Indonesia

Tess and I are now in our final night in Indonesia and it has been a brilliant week and a half.
We went to Ubud as planned and it ended up being my favourite part of Indonesia. Ubud is known as the cultural hub of Bali and thanks to a cycling tour around a lot of the island, we agree with the description!

We decided to stay in a bit of luxury in Ubud, which made us feel very relaxed. The hotel was at the bottom of the Monkey Forest and on the first morning there, we were greeted by lots of monkeys coming into the hotel and attempting to steal all of our breakfasts! At one point I walked past a few of them and a tiny little one decided to hiss at me obviously thinking I am a monkey too and a threat due to my size. I consequently run away screaming but that is an aside point.
On the same day we went to look around the market and we used our bartering skills to full effect and left the market traders feeling like they had felt the full force of us Brits eye for a bargain! That evening we went to a traditional Balinese show called Kecak where around 100 men sit around and chant in a tribal way whilst Balinese women are dancing around them in traditional dress. Was very interesting and a lot different to what I have seen before so will definitely go down as one of the highlights of Ubud.
The next day we went on a bike tour around Ubud and its surrounding areas. The views throughout the trip were spectacular and it was great to see what real Balinese life was like. First off we went for breakfast overlooking Mount Agung which was great. After breakfast we went to a coffee plantation and we sampled many different coffees including the male coffee, female coffee and ginseng coffee. However we did not get the chance to sample the speciality coffee which is made by giving a cat certain coffee beans to eat and then to poop out. Supposedly it tastes nice but I am unsure! We then started our bike ride by going through many villages and stopping off at temples and a compound where lots of families live. We were invited in to the compound and saw how the Balinese live. There was a 2 year old girl working in the compund as well as some horrendous living conditions. The whole experience was quite humbling and made us appreciate what we have. The kitchen was really shocking as there was a 'fridge' in there that was basically a cupboard with food and many insects inside. Other rooms were also in a poor state but it was really great to see a completely different world to what we are used to.
Our tour guide, Katuk, was really excitable throughout the trip and he wanted to give us as many facts about the Balinese as possible. For example he has never left Bali, which is similar to many other Balinese people and all the rice that is produced in Bali (which is a great amount) stays in Bali. He also was very excited to tell us that he and the driver shared the same name and this was because they are the 5th child to be born. The tour was brilliant and has made us really appreciate Ubud and Bali.

After Ubud we travelled for 2 days on a bus to get to Yogyakarta on Java, which is in Indonesia still. Yogya seems like it was a really interesting place before the tourists came as there are many arts, crafts and traditional dances from Yogya. However it has now been overrun by tourists and therefore touts trying to sell you things so my opinion of the place has not been too great and I don't have too much positives to talk about!

On the way to Yogya we stopped off at Mount Bromo to see the spectacular sunrise. We woke up at 3am to get the jeep up to Mount Penanjakan where the best sunrise views are seen and we were certainly not disappointed. As the sun rose and the light came, the views of neighbouring mountains were fantastic and we felt that the 3am start was definitely worth it. We then went down from the viewing point and went to the bottom of Mount Bromo which we climbed up, 270 steps in total as well as many rocks before that. The views from here were just as great and the crater is still smoking inside so it was great to see something so different to what we have in the UK.

So now I am trying to upload photos onto Facebook! I have been on the internet for 2 hours and the upload has failed twice, so now I am ready to give up with the photo situation. Tomorrow we are off to Malaysia for 12 days. We are thinking of stopping off at Kuala Lumpur, Melaka and Penang in our time in Malaysia. Any tips from anyone that has been will be greatly appreciated!

I will hopefully update this at the end of Malaysia and get the photos up asap! 300 photos and counting at the moment!

Speak soooooooooooooon.....


Also, you can view my Singapore photos at
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=318779&id=223406963&l=2addc30ee4

Indonesia ones to follow!