Lombok

How can we tell you how awesome it was and at the same time explain why we felt uncomfortable. We will try.

Sopi was in Gerupuk so we decided to go there as well. Gerupuk is a little village near Kuta Lombok. A small crappy maintained street leads along the beaches to there. Unfortunately the nicer hotels were fully booked so Meli and Caro went to look for a nice place to stay. Walking around in the streets showed how poor this place is. We have never seen so many street dogs in our whole journey as here. The dogs had all rashes and open wounds on their bodies. The kids were playing naked in the waste water. The town was dirty and smelly. The room we were in for a few days was really hot, I think we never had it as hot as there, the whole atmosphere was bad. We tried to get used to it but after a few days we decided to move to a different place.

During our stay there we tried to learn surfing. You could hire a boot, that brings you to the good places, and a board for little money. The first time Meli and Caro joined. We were sailing to the beginner spot, the view from the boat was incredible, you could see the big volcano Rinjani in the distance and we were surrounded by green hills and cliffs. For Caro it was the second time on a surfboard and she fast figured that this spot isn't really the spot to learn surfing, the waves were to harsh and the water was to shallow so you could get easily hurt.

The following days Jeff and Sopi went surfing and Caro and Meli hired a scooter and explored the surrounding.

Meli and I (Caro)woke up in the early morning, when the heat is still bearable, so we could go for a walk in the hills. We were Cruising around for a while looking for a nice hiking spot. As we found one we parked the scooter next to street and went steep uphill. The sun was broiling and already after 200 m we had to stop and turn around. It was just to hot. We decided a scooter trip is nicer, than we have the wind that cools us down. While getting some gas on our way we were asking some locals for a nice view point. One of the guys offered us to bring us to an empty beach surrounded by green hills. They way to the beach was steep and muddy, with a lot of concentration and panicking we made it to the top of one hill. It was a construction area where the guy brought us and he was the supervisor. Meli and I felt a bit uncomfortable there, it was unbelievable hot and the workers had to work really hard for their money. We felt stupid standing next to them and looking dumb. Also the older people were starring and looking angry, because we were in really scanty shorts. (and yes it is offending but we really hadn't waste a thought on that earlier). We fled to another beach, where the women and old of the town were sitting in a bamboo hut near the sand and enjoying the shadow. The kids where playing in the water and as soon as they saw us they wanted to play with us. We played tag and threw them in the water. Giggling and screaming of all the fun. As we packed our things to go back to meet up with the boys, we got invited into the bamboo hut. The women were curious, larking and friendly. 

Islands

Bali

On the way to Bali we stopped in Kl for 2 reasons. 1, renewing our Visa and second shopping for some new wardrobe at the airport. The second reason was hardly possible, you would expect that such a big airport as KL has a lot of shops. But no, its almost empty. At least we got our visas done. We arrived, still looking like homeless people, on Bali and headed to a hotel near Ulu Watu, where Meli, a friend from Austria was already waiting for us. The hotel was luxurious and we felt happy and comfy. The next few days we have to admit we did not do that much, we were just enjoying our room and the conversations with Meli. And of course our first surfing experience on the Padang Padang beach, the hip surfer point on Bali. Surfing is really hard work but great and exciting.


Gili Islands

Beach, sun, crystal clear water and a good atmosphere. That is Gili T, it is one of the 3 islands between Lombok and Bali. Gili T is the biggest but you can round it within 2,5 hours by foot. The tiny islands are free from cars and scooters instead they have horse wagons. Along a stretch of 2 km are hotels and a lot of bars and restaurants. If you ever want to visit paradise come to Gili T. all 3 of us did some diving there and we saw many turtles and beautiful fish schools. One night after having a delicious dinner at one of the restaurants we met Sopi, one of the volunteers of the Cambodian school. We decided to go for some drinks, lucky us it was party night on Gili T. All the dive shops and bars were playing loud music or hired a live band. The vibe was great and we danced and drunk a lot.

Helllooooo Miiiiiisteeeer

With local buses it took us only! 7 hours to cover 120 km. This is mainly because Indonesia doesn't have bus stops and the buses have no aisle in the middle. So in every little village with about 10 houses it stops 5 times where everyone has to get out of the bus and the new passenger climbs in all the way in the back before the driver continues the journey for another 50 m where the ritual repeats.

But our destination, Bukit Lawang, was worth it. This small village located on the riverbed of a fast flowing river looks right into the jungle. The other side of the river houses primary forests with one of the highest densities of orangutans in the world. The reason we came.

As we arrived in the little town we came a long a phenomenon that we have heard before in another Asian country, Cambodia. Every single local person is greeting us with HELLOOO MIIISTEEER, hooow are you tooodaaay and a big smile. They do not make a difference between gender, everyone is just simply a Mister. We love this kind of welcoming.

We hired a guide and went for a jungle trek to see the apes. We were stunned. Saw like 20 of these beautiful creatures which are so human-like. You could see the difference in their characters like shy, curious and naughty. Some of them came as close as 2 meters to check out.

One of the babies was a curious little thing. Caro was swinging on a liana, the little one came closer to check out what she was doing. He decided that it looks like fun and wants to try it out. He firmly hold the swinging liana and was making giggling noises as Caro swung faster. Both of them had a big lol and did not want to stop. Caro changed her mind as soon as the guide told that orangutans like to give humans warm showers.

Although the orangutans were the highlight of the trek. The Thomas leaf monkeys, gibbons and long tail macaques also deserve to be mentioned here. And a bit smaller but (one of) the largest in their kind 4-5 cm long ants were also impressive.

After the whole day hiking, using the river to get back was a welcome refreshment. Rafting like they call it with truck inner tubes was perfect. 

Volcano, clouds and a strong old lady

A few weeks ago a volcano on Sumatra erupted and 11 people died. They made a danger zone of 10 km, where you are prohibited to enter. A lot of people told us that it is save to go to one of the villages near the danger zone. After hearing from several people that it will be fine to stay in the neighborhood, we went to Berestagi. The first night our host took as near the danger zone, so we could see the volcano from a distance. Unfortunately it was cloudy and we couldn't see that much. Once in a while, after a growling sound, we could see some red lava glowing up through the fog. The sound was impressive though.

The next morning Caro woke up with bad back and stomach pain. She crawled from the bedroom to the dining room of our host to get some tea and painkillers. As soon as they saw that she was not feeling so well, our hosts tried everything to help her. She got some weird and strong smelling tea but they swore that this is the best thing you can get, it cures everything. Our host let an old lady come to give Caro a healing massage. As the lady arrived they put a blanked on the kitchen floor, heated up the oven and commanded Caro to get undressed and lay down. All really weird but we thought why not.. if it helps. They heated some banana leafs on the stove and put some oil on them. As the leafs were hot enough they put them on Caros back. After the hot banana leaf treatment the granny started to massage. Caro was hoping for some relief, but it was not granted her. Without pity and really strong hands Caro got kneaded. Screaming, crying nothing helped, they were so unperturbed by Caros begging that our host did not even stop with cooking meals. They promised her countless times that all the knots have to be released and then she will fell like newborn. 1000 felt hours later the torture stopped and Caro could go back to her bed. Trying to sleep and forget.

The next few days were so cloudy we couldn't really check the highlights of the area. Berestagi, the city we stayed is not the most beautiful one but with only gray tones from the clouds it was just depressing. Time to move on!

 

The biggest volcanic lake

Medan would become our hub. We took a local bus from there to lake Toba, central Sumatra. Local buses in Indonesia is a new experience. They are cheap as chips but so small. The chairs are half the size as we have it in Europe, they squeeze as many people in as possible and hardly no one smokes. The lake itself is actually a super volcano creator filled with water. In the middle of it is an island called Samosir. We checked for a place to stay at a village called Tuktuk. We found an awesome spot, next to the water front that rents bungalows. We got a basic one for less than 4 Euros. At this place were a lot of travelers and in the evenings we were sitting all around a campfire and BBQed our food. We have to say that we had the best fish ever at this place. The whole atmosphere was fantastic.

One day we rented a scooter and tried to go around the island, which are approx. 130 km. We underestimated the distance a bit in according to the quality of the roads and in the end we were totally exhausted. On our way we visited the must see from the island, the stone chairs from the Batak people. A few hundred years ago they offered people at this spot, it has a mystic vibe. Along the way around the island, we also saw some spectacular graves, churches and the traditional Batak houses. The last few km we had to go up in the mountains, it was freezing cold and we were only wearing shorts. The view was awesome, on one side you had the lake and you could see the shore with its volcanic hills and on the other side there were steep valleys down the mountains, in the middle there were terrace rice fields. We liked it so much at lake Toba that we stayed 5 days longer than we intended to.

Sumatra, Indonesia

Our Indonesia adventure started in Medan, Sumatra. After reading the Lonely Planet we expected the worse but for us it was actually like arriving back in Asia. The Asia we experienced the beginning of our trip. Medan is definitely not the most beautiful city of them all but its charm are the people and numbers of crappy food stands with basic but delicious food. It wouldn't be our last stop in Medan.

We took a flight to Banda Aceh in the north of Sumatra to make our way to Pulau Weh. This island is a small paradise for divers. We took some Indonesian motion sickness pills before we started the 3 hour ferry journey. The ferry was an old and rusty ship that was definitely overloaded but before we could really worry about it the pills started to kick in and we both fell asleep. The pills turned out to be way stronger than we needed. We woke up in the harbor and the rest of the day we were terribly tired and walking around like zombies.

We got a a tuktuk to one of the diving resorts, unfortunately it was fully booked, so we checked-in in one of the bungalows next to it. What turned out to be a good decision, it was cheap as chips. The beach was of course beautiful, and a favorite for locals. There were only a few restaurants, but the food they serve was delicious. We did some dives there and it was unbelievable. The water was so clear, and so rich on fish. We saw some large tunas in the blue, an octopus hiding between stones, fabulous corals. It felt like swimming in a aquarium.

We went back to Banda Aceh to catch our flight to Medan. (don't underestimate the size of Indonesia, it's huge) Banda Aceh is also one of the cities where the Tsunami in 2004 had a really big impact. We read stories from locals survivors where they were telling their experience about it. near Banada Aceh are also two mass graves and a monument, a big fishing boat on the top of a house. The city is almost completely rebuilt, thousands of houses were newly built within months and streets were new planned and built. All of this gives the city a vibe that you can't put in words.

The big cities

It was getting closer to Chinese new year so we headed for Kuala Lumpur, which is known to have a big Chinese community, hoping to see some fireworks. By the time we made it to China town we one only saw a handful of Chinese. There were Chinese signs everywhere so it was clear we were in the right place but all restaurants and shops were closed and no Chinese. It turned out (almost) all Chinese leave the city to celebrate year of the horse with their family and friends in more quiet places. China town is closed for 2 weeks and we booked a room in this deserted place. Maybe doing a bit of research sometimes has it's benefits. But we didn't, so; no party, no fireworks, no delicious Chinese food but a good time.

KL is a modern city with metro, monorail and lots of skyscrapers. With the most famous being the Petronas towers. The two round towers over 500 m tall which are halfway connected by a sky bridge. They are on every picture of KL and probably the first thing you think about when you here the city name. 

Standing on the foot of the towers is amazing. It's an awesome view. We like!!

On the bottom of the towers is the most luxurious mall we've ever seen with brand shops of stuff we can't effort. Here we found the wealthy part of the missing Chinese community. After spending some time between chic shops we wanted to get more of this vibe. We found a sky bar at a 5 Star hotel near the towers. As we reached the top we were speechless, it had a swimming pool and a superb view over the city.

From KL we went straight to Singapore by bus. After a few hours drive, our bus driver just kicked us out in the middle of the city. We had no idea where we were, looking around for a street sign or a metro sign and then we run into a Subway restaurant It is unbelievable how excited we could get for a proper bread with cheese and ham. After the best sandwich in months we stopped a taxi to bring us to the hostel we had booked. As we were cruising through the city we realized how clean and organized Singapore is. We think we have never seen such a clean Asian city before. Also the hostel we stayed was super clean and modern. They even had waterfall showers! Next to the hostel there were some food courts, serving mostly Chinese food. Caro was so happy to get her favorite soup again, WanTan soup.

After a comfy night in our hostel we went to the famous Singapore zoo. It took us almost 2 hours to go there because the city is just huge. We don't have to tell you what we did in the zoo, it is pretty obvious  ;). After walking around for hours we almost reached the exit, one of the last “attractions” was the leopard. As we passed by, a big stork fell out of the tree directly in front of the leopard. The predator was so surprised that it just looked weird while the stork had probably the most exciting minute of his life. The animals looked each other in the eyes when the stork spread it's wings to defend itself. The moment the puma started the attack, the bird, who still looked disorientated, was barely fast enough to fly away.

During an evening walk through the city, we found out you can cross Singapore via its 1 mio malls, not seeing the outside of the buildings. We exited the mall-infrastructure an were suddenly standing on a river front. A long the river were lots of beautifully decorated restaurants. We walked for awhile next to the river, till we reached a big square. Due to the Chinese new year everything was decorated with a lot of giant Buddhas. In the middle was a stage where kids were dancing a ballet. In Singapore they also have the highest Ferris wheel in the world. Of course we had to try it. It was pretty expensive but it was worth it, the view over the skyline was stunning.