Summer Break and all that... Part I: Indonesia
I think I'm past the point of apologising for this being the all time least updated travel blog.
So yeah moving swiftly on...
After emotional goodbyes to the family I endured 3 hectic days in Adelaide, cleaning, packing and general moving out of my house because my land lord is a dickhead. I grabbed my backpack n boarded a plane heading to the glorious collection of islands that make up INDONESIA babyyyy!
^^ all my worldly possessions...
My first stop was Bali. Which. was. amazing. Despite the insane humidity and swarms of Aussie bogans, the combination of the easy going island vibe, cheap drinks, beautiful beaches, incredible sunsets, amazing rice fields, sunny weather, great locals (and did I mention cheap drinks?!) made this a great first stop in my two month trip!
^^First Day... I cut my leg on those rocks when we went swimming and found out that an incoming Balinese tide will break the camera that your mum leant you yeahh the one you promised you would be careful with... (soz mum!)
The next day we drove an hour or so into the middle of the island which was well worth the effort (okay it wasn't even effort since we had hired a driver... lol) because Ubud's ricefields were actually amazinggg!
Our climb left us needing some refreshments... Astri and Victor casually snacked on chillies whilst I chose life and opted for a Bintang, Indonesia's local beer. Deffo a good shout coz yano these Indonesians aren't messing around with their chilli despite Astri's claim 'These aren't even hot Abi' HMMM...
When we weren't climbing ricefields, shopping in local markets, sampling amazing local foods, getting attacked by the temple monkeys, dancing the night away in Bali's many great clubs we were pretty much at a beach...
So after a proper boss few days in Bali, Astri and I boarded a flight to the next door island of LOMBOK!
Lombok had SUCH a different feel to Bali. For one there were no bogans in sight - hurrah! In fact I was pretty much the only Westerner around. It wasn't touristy at all. So clearly what better time to hire a car and learn to drive Indonesian style... OH LOL. I can easily say it was up there as one of the most terrifyingly daunting moments of my life. Avoiding running over dogs, ducks, cows, goats, small children, pedestrians cyclists and general road users required ultimate concentration. This was hindered significantly by Astri's insistence to film the experience. After about 45 mins with no major catastrophes she thankfully got bored of hoping to capture me crashing our car.
^^ "It's okay Abi there are no police anyway" - Astri
Whilst in Lombok we hit up the local village, Sade, and tried to learn to weave. Apparently if you can't weave a decent sarong your marriage prospects are pretty low. Based on this I might as well resign to embodying a crazy cat lady now. There's no point in trying to kid myself ey.
Oh yeh then there was take your goat to the beach day. Clearly we missed this memo.
When we weren't driving round exploring we spent time eating Silver Queen chocolate and these cassava crisps whilst watching the NatGeo channel snuggled in our lifesavingly air conditioned hotel room...
^^ Having in the region of 3 cold bucket showers a day as the humidity was making me a sweaty biatch
After a really chill few days in Lombok we took a taxi, horse and cart, motorbike (rucksacks and all) and finally a speed boat to the Indo party island GILLI TRAWANGAN!
Gilli T (as the cool kids were calling it) is a reeeally small island, there are no cars or motorbikes you can pretty much walk around the whole island, but for about £3 we rented bikes for the day because we were lazy and it was too hot to walk far...
The Gilli islands are definitely a tourist haven but way more chilled out than Bali. By day we played beach volleyball and by night it was all about the Full Moon party shenanigans, super strong cocktails, vodka joss, running away from weird drunken Canadian stalkers, and many photos that will never make it to social networking.
The sacred art of the Vodka Joss shot... 1) Put the Joss in your mouth (which tasted a bit like sherbet but was made up of what I can only describe as highly concentrated red bull powder) 2) Then shot the vodka and be taken to a deep realm of energetic drunkeness . I'm guessing that was probably obvious right...
Our hungover laid back island attitude meant we missed our speed boat back to Lombok but with the help of a local we managed to swindle our way onto this boat of almost certain death. As the massive Indonesian waves hit the boat and several people made use of the sick bag facilities, our driver (?) prewarned us that we may need to help scoop the water out of the boat to avoid sinking. Great. Thankfully we remained (somewhat) dry and made it back in one piece. Just.
I then said good bye to my lovely friend Astri and headed to the much, much larger island of Java to visit YOGYAKARTA
My time in Jogja was spent feeling oh so cultured learning about the history of the Javanese people and their royal family at some of Jogja's museums...
Renting a jeep for about £10 and taking a trip up the island's active volcano, Mount Merapi...
Watching Indonesia's Ladyboy take on Beyonce...
I was then challenged to try my luck walking blindfolded between these two massive Banyan trees - which legend has it if successfully accomplished your wish will come true... I actually managed to do it! Whilst I will put this down to my innate inner sense of direction others may dispute that I just fluked it, beginners luck - but I cannot complain... except I'm still waiting for my wish to come true... hmmm...
^^ before Ria's epic fail of an attempt to walk through! HILARIOUS!
We also braved the very heavy rain to explore some of Jogja's famous temples. They were so beautiful!
^^Had to wear a hard hat as the sign denoted 'temple only relatively stable' whatever that means... eeek!
We treated ourselves to a spa/shopping day... I enjoyed a blissful day being covered in a chocolate wrap thing, getting massages, nails done, hair did, hey we even got saunas, bubble baths and plenty of herbal tea... and all for about £17. Heavenly for the body and the financial conscience.
^^ Shameless spa selfies...
OH and how can I omit - food. SO. MUCH. FOOD. I don't care I'm converted. Indonesian food is my favourite. I couldn't tell you exactly what I ate, but everything was delicious. Delicious in a hardcore spicy, my mouth is on fire but I cannot stop eating kinda way. Restaurants, street food, bakeries, yes I loved it all!! The only thing i just couldn't do was the chicken head. I'm not about that life.
^^ Some really yummy goat satay
I swear Ria had us eating 5 meals a day. One really cool thing was coffee and coal. Yep literally a mug of hot sweet coffee and a lump of coal pulled directly from the fire dunked in your mug. Why? Well why the hell not?! Yolo.
So after gaining aprox 2 extra stone (Thanks Astri and Ria lool) in my two weeks in Indonesia I sadly made my way to Jakarta airport and said goodbye to honestly one of - if not the best country I have ever visited.
Indonesia - I will be back!
