Life is a beach

Kuta beach on Bali

So what am I doing on the most touristy beach on what is probably one of the most touristy islands on the planet?

Beaches are not really my thing. But I was curious about the famous Kuta beach on Bali and since the airport from where I'm flying out is almost within walking distance from the beach, I had to come this way anyway.

Besides, it's the last week of my more than six month adventure and I wanted to take a few days off to just idle on the beach before I finally head home.

I'm actually not idling on the beach. It's much too hot for that. I go to the beach early in the morning for a walk and then again about an hour before sunset. The rest of the time I'm in my air conditioned hotel room or out on the patio by the swimming pool, in the shade.

I'm reading all those books that I took along on my trip but never had the time to read. I thought that since I would be traveling alone, I would have too much time on my hands and was prepared with tons of reading material.

It turned out that I didn't have too much time at all. The past six months were actually quite exhausting. On typical days I would wake up early, sometimes go for a run, check my email if I had access to internet, have breakfast, order a second coffee after breakfast and read for a while. Then I would head out to explore, sightsee or whatever else I had planned for the day. I would usually return in late afternoon, find something for dinner and then settle down with my computer to download photographs from my camera, sort through the photos and immediately delete at least half of them (I did this every day to avoid the accumulation of thousands of unsorted photos), write my blog, read and send emails, charge my devices and so on.

Since I was traveling, I spent lots of time reading travel guidebooks, researching and making reservations online, planning my destinations and deciding what I wanted to see and do. I would often check my finances and calculate how much money to withdraw each time I visited the ATM to make sure I had enough but not too much cash on hand.

Many days were not as typical. I never stayed in one place for too long. Therefore many days were travel days when I would have to pack my stuff, check out of the guesthouse where I was staying, get to my transport and spend the day (or simetimes night) traveling to my next destination. Then I would have to find a place to stay (more often than not I chose my guesthouse ahead of time and made a reservation online), figure out how to get there, check in, unpack, find food. In addition, I would have to get my laundry done regularly.

It was a busy six months and I feel I deserve a few days off. So a touristy beach is just the right place to be for that purpose.

Kuta beach

Indonesian could become my new favorite cuisine

Gado gado

Indonesian cuisine was never familiar to me. I might have heard about fried noodles (mie goreng) but that's all. After almost three weeks of traveling through Indonesia, I'm beginning to really like some of the local dishes, such as nasi campur and gado gado. What's most interesting about these dishes is that there isn't really a recipe for how to make them. Each time I order them, I get something different on my plate and that ensures that I can never get tired of eating the same food over and over.

Nasi campur is rice served with whatever sauces and condiments are on hand. The sauces typically include a meat curry containing either chicken or beef, a hard boiled egg in a spicy sauce, some steamed vegetables, tofu and/or tempeh, prawn chips or other types of chips and chili sauces (called sambal) on the side. Sometimes a stick or two of satay is included as well.

Gado gado is a salad with peanut sauce that can have many variations. The ingredients include vegetables such as green beans, carrots, Chinese cabbage, pak choi, tofu cubes, cucumbers, hard cooked eggs, potatoes or soybean sprouts. It could be served with the sauce on the side or with everything already mixed and usually comes with prawn chips or other chips.

It's interesting that tofu is almost always included in these dishes. I was never a fan of tofu, mostly because it doesn't have much of a taste. But in these combinations it is a welcome addition that adds variety to the textures of the ingredients.

Depending on whether I eat at a streetside stall or in a tourist restaurant the dishes come more or less elaborately decorated. I also like that the food is nicely spicy. Even in the tourist restaurants where they normally ask whether I want it spicy, they don't hold back or try to make the food gently spicy. A pair of fresh green chilies that they placed on the side of my plate were so hot that I had tears in my eyes when I ate them.

Bicycling in the Bali countryside

Path through the ricefields

I have always wanted to bicycle through the ricefields in the Bali countryside. I saw photographs and heard stories about the incredible shades of green of Balinese vegetation. Finally, I was able to experience it myself. It was just as beautiful as I imagined it would be.

Ricefield terraces

I had no idea where to go so I booked a tour. We started by first having breakfast on a terrace overlooking Mount Batur. It's obvious that Bali is much more touristy than the neighboring island of Java. Unlike my hiking tour on Java where I was hungry, this tour on Bali fed us well. Even overfed us I think. There were all-you-can-eat breakfast and lunch buffets and snacks in between.

Terrace overlooking Mount Batur

By the way, I could have also booked a tour to Mount Batur. But I decided against it. I think I've seen enough volcanoes recently. And getting up in the middle of the night, just so that I would be driven up a mountain in a vehicle so that I could watch yet another sunrise doesn't seem too exciting.

Bicycling tour on Bali

As I might have suspected in regions where they drive you up mountains to save you from having to hike yourself, the bicycling tour was designed so that they drive you to the foothills of Mount Batur and then the entire two hour route is on asphalt roads that wind slightly downhill. There wasn't much bicycling involved, it was just braking all the way. I would have been disappointed, but they did manage to save the day. At the end of the downhill road, we had a choice of either returning in the van or going for another hour of real cycling, the kind where you actually have to pedal and even go uphill at times. Yes, that was real cycling!

The most expensive coffee in the world

Coffee and tea tasting

Although java is the synonym for good coffee - and I had a taste to confirm this while I was recently traveling on the island of Java - Bali's coffee comes a close second. After all, it is the neighboring island and the tastes are similar.

Luwak coffee beans

I went to a coffee plantation for a tasting of their excellent local coffees and teas. In addition to the usual suspects, I was also introduced to Luwak coffee, the very expensive coffee that comes from coffee beans that passed through the digestive system of the civet cat, an animal native to these regions. I didn't try the coffee (although at about 5 EUR per cup it's a luxury I could have afforded) but I did buy a packet to take home instead.

Civet

A reference to Luwak coffee is in the movie The Bucket List where Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman discuss it. Here is a YouTube video with the scene:

Rice fields around Ubud

Rice fields around Ubud

The beaches of Bali are too hot for me and anyway I wanted to head inland, to Ubud, to see all the lush green rice fields for which Bali is famous. I wasn't disappointed, the fields are everywhere, it takes just a few minutes of walking in any direction outside of Ubud.

Rice fields around Ubud

It's also good to get out of Ubud for some peace and quiet as it's a very touristy town and quite hectic. In addition to the touts who offer taxi rides and waterfall excursions, there seem to be constant goings-on in temples. I still haven't figured out whether all the ceremonies in the temples are due to a specific Buddhist holiday this weekend as the touts want to make me believe or if it's just staged so that they can solicit donations from tourists. It seems suspicious when a local guy encourages you to take photos of a ceremony especially when you notice that someone in the ceremony party carries a donation box. I decided to pass.

Rice fields around Ubud

Finding paradise on Bali

 

Lovina beach

There must be hundreds or probably even thousands of beach vacation spots in the world. Why is it that Bali evokes images of a special place, one of those island getaways that we dream about? I don't know why it's so special but in order to find out, it's best to go and see for myself.

I was already excited with anticipation on the ferry from the island of Java to Bali. I met a Dutch couple who were also going to Bali for the first time. We all wondered aloud whether it would live up to expectations. Would we really find an island paradise? Or would it be so touristy that our experience would be spoiled?

View of Bali from the ferry

After two days on Bali I'm still no expert. I only saw the northern part of the island around Lovina so far. The beaches are ugly with dark volcanic sand. It's hot and unbearably humid. But the people are nice and friendly, they know how to take care of tourists and the prices are low. There are touts that sell all sorts of stuff and services and yes, they are mildly annoying but they go away when I tell them I'm not interested.

My bungalow

In terms of accommodation, I'm renting a bungalow for just 11 EUR per night. It has two beds with clean sheets (in Asia, clean sheets are a luxury), a terrace with a sitting area across from an enclosed garden and a one of a kind bathroom that is my very own private garden behind my bungalow where I can shower in a garden planting. It's so amazing I really believe it's paradise.

My bathroom in a private garden

View from my bungalow

There are numerous restaurants along the beach where the fish is fresh and the beer is cheap.

Grilled fish for dinner

Going hungry on Mount Bromo

Mount Bromo, front left with Mount Semeru in the background

I can't decide whether to classify this post about my expedition to the Mount Bromo volcano under "hiking" or under "travel adventures". It was probably both.

I wanted to do some volcano hiking in Indonesia. I had to book a tour to go to Mount Bromo because there isn't any public transport and it seemed just easier to have everything taken care of by a tourist agency. From my experience up until now, I had no reason to doubt that all would be well.

After a long day of driving from Yogyakarta we finally arrived in Probolinggo, the town from where Bromo tours start. There was some confusion about who would go to which guesthouse and who would ride a jeep up the mountain. I had booked a hiking tour but was told to meet the jeep in the morning instead. I complained. What would be the point of going on a volcano if I had to ride in a jeep? I wanted to walk. It turned out that I was the only one who wanted to walk and they tried to convince me to take the jeep so they wouldn't have to bother arranging a guide for me. After some negotiating I got my guide, but they made me pay an additional fee for a single person.

We were dropped off at our guesthouse late in the evening, hungry due to not having eaten anything since lunch. We were informed that the guesthouse – which was located in the middle of nowhere halfway up the Bromo volcano – doesn't have a restaurant but if we wanted anything, we could buy what they offered in their glass display case. This was a sorry sight, there were three shelves in that display case that offered, in order from top to bottom:

1. About a dozen bottles of Coca Cola 
2. Packets of two different brands of instant noodles 
3. Three half liter bottles of Bintang beer at room temperature

Out of these wonderful choices available to me, I decided to go to bed hungry. I was so thankful that I had a large bottle of drinking water with me that I had bought earlier in the day. At least I didn't have to worry about drinking water for the morning hike.

Mount Bromo crater

I started hiking with my guide at 4:00 in the morning. It was crowded at the sunrise viewing point with numerous other tourists who were taken up there either in a jeep, on a motorcycle or on a horse. In addition to tourists, many local vendors set up stalls with drinks and snacks. I enjoyed a hot coffee while watching the sunrise. When it became light I could finally see the breathtaking volcanic landscape. It was just amazing with smoke rising from some of the volcanoes.

Volcanic landscape around Mount Bromo

When I returned to my guesthouse, I was so hungry with all the hiking and not having eaten since lunch yesterday, I was ready for a nice breakfast. It turned out that breakfast was two slices of untoasted white bread spread with a microscopically thin layer of strawberry jam. I was just as hungry after breakfast as I was before. I glanced towards the glass display case, contemplating whether I should supplement my breakfast with Coke, instant noodles or beer. I decided I wouldn't die if I waited until our minibus stopped for lunch to eat properly.

So the Indonesian travel industry still needs some tweaking. Perhaps someone should tell them that tourists have to be fed.

Buddhist and Hindu temples in Indonesia

Borobudur in the early morning

Although Indonesia is predominantly Muslim, there are plenty of Buddhist and Hindu influences in the country.

View from Borobudur

The Borobudur temple is a beautiful Buddhist temple that has been forgotten for hundreds of years and then rediscovered and restored. I visited in the early morning, thus avoiding the worst tourist crowds and enjoying magnificent views through the morning mist.

Stupas on Borobudur

The Prambanan temple is one of the largest Hindu temple sites in southeast Asia. It was severely damaged by an earthquake in 2006 and is still undergoing reconstruction.

Prambanan

Detail on Prambanan

Parts of the temple are open to visitors. Due to the reconstruction works still in progress, tourists are issued helmets for safety. In both temples, Borobudur and Prambanan, all visitors must wear sarongs. This applies to both men and women as well as to foreign tourists and local people. The reason for this is to honor the ancient tradition of wearing sarongs in the temples.

Sarong and helmet for visitors

My visit to the temples was somewhat spoiled by souvenir vendors who are allowed into the temple complexes despite a high entrance fee that tourists must pay. So instead of focusing on admiring the sights, I had to direct my attention to brushing off annoying touts who wanted to sell me postcards and tee shirts and souvenirs.

Passing through Jakarta

National monument

Jakarta was exactly how I imagined it: a sprawling city with chaotic traffic and with nothing much to see or do. That's why I only passed through, flying in from Singapore in the morning and taking the night train to Yogyakarta in the evening.

It was a scorching hot day that I planned to spend reading in the shade in the park that surrounds the National monument. But then I should have known that in Asia, you can't sit and read. So many touts pestered me with their services that I finally retreated into a museum. To get to the museum I had to cross a road and that was a huge ordeal: I had to remember again how to survive in traffic buzzing with motorcycles and where traffic lights exist only for decoration.

Jakarta

Jakarta lies on the island of Java and I was eager to try my first cup of java coffee. It was real coffee, with dregs at the bottom of the cup! It's good coffee.

And it's good to be back in Asia. Yes, I hate the traffic and not being able to get around on foot. But the people are nice and I feel welcome.