk music, and this is what Paul Kelly would sound like if I had receptive aphasia. Har har.

dr pino

Last night I finally called the Sumatrans - on a bad phone line (I'm yet to find a good one here). I could only tell them where I was, and they said they would come and pick me up. So I wait on the side of the road, and the whole of Yogyakarta seems to be pouring down Jalan Malioboro single-file. I waited for half an hour, and called them again. This time all I could manage to understand was "We can't come. Call tomorrow morning." So then I had twenty minutes to make it to the eight-hour wayang kulit show that was my contingency plan, at the opposite end of Malioboro. Trying to cut through the market crowds at any speed is frustrating, so eventually I hopped a becak. After unsolicited detours to various batik and puppet workshops in search of a commission, my driver and I pulled up at the theatre. The show runs every second Saturday, and it's at this point that I discover it ran last week, and it will run next week, but tidak malam ini (not tonight). So we turn around and head back. It's a slight up-hill gradient now, and my driver starts to make noises to show me what an effort it is. Patting his stomach and saying "Very hungry. No money." He pulls over and asks me to buy him a drink. I give him 20,000 for the whole trip (which is four times what a local would pay). He asks for a smoke, but he's not interested in my Gudang Garams. As I start walking back to my hotel he calls "Please sir. Special for my children? Hungry. No money." This morning, going to breakfast, I ran into that same retired British couple for the fourth time. We're heading in different directions now so we're not likely to meet again. Later, I went by public bus to the Hindu temple group at Prambanan, Java's second great tourist attraction. After standing in the queue with my 8000 rupiah entry fee ready to pay, I am directed to the other ticket booth, for foreign tourists. Here I pay 95,000 rupiah for exactly the same thing. Of course, if I'd had the foresight to bring my international student card with me I could have paid the local price, and it would have been the only time I've ever had a use for it. Alas... The main temple group is roughly the same size as Borobudur, but there are five or six separate temples within it. All covered in images depicting the Ramayana, and each representing a different character from the story. The Shiva temple is the largest and most ornate. Mind you, I didn't have much of a chance to appreciate them due to my own popularity as a photo opportunity. There must have been seven separate groups of people who had their photos taken with me, including one group of about forty school-kids, with their teachers. The teachers encouraged their kids to practise their English on me, and I obliged. I managed to get a few pictures on my own camera this time, of myself with little Indonesian people. It's still very strange to be such an attraction. Now, I'm thinking that I should probably call those Sumatrans again. The morning is well gone already, but I'm still relying on them for a lift to Bandung tomorrow. Ho hum.

Funky Comadina

Thursday night - my final night in Solo - feeling brave, I stepped into one of the many cheap local food places that line the main street, and ordered the one thing on the menu that I didn't recognise. I asked what was in it, and the girl said "ayam" (chicken). So fine, I thought, you can't go too wrong with chicken. My meal came out - a bowl of murky fluid. "Ayam?" I asked again. And she laughed. I ran my spoon through the bowl and several little pairs of legs came to the surface. It was frog-leg soup. I was the only diner, and the owner's whole family was seated around the table beside me, eagerly watching and smiling. Big joke. But I played it cool, picking off those little frog muscles one by one, chewing and swallowing, until I had a plate piled high with bare bones. It really does taste like chicken. The soup broth was actually harder to stomach, but I wasn't going to be humiliated. I finished it off, placed my cutlery together, strided over to the register and paid. "Enak sekali! Terima kasih." (Very delicious. Thank you.) I went straight to the nearest mall, and ordered a meal from California Fried Chicken to cleanse myself. Later that night at Guesthouse Paradiso I stayed up watching Muslim melodrama with the young guys who work there, who found it hard to talk to me after discovering that I get paid 120,000 rupiah per hour working in a supermarket back home. Yesterday, an early train to Yogyakarta. Becak to my hotel. I dumped my things and left by taxi straight away for the city bus terminal. Once aboard a public bus, a man with his wife and daughter gave me lollies, and we exchanged mailing addresses. I'll be interested to see what kind of mail I will be receiving in the next few weeks, given that I've collected a few new penpals in my time here. One and a half hours with my knees tucked up beneath my chin - the woman beside me refused to move to another vacant seat because she was having too much fun talking to me - and we arrived at the village of Borobudur. From there another becak to the famous monument (at this stage I'm thinking that I should have just hired a driver from the hotel). The temple itself wasn't visible behind the enormous souvenir market that fans out from the entry gate, but I eventually found my way through. Borobudur is a Buddhist temple that was built in the 8th century, but only rediscovered in the last century, undergone extensive repair, and become Indonesia's most popular tourist attraction. It has four lower galleries that you walk around, each decorated on all sides by carved images telling the story of Buddha, with hundreds of Buddha statues lining the walls. Above this, there are several great big stone cages with Buddhas sitting inside them, and it is said to bring good luck to reach in and touch Buddha with the second knuckle of the right ring-finger. The whole thing is massive, and I spent almost two hours working my way through the galleries, winding my way upwards. When I was about half-way up, what seemed like several busloads of school-kids in bright orange t-shirts arrived, and they all ran straight up the steps to touch the caged Buddhas. I came to the top, but couldn't take any decent photos because bright orange t-shirts were everywhere. At least the kids managed to get plenty of good photos of me. I felt a bit too conspicuous to do the ring-finger thing anyway. Going back to Yogya, the guy on the bus charged me the Bulleh (white man) price, and I paid it like a chump. It might have been cheaper just to hire a car. Dinner at Superman's, and then I went out to see a wayang kulit (shadow puppet) show. There I ran into the same British couple I had eaten breakfast with in Solo, and again there were many more performers than audience members. Apparently such cultural events are government-subsidised, but it's amazing that they're still done to such a high standard and with such respect to tradition - even when none of the audience can understand the dialogue. Afterwards I went to the puppet workshop behind the theatre. The puppet-maker seemed genuinely insulted that I was trying to bargain with him, but eventually I bought a small Shinta puppet (Shinta is the female love interest from the Ramayana epic). It's actually too small to be used in performance, and it didn't come with the buffalo-horn sticks, but he assured me that it's better quality than the larger ones because it's made for framing. It was only thirty dollars anyway. No wonder he was insulted. He cut a bit of a tragic figure actually - he is a fourth generation puppet-maker, and his children aren't interested because there's not enough money in it. Such a shame. This morning I explored the Yogyakarta Kraton, which is a giant walled city in the middle of Yogya in which the royal family (all 25,000 of them) live. The Sultan himself lives in the inner Palace, and the museum there is full of everything relating to him and his ancestors. Even their boy-scout uniforms have a special cabinet. Plenty more school-kids were on excursion there, and they took more photos of me than they did of the Kraton. I read in the Jakarta Post today that the Sultan is currently involved in a 17-billion rupiah mobile phone scam, but my guide at the Kraton didn't mention that. From there, a becak ride to Taman Sari (Water Castle). It sounds like a dodgy theme park, but it's actually a maze of pools and underground passages built by a former Sultan for the enjoyment of himself, his wives and his concubines. It's all in ruins now, and it's been built over by a village. It's a very strange place, and if it weren't for the old guy who followed me around determined to be my guide, I would have gotten lost very quickly. Tonight I'm deliberating as to whether I want to see the famed all-night (9pm - 5am) wayang kulit performance at the Kraton. I imagine that it will be an experience to remember... Then again, those Sumatrans must be waiting for my call.

Nasi nasi nasi

After spending all afternoon trawling the city I have finally found the only operational warnet (internet cafe) in Solo, hidden behind darkly tinted glass, with a tiny, very ambiguous sign in front... Back in Surabaya. It is the home of Indonesia's navy, so on Tuesday morning I walked to the big monument that centres around an old Russian submarine (still in commission, and kept in working order). After paying the entrance fee you are taken through the actual submarine by girls dressed in tacky sailors outfits (including mini-skirts). I looked through the periscope and could see all the way to the Matahari department store (a whole block away). From there I walked towards what Lonely Planet calls "well-landscaped gardens" beside the river, and found instead huge piles of garbage grown over with weeds and crawling with feral cats. And the river itself looks and smells like an open sewer. I'm trying to practice a bit of cultural relativism here, but Indonesians treat their cities as landfills and its easy to see why disease is so rife. Following this I caught a taxi to the old city in the north. This is where some important British army guy was killed in the lead-up to independence in the 'forties, and the whole of Surabaya is littered with independence monuments marking that time. The old city is home to Chinatown and the Arab Quarter. Walking around, looking for the big Buddhist temple, a retarded Chinese boy took my hand and led me into Pasar Pabean, Surabaya's biggest market. "Temple?" I kept saying... "Ya, temple!" he would say and nod. Deep into the belly of the pasar, we stopped at a shop selling lollies and cigarettes - obviously his mother's stall - and he said "Temple! Temple!" His mum just looked as if he does this with all the tourists. So I wound my way back outside, and made it to Kong Co Kong Tik something something, where they were burning 6-foot candles in big smoke-filled rooms, and the praying Buddhists didn't even register my obvious presence. It was an eerie place. From there, north to Mesjid Ampel - Surabaya's holiest mosque. It was a bit of a hike through the old town. Crumbling old Dutch buildings - the place literally looked as if it were abandoned  following an earthquake and never rebuilt. Swarms of becak, people shitting in open-air mandi on the median strip. The way to a mosque is through a narrow lane filled with market-stalls selling Muslim paraphernalia. I would have loved to buy a pair of brightly-painted Ampel sandals, or one of those black felt peci hats that the Indonesian gentlemen wear, but I was sensing a little suspicion of me... I walked around the outside of the mosque, where men were washing themselves in the water (forgive my ignorance as to the actual term for this practice, or anything relating to Islam). I'm sure that I was just being paranoid, but the pilgrims kept looking at my bag as if it might be concealing weapons. I didn't hang around for long.
I decided it wasn't worth going further north to see the harbour, so I went to see an American movie instead. After this, dinner at Surabaya's first authentic Italian ice-cream store, where the English-speaking owner introduced me to her granddaughter (who could not speak English, but gave me her phone-number nonetheless...) So I sat over my sundae while the whole family watched me eat, saying "Timmy. Shinta loves you Timmy. Oh, so handsome!" etc. etc. Then I got to play Scrabble with the owner's husband, who was a young guy with a lazy eye and an education in "passive English". He translates written English into Indonesian. This meant that although he beat me in Scrabble, it was a struggle to understand anything he said. Yesterday morning I was at the train station early for my five-hour kelas bisnis (business class) journey to Solo - reportedly a centre for Javanese culture, and the seat of various Kingdoms over the centuries.  I sat next to an old lady who spoke English, and she had a lot of thoughts on Indonesian society that were interesting. In Solo, becak to Guesthouse Paradiso. It's the cheapest place I have stayed so far (less than ten dollars for two nights), and it's fitted out like an old Dutch tea-house or something. To my delight, my room came complete with a Dutch Wife, a cylindrical pillow about the size of a torso that lonely men can cuddle up to at night. I'm a bit reluctant to touch it, for fear of former guests having done more than cuddling... It's a bit weird, really. Last night I paid 3000 rupiah (forty cents) to see a wayang orang show. There was a ten-piece gamelan orchestra, as well as maybe ten actors, ornate stage decorations, and beautiful traditional costumes and make-up. There was a fair bit of dialogue that I couldn't understand (obviously), but the slapstick comedy was good fun. Afterwards, a lonely Bintang at a bar playing Western karaoke DVDs... This morning I had breakfast at another hotel, where the food looked better, and met an old British couple who are heading East. I gave them the same warning about the "path" to Gunung Bromo that I've given to a few travellers already. Then, to the Kraton - home of the first royal family of Solo - under a thick layer of dust, and my guide couldn't speak English. There were lots of nice puppets and masks though. Later, to Puri Mangkunegaran - home of the second royal family of Solo - which was much bigger, with huge cabinets full of the various Kings' collections. Japanese swords, Dutch silverware, chastity belts... The dining room and tea room that are still used by the royal family. There is a special motif used in batik that previously only the royal family has been allowed to wear, but now they actually produce it themselves and sell it through the attached art-shop (note that the royal family now has thousands of members). But you can't pay by credit card because the royal family doesn't pay tax. Tomorrow I'm off to Yogyakarta, which is the cultural centre of Java, where I'm hoping to finally catch a puppet show, and from where I will see the enormous Buddhist monument, Borobudur, and the massive Hindu temple, Prambanan. I also have to catch up with those Sumatrans, Allen and Dadi. This final week of my trip should be a corker.

Seorang diri means alone

Much of my time in Malang was spent wandering around aimlessly - it's such a picturesque place, with old Dutch colonial buildings everywhere, gardens, fountains, and seemingly a mosque on every block. Inadvertantly I found myself at the Malang bird market, and although most of the birds are kept in humane conditions, there is a strange practice of colouring live baby chicks with cake-pens (bright pink, green, and blue) for sale. Saturday evening I strolled down to the alun-alun - the centre of activity in Malang. Monkeys riding little tricycles as their owners beat drums and feed them rambutans, buskers walking around with chip-packets, and lots of people just sitting there watching the action from the seats around the central fountain. I sat down and was instantly engaged in conversation with about five separate people. One question that everyone seems to ask here is "Seorang diri?" (Are you alone?) To this I answer "Ya. Saya seorang diri." and the next question is usually something like "You look for Indonesian girlfriend?" I'm letting my guard down a bit now, having realised how genuinely nice most of the people are here. It's just the handful of seasoned salesmen, the few bad eggs, that you have to be weary of. I've met a few families who like to make their children kiss me on the hand, and the poor kids always seem terrified. Also on Saturday I had befriended a pair of Sumatran cousins staying at my hotel, and so later that night we all went to the local nightclub, Bale Barong. There was a band - Malang's answer to the Black-eyed Peas - and I was the only non-Indonesian in the whole place (it was packed). So the band gave me a special mention but sadly couldn't play my song request, Hey Ya. Yesterday morning I said goodbye to the Sumatrans (although we will be meeting again in Yogyakarta in a few days and driving to Bandung together) and headed off to one of the recreation parks in town to see the Kuda Lumping (Horse Trance) show that I had been hanging out for. It was a strange place, full of giant weathered fibreglass animals and delapidated carnival rides. Ten o'clock was the appointed start time, but the warm-up act played Indonesian power-ballads until midday. During this time I met some European students who have been living in Malang for six months and seemed a tad sick of it. They gave up waiting and left before the actual horse trance dancing started. The idea is that men riding cane horses dance themselves into a trance and then perform masochistic acts such as glass-eating... Eventually two adolescent boys came out straddling woven cane horses and started to dance around half-arsed while whipping eachother very gently. This went on for a good hour or so. Meanwhile it had started to rain, and the dancers kept losing their footing on the wet ground. Another half-hour went by with a different dancer doing a similar thing, and then there was an intermission. At this stage I left. Maybe they were eating little bits of glass that I couldn't see. I only paid about 75 cents to get in I suppose... The European students had said that they would be seeing a movie at the new shopping centre after dinner, so I caught one of the public mini-buses out to Matos (Malang Town Square - an enormous monster of a mall) on the outskirts of the city, hoping to find them there. After wandering around for a bit with no sign of them, I hopped another mini-bus back to town, and it was full of teenage girls who took photos of me with their mobile phones. Early to bed, and this morning seemed like a good time to leave Malang. Becak to the train station, and a three-hour economy ride to Surabaya - the capital of East Java province, and the second biggest city in Indonesia (although it's only one quarter the size of Jakarta). The train was hot and crowded, with people selling everything from fresh fruit and sate to kitchen-knives and atlases, and the same green t-shirt band that I saw coming from Probolinggo. Here I have upgraded in accomodation to a room with a tv, a/c and private bathroom because there's nothing cheaper within a walk from the city, and I found the shared bathroom at the last place a bit hard to deal with, given Indonesians' tendency to leave the entire place constantly wet. Plus, I am covered in bite-marks from whatever was on/in that mattress. Still, you couldn't get a dorm-bed in a hostel for 170,000 rupiah ($25) in Australia. Right now I'm sitting in one of Surabaya's many massive shopping centres, it's pissing rain outside, and I left my umbrella at the hotel.

Hey mister!

My last night in Bali I sat on Kuta beach waiting for that famed sunset (I'd never seen the sun set over water before). Just as it was disappearing into the ocean, at that magical moment, a young guy squatted beside me to offer me marijuana and a Balinese girlfriend. Such is Kuta. The next morning I got a lift on a motorbike into Denpasar to catch my nine o'clock bus. We sat on that bus at the station, engine running, until midday. None of the Indonesian passengers seemed miffed, so I didn't say anything... I got talking to a Javanese man who had moved to Kuta to sell watches, and he told me how he sells to Australians: "It's a bloody cheap watch, mate!" Once on the road I met a student from Surabaya named Ary who was heading home, and we stuck together for the ferry-ride and the dinner break at a muslim truck-stop, although he didn't speak a word of English. We didn't arrive in Probolinggo until well after dark, and I was dropped at an information centre for Gunung (Mount) Bromo tours because I had answered 'Ya' when the driver asked me 'Bromo?' This slimy tour organiser sat me down and told me how much everything was going to cost - at this stage I wasn't really planning on going to the mountain. I told him that I just wanted the hotel, so he charged me a whopping 50,000 rupiah to drive me around the corner (pretty much), all the way playing ear-piercing Bollywood music, and trying to convince me to pick up a local prostitute for just 100,000 a night. I found a room and went straight to sleep. Yesterday was a slow day in Probolinggo. It's just a dirty big sprawl of a city, and there was nothing to do except wander up and down the street being stared and yelled at (Hey Mister! Hey Mister!). Lonely Planet calls it the mango capital of Java, but on a street full of fruit-sellers there was not a single mango to be found. They must be out of season here... Most of the day was spent laying on my dirty mattress watching the fan-blades, like the opening scene from Apocalypse Now. "Probolinggo... Sheeit... I'm still in Probolinggo." I spent the evening smoking kreteks with some travelling salesmen from Malang, and watching Indonesian television. If you're not in Probolinggo for the mountain, you're there for the prostitutes. So eventually I had to book a driver to take me out to Bromo for the sunrise. My wake-up call was at 2.15am. It took nearly two hours on winding roads to get to Cemoro Lawang, from where you either walk or hire a jeep to Gunung Bromo itself. I chose to walk. The path started out easy enough. Paved and marked on either side. Then it opened up into a massive crater - a veritible desert in the sky. The three main mountains are all within this ancient crater, and the rest of it is just flat, littered with volcanic debris and the odd tuft of grass. Of course, at four o'clock in the morning you can't see anything. I had a torch, but the white stone markers that I was supposed to follow were more of a dark-brown in colour, and impossible to see. So, instead I followed the white wooden posts, which took me in entirely the wrong direction. A jeep full of Papuans rumbled up behind me, stopped and told me to turn left. So I did, but I was still stumbling through the dark. After walking all the way to the base of the wrong mountain, I spotted a light in the distance and headed towards it. They were like Javanese gypsies, sitting around a fire, wrapped in colourful blankets. I yelled out "Hello!" and they started running towards me. "Bromo ini?" I said... "Ya ya, you want guide Bromo? Twenty thousand." So what choice did I have? They literally held my hand as we came towards the mountain and scaled the steps up to its crater rim. As it became brighter a Korean man in a track-suit arrived on horseback, and we stood together waiting for the sun. It wasn't exactly the hoards of tourists that I had been lead to expect on Bromo at sunrise, but it certainly was an amazing view up there. Bromo itself is constantly puffing sulphurous gases that burn the eyes and sting the throat when the lookout is down-wind. Semaru, in the distance, emits a thick black cloud every ten minutes or so - so slowly that you can barely detect it moving. You just turn around to see this massive black plume in the sky that wasn't there before. The walk back was much easier in the daylight, but I don't know how anybody can find their way in the dark. I suppose that's why they hire out jeeps. Back in Probolinggo, I hitched a becak out to the train station, bound for Malang. Economy class was okay. Spacious enough. And at every stop a different set of buskers would get on. Mostly small children, or adults with deformities, tapping home-made tambourines and collecting money in an empty chip-packet. At one stop, five young guys in green t-shirts got on with a banjo, double bass, guitars and tambourine and played a song. Unfortunately I had already given all of my small money to the midget and the guy with the lumpy face. Malang is a totally different kind of city. I had been worried that all of Java would be like a giant Probolinggo. This place is cleaner and cooler, and there's obviously more money here - shiny four-wheel-drives cruise the streets, and there are plenty of well-groomed young people in this internet cafe. There are some Germans staying at my hotel whom I haven't met yet, and I spotted a white mormon on the street, wearing a badge that read "Yesus Krist something something..." So at least I'm maybe not such an oddity here. I'm here for a couple of nights anyway, so maybe I'll change my mind about Malang. Stay tuned.

fuck terrorist

Kuta is to Ubud what the Gold Coast is to Noosa. But the poles are much further apart. Taking a leisurely stroll down to Kuta Square yesterday... "You buy sunglasses!" quickly turned into "You want woman? Beautiful girls from Bandung and Surabaya! Cheap price!" A Balinese man introduced himself as Tony Macaroni before making the hard sell. And I had women latching onto my arm offering "special massage in private room". I could only laugh because it was so absurd. I'm sure Kuta has always been like this but it's taken me by surprise. Even later, on Jalan Legian, at the memorial to the first Bali bombing, I couldn't have a moment of reflection for all of the street-hawkers. I became very flustered, having not expected to be so moved by the sight of this tiny memorial. I had dinner at an American-style burger-bar, where you get curly fries and a big frosty mug full of root beer. It was by far the worst meal I've had so far in Bali. A surreal experience though - every single staff member said "Have a nice day" as I was leaving. So, as long as I was behaving like a Kuta tourist, I spent the rest of the evening in a surfers' bar, watching King Kong with funny subtitles (Jack Black said "break your heart" and the text read "solve your liver", among some other gems). Today is Idul Adha, a muslim holiday, and many of the shops here are closed. Certainly public transport is thin on the ground. So this morning I caught a taxi into Denpasar, turned left at the big statue and found my way to the Bog-Bog Cartoon Arcade, which is far less impressive than it sounds. It's just a small brightly-lit room full of Bog-Bog merchandise. I bought a t-shirt and the guy behind the counter introduced himself as Chocolate before asking me to contribute a cartoon to the next issue of Bog-Bog magazine. I thought this was strange, given that I hadn't mentioned that I like drawing funny pictures... I suppose there's a shortage of aspiring english-language cartoonists in Bali. From there I had some yucky Chinese food, and explored Pasar Badung (oldest and biggest market in Bali). It was big and smelly, and a woman chased me around the entire top level trying to sell me things. I eventually lost her with the help of some fancy footwork between stalls. I caught another taxi, the driver insisted on wearing my sunglasses and stretching my conversational Bahasa to its limits, and I bought my bus ticket for tomorrow morning to Probolinggo (East Java). God knows what I'll do at the end of my ten hour bus trip... I'm glad I'm going eksekutiv.

Osama Don't Surf

I've made it to Kuta. Last night of the tour (Saturday) we went to dinner at a (relatively) expensive place catering to expats, and then drank beers at the hotel bar until late. I chose to stay in Ubud for an extra night so as to split a taxi south with another group member. I'm in no hurry, and I don't want to be in Malang (East Java) until next Sunday, when I can catch the trance straw-bull riding and glass-eating. So people left one by one yesterday. One of our hotel workers owned a family-run place 100 metres down the street where he got me a special deal (60,0000rp - or nine dollars) - it was all very hush-hush - and I was the only paying customer. Very little difference to the place I had been staying (which charges 350,000/night from its regular clientelle), except for the absence of a pool and traditionally-dressed staff, and that it was at the end of a dirty alley. The breakfast was better. It turned out that I ended up staying behind at the expensive place anyway to look after a Japanese woman with a sore back (separate beds of course). This morning I posted a parcel home to Sydney for 350,000rp (fifty bucks) full of all sorts of things, including a really grotesque agro-like wooden puppet which I bought straight from the workshop. Then I met with Yuko (aforementioned Japanese woman) to leave Ubud for the last time. We had lunch at the airport, including local McDonald's (which is very similar to regular McDonald's, except that they sell deep-fried chicken), she caught her flight, and I caught a taxi onwards to Kuta. My driver said that I wouldn't find anything for less than 100,000/night, but I wandered down Poppies Lane 1 and the first place I asked was only 40,000 and seemingly empty. Again, there are plenty of tourists here, the water at the beach is full of people despite the rain, and there's a steady stream of white bodies meandering down Poppies. But, there is that air of desperation. Strolling into a shop to check the price of a Jiggy-Jig hat, the seller grabbed my arm and I had to pull myself away, as his price quickly dropped from 80,000 down to 10,000. This place is cheap and nasty. The t-shirts are all vulgar, and the tourists look stupid. Alas, I am here for two nights. Tomorrow I catch a bemo into Denpasar and track down the Bog-Bog cartoon arcade. Right now I am going to check out Kuta Square and that famous department store... Turrah.

Oily in Ubud.

The street hawkers were the most aggressive I have encountered in Lovina. Taking a leisurely stroll down to the beach beside the great big concrete dolphin required that you run a gauntlet of t-shirt sellers, dolphin-tour organisers, and magic-mushroom peddlers. Amazingly, magic mushroom is not illegal here and it is freely consumed by the locals. Even our driver offered to collect some for us, but noone (including myself) was interested. The first night in Lovina we all went out to a reggae bar packed with locals, and a band played passable bob marley and ub40 covers as we debriefed on the trip so far and considered the remaining days together. The atmosphere was later tainted by my decision to sample the Balinese specialty of wine made from coconut - arak - mixed with coke to become an 'arak attack'. The band played 'Land down under' and the the night deteriorated into expat antics. Back at the hotel I vomited into the mandi bucket, and was fine in the morning. Yesterday we visited a local market, and continued on to a waterfall. Stepping into the wrong part of the river below, my thong was broken as I pulled it out of the mud. Our guide promptly repaired it for me. Five minutes later another person did exactly the same thing. A thong stall would have good business there. Once safely into the water I bathed under the falls until the rain set in. From there we went on to the house of a small-scale coffee producer, saw his roasting and grinding machines, and bought some to send home. Last night we had a traditional dinner at the house of a local woman beside the beach - mostly seafood dishes sourced from the adjacent sea. This morning on the drive back to Ubud we stopped at Lake Bratan, where tourists traditionally have their photos taken with very sick-looking captive wild animals. One horn-bill looked like it was about to fall off its tiny perch. I bought yet another t-shirt to send home. Now, back in Ubud, I have just enjoyed a 60-minute massage for around seven dollars. All other members of the group have been doing this on a daily basis, but I have resisted the urge until now. In Bali apparently it is a bit hit and miss - others have wasted their money on one-handed rub-downs from a pregnant woman - but I found a good place. So I am all oily, sitting in my favourite old warnet, contemplating my plans for next week. I have decided to spend tomorrow night in Ubud, and then head down to Kuta for a couple of days before taking off for Java. It sounds like a very different place. Asking a taxi driver on my first day in Bali about Bungawungi (the ferry terminal in East Java), he said 'Lots of beautiful women there!!!'. I have sinced learned from our tour leader that most of Bali's prostitutes come across the strait from Bungawungi to drum up business. Oh well, it will be an experience... See you in Kuta.

From Lovina with love

It has been a little while, and much has happened. After my last post we went to see a traditional Balinese Lengan dance at the Ubud palace. Dancers had amazing discipline - dancing with their eyes, their faces, their hands, and bodies. All simultaneously, and all dancers moving together as one to the gamelan music. The costumes and make-up were so elaborate. After the show the dancers made their way out to their motorbikes in front of the palace and sped off down Jalan Raya. We went to a Japanese restaurant. The next morning we left on bike, and rode out through the rice fields and villages, ending at Sangeh Monkey Temple, where we hand-fed sweet bread to the monkeys. They have very soft hands. Following this we drove into the hills, to the very rural village of Sideman. Next, another reasonable drive to  Lake Batur, and a village on the shore called Kedisan. It was cold up there, and the hotel staff - all young local boys - wore oversized grey dinner jackets, and parted their hair in the middle with greasy styling product. There were very few tourists. This town was obviously far poorer than other places we had been, and had an air of tragedy about it. Walking down to the edge of the lake I was followed by a guy with a backpack full of his paintings, and after being given the hard sell I bought one for 50,000rp - earlier last year he had been selling them for 350,000rp each (or so he told me). It's easy to believe. After dark, loud amplified chanting began at a local temple. I went with a Japanese girl from the group to see what was happening - wandering through the pich-black streets until we came to a brightly lit place surrounded by men, women and children in traditional dress. Piles of fresh fruit and flowers as offerings. I asked a man outside (also wearing a grey dinner-jacket over his traditionals) 'apa ini?' He made a prayer sign and ushered us inside. A full gamelan orchestra was playing as an old woman droned over the loudspeaker, and an audience sat watching. All eyes turned to us as we came in. We stayed for a few minutes before heading back to the guesthouse. What the people  lack in economic wealth they excede in cultural richness. The noise continued into the night, and the next morning at 3.30am we woke up to begin the climb up Mount Batur. It took around an hour and a half of steep climbing in the dark to reach the lookout, on the edge of the steaming crater, and then we waited to watch the sunrise over Mount Agung in the distance. By this stage it was raining, but the view was still amazing. The bodies of a cow and a bunch of ducks were at the bottom of the crater, where they had been recently tossed alive as part of a sacrifice ritual. Religion permeates everything for the Balinese. There were also a bunch of monkeys at the top who fought over our breakfast scraps with the resident dogs. We walked back down and had a soak in some hot springs, in the rain. But it was still nice. Then we had a long drive up to the north coast to Bunyapoh, where we stayed next to a flat black-sand beach dotted with oyster farms. Had very nice local tuna cooked in a banana leaf with Balinese sauce for around three dollars. This morning we donned snorkels and flippers and boated out to an island which is part of the East Bali national park. I have never seen so many fish. All colours and sizes. A puffer fish slinked away. A barracuda (?) darted around in front of me. A whole school of great big bright green and purple fish. All totally foreign to me. We spent 45 minutes exploring the reef before the rain came and we headed back to land. Which brings us to Lovina - the sleepy north-coast resort town where the internet connections are slow... Only a few more days until the end of this tour, and then I'm alone to tackle Java. Our leader - a Gold Coast boy - has taken groups through Java before, and his tips for my trip so far will be invaluable to me. I will continue to pick his brains...

Ubud is a great place.

Still in Ubud.Yesterday I met up with the Intrepid tour group that I will be travelling with for the next week. I'm sharing a room with a middle-aged guy who has already been on 10 intrepid tours, and has visited Bali numerous times since the sixties. He has interesting stories, but he's rude to the locals, tells stupid jokes, and has a penchant for loud farting. Mind you, the cuisine here (although amazingly tasty) does play havoc with your insides. I had Gado-Gado (sate vegetables) in a back-alley eatery yesterday, and three cats and a dog came out of the kitchen whilst I was eating. Last night the group went out to Gianyar night markets, where we were the only foreigners in sight. Motorbikes saddled with party supplies for sale were cruising up and down the street, marking new year's eve, and the locals were everywhere, making noise and having a ball. We were told to split up and find something to eat. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but I wound up with a huge dish filled with vegetables, egg, peanuts, chicken, and several different sauces. About six people watched as I ate, continuously asking 'Is it hot?' And it was very hot. So I went to another stall and pointed out a bottle of softdrink, and the girl poured it into a plastic bag and gave it to me with a straw (softdrink comes in glass bottles that sellers return for refunds). A little Balinese boy shook my hand and then kissed it, saying selamat malam (good evening). Later in the night we all went to an ex-pat bar called exiles, where we were the first to arrive, excepting a lonely Canadian named Wade. So we sat with Wade, eating greasy peanuts, and drinking Bintang while the DJ played an ear-piercing selection of seventies classics, favouring Queen. The place filled up later on, and the dancefloor was packed with locals in sarongs and sandals by the time the band came on at eleven. The band of Balinese rockers then played some better music... radiohead, rem, lenny kravitz, u2... but revealed a similar love of Queen. We left soon after midnight when the novelty had worn off, dizzy from beer and the kreteks, which I have become slightly attached to (so I left my dji sam soes with Wade, averting a potential addiction). A restless night beside the farter... and then this morning a local guide took us into the countryside, from where we followed a path for three hours along a mountain ridge, past various temples and art studios (I bought a beautiful watercolour painting for 40,000 rupiah - seven dollars). Everyone is hurting from the recent loss of tourism. Although the sound of dance performances has been everywhere since I arrived, tonight I am seeing one for the first time. Weather permitting, and it probably won't.