Jakarta to Jogjakarta (Part two: Mt Salak)

Arriving back at our new hostel after exploring waterfalls around Bogor, we found there were quite a number of local travellers who had checked in, as well as some other foreign tourists. One of the local travelers suggested to us foreign tourists that her friend would take us up to Mt Salak the next day, a nearby volcano, for just the cost of whatever a grab car would be. This sounded pretty good as we knew there was a shady guard post at the top that would charge foreigners whatever they felt like on the day, so local help would go a long way. The person offering this help wouldn’t be coming with us, as she had already booked the train for the next day for her and two other foreigners to another popular local destination. She offered for us to join her many times and kept telling us how surprising it was that she could book these train tickets for tomorrow, a public holiday. We declined however as we already had our minds set on seeing the volcano.

Making our way up the path to the crater

Jakarta to Jogjakarta to buy a fat hogjakarta (Part one)

I wrote this blog covering Jakarta and our trip to Jogjakarta and it was some seven thousand words long, so I broke it down into a few smaller pieces.

Overwhelmed by choice of food in a trendy shipping container street food court

Landing in Jakarta was pretty exciting and felt like a different world to what we had experienced over the last few weeks in the rest of Indonesia. Arriving at the airport we felt we had stepped into the future with modern, clean buildings, drinking fountains, and public transport with well advertised predetermined prices. We stuffed around a little at the airport trying to work out how to get into the city, and found that Jakarta suffers one of the many problems of Sydney – with two or more people, the train to the city is more expensive than a taxi. So we took a taxi to our hotel and checked in for the night.

All the way to LBJ

After arriving at Labuan Bajo late at night, we were glad we had the foresight to look for and book accommodation. As we walked to our hotel, the power on the whole town went out and we found ourselves walking a creepy backstreet in the dark.

The view from our second accomodation

We arrived at the hotel to find noone was around for check in. So we wandered back to the hostel we had seen earlier on the main street. The price we had seen of 70,000 rupiah per bed per night was for beds in a massive dorm room of 20 beds, but the room was relatively empty and we were pretty tired, so we crashed there.

Bus Treachery/Wretchery

Warning: The following post contains graphic imagery of being on a bus.

Mimi at Mojo, looking how she feels

After our experience on Moyo Island, we were pretty eager to get away. We were in the mood to get to Labuan Bajo, Flores, where we would be able to board a tour of Komodo National Park. Flores was just four legs away, ferry from Moyo to Sumbawa Besar, bus from Sumbawa Besar to Bima, bus from Bima to Sape, ferry from Sape to Labuan Bajo. We assumed that after the slow, loud, two hour ferry trip from Moyo, our troubles would be gone and we would be away free.

Tropical Paradise but reality knocks…

So we’re now in Pulao Mojo, or Moyo Island, and it’s really eye opening.

At a very long stop along the way where I wish I got food

After a long trip on a rusty bus that was shaking itself to pieces, we arrived in Sumbawa Besar – what I assume to be the capital of Sumbawa. Even in this bigger city, like most of Sumbawa, there is not much accommodation for travelers. We faffed around when we arrived, with google maps sending us to the wrong place and bemo drivers looking to make a quick buck, but eventually arrived at a homestay

Tears, Fears, Jeers, and Cheers

Mimi napping on the ferry to Lombok

I left you on my last blog with a bit of a cliffhanger, we were on the ferry from Bali to Lombok island, with some vague notion of heading to Kuta once getting to Lombok, hoping to escape the tourist crowds and the bad vibes that come with them. The ferry ride went along with no hassles, and did in fact go to Lembar in Lombok as we were expecting it to.

Bye bye Bali

2 full days of Bali is enough for now. After publishing my last blog, Mimi got up and we had our hotel breakfast. Banana pancake and fruit, very simple but tasty and the sugar hit was welcomed, what more can you ask of $10 a night accommodation?

Working the magic rice fields

We headed out in the morning and toward the monkey forest of Ubud, but actually it was away from the forest. I realised this after about 10 minutes but instead we saw a sign to the "Magic Rice Fields of Ubud". The sign pointed down a sketchy alleyway that eventually opened into rice fields.