Bromo & a lot of sitting on buses which would eventually bring us to Bali

In Yogya we signed up for through-transport to the island of Bali.

The plan was that a day bus ride would bring us to our overnight stop outside of Probolingo where we would spend the night in order to do a pre-dawn climb to the peak of Mt. Bromo, a slightly-active volcano set, along with two other peaks, in the middle of a crater which is sunk in the middle of a high plateau. Dramatic, no? After our hike and breakfast, we'd put in another day of bus-time, take the ferry to Bali, and get on one more bus for transfer to Lovina, on the Northern coast of the island. All the logistics were supposedly taken care of so it was to be an easy plan, if hard on the ass.

Bromo was absolutely amazing. The rest of the trip, less so.

Day one involved 10 hours in a mini-van, but we had some room to stretch out a bit, and the day passed surprisingly quickly. We arrived late at our hostel where we grabbed a bite to eat before crashing in preparation for our 4am wake up. The next day we met up with 3 Dutch companions and set out at 4:30 am in the freezing dark. Ben and I had strong flashlights with us (thanks Mr. Blair!), but that was it, and there were no other lights as we headed down into the crater. That was the easy part though, because we could follow the road down. Once we got to the crater, we were told that there were some white stones which we could follow for an easy 20 minute stroll to the base of Bromo where we would find a staircase leading us to the rim of the volcano. Well, let's just say that we never found those white stones, but we did end up on a fantastic hike winding through an ancient lava field and straight up to the highest part of Bromo's rim, racing the sunrise the whole time. Check it out: After a shower and breakfast, we got back on the bus which took us from the heights of the plateau back down to Probolingo where we sat around for awhile before another van, much more crowded this time, picked us up around 11. Less than an hour in, a young Dutch guy and a young Indonesian guy who worked for the tour company almost came to blows because the Dutch guy didn't think he should have to share his seat; this was his first trip in Asia.We had a very tense 10 minutes which included a small civil-war between the 6 Dutch in the car who disagreed on who was at fault, and a very worried driver finally getting the Indonesian kid to take off before things got worse. Ben and I just tried to keep our heads down. Eventually we took off again, but had to take detours because of political rallies filling some of the towns on the way to the coast. FINALLY we made it around 7, only to find out that in fact it was "too late" and our bus on the otherside of the ferry, in Bali, was no longer available to us. The tour company eventually bought us each a ferry ticket, and wished us good luck.

On arrival in Bali, we searched for a bus to Lovina but the public buses had stopped running. Conveniently, a private van was waiting where the public buses *should* be for any travellers stragling in late... Luckily there were 7 of us to negotiate a somewhat decent price to charter the van, and we set off for a final 2 hour ride which would finally bring us to Lovina. The van dropped us off here:Our first horrified response was that we couldn't afford the place, but the owner found us some decent $8 rooms around the back and we settled in for a few days of luxury.

Yogyakarta & Borobadur: Indonesia wins the place-name game

From Jakarta we took an overnight train ride in which I got more sleep than Ben, and that's just because I lay down on the floor, and that's still not saying much. Once in Yogya (pronounced jogja), it took us awhile to find a cheap room, after which we promptly went back to sleep for a few more hours before preparing to explore the town, famous as a "culture center" of Java. Our exploration plans were foiled, however, by a rainy afternoon and evening which pinned us in our corner of the city. We had good company, though, in the form of Bart and Sabine, a Belgian couple who we met up with again in Malaysia a few weeks later.

Due to a very tight schedule in Indonesia -- we were racing through Java in order to squeeze in a taste of Malaysia before our flight to India -- we didn't end up seeing much of the town itself, but we were lucky in that the rain let up enough for us to spend a day at Borobadur, the real reason we'd come to Yogya. Borobadur is up there with the buildings of Angkor in terms of historical importance and archaelogical tradition. It is the biggest stupa in the world, like a mammoth stone wedding cake with Buddhas on top and intricate carvings of stories and people and places and customs ringing each of the layers. The building was amazing -- we were worried that Angkor would have left us jaded, but we loved climbing around the building and were drawn in by one detailed carving after another.For more shots of Borobadur (and the rest of our Indonesia leg, if you're too antsy to wait for the blog to catch up), go here.

Entering Indonesia, or We Survive Jakarta

We touched down in Jakarta, Indonesia around midnight, and didn't make it out of the airport til at least 1am. This was of some concern to us as a few ex-pats contributing to online travel forums had some safety tips including 1) do not walk around after dark and 2) only take bluebird or silverbird taxis... or else your taxi driver just may possibly violently rob you. We were slightly on edge when we walked out of the airport.

The first guy who approached us had a Bluebird Taxi Group badge. Lovely, we thought. We followed him as far as the unmarked, un-metered sedan he wanted us to toss our bags into before realizing that everyone out there had a bluebird or silverbird taxi badge, and they were all fake. I turned tail, and Ben had a hairy moment with about 10 guys shouting at him that we'd made a "verbal agreement" (we hadn't) before he too made it back to the relative safety of the airport portico. Eventually finding a real taxi, we went to the single street of budget hostels, aware that it was a shabby part of town but hoping we could find a room without too much difficulty -- afterall, it was the low season. Hah.

After asking at at least 6 different places who turned us away, and Ben almost walking into some sort of gang related altercation swirling down the street, we found a wonderful desk clerk who started calling other hotels for us. At this point we were afraid we'd be paying a fortune for whatever place he found us, but eventually the Setiabudhi Hotel came through for $35, a small fortune compared to our usual $3-6 rooms, but worth it for a hot shower, a comfortable bed, A/C, safety & security at 3am.

That kindly desk clerk turned the tables for us, because everyone we met the next day was incredibly nice and helpful. We breezed through the purchase of train tickets thanks to a few of the station staff, and I was able to mail in my ballot thanks to an old taxi driver who helped us locate the Fed-Ex center, and thanks to the program Express Your Vote which whisked my ballot overnight and for FREE back to Virginia. Thank you Fed-Ex!

Jakarta is a gritty, traffic-filled city, with this as it's sole tourist attraction/landmark. Ben, who bore the brunt of the previous night's stress in ushering us to a safe haven, does not think on the city fondly, though I feel like I have a special connection with it since I was able to vote there. We BOTH, however, were very grateful for one of the city's newest residents, Stella, who worked last year with Ben in China, and now works at a private school just outside Jakarta. After our day of running errands around the city, she came in and swept us out to the subburbs where we had a fabulous Indonesian meal and spent a very special evening with her and her friend Santiago, comic genius and host extraordinare.

Some other things we did in Thailand...

1) After Pai, we went back to Chiang Mai and successfully picked up our India visas, woohoo!

2) Took a rather unhappy overnight bus ride resulting in us sleeping for 6 hours upon arrival in Bangkok.

3) Were overwhelmed by Bangkok's enormous MBK shopping center.

4) Spent several hours on a bus in Bangkok traffic.

5) Visited the very cool grand-palace.--> For more shots of the grand palace and some other odds and ends from our 2 weeks in Thailand, go here.

6) Had some street food and drink and were repeatedly blessed by the little monk standing on the upper-right.

7) Boarded a flight to Jakarta, Indonesia.

Pai aka Where We Had Some Big Adventures

Ohhh Pai, where aged American hippies go to marry beautiful Thai tribeswomen and live among the lush highlands of northern Thailand while obsessively reading conspiracy theory websites. Also where we tapped such aged hippie-resources for cheap rooms in the upstairs of a home, and bagels and creamcheese each morning for breakfast. Also where we did a great trek into the hills, and took our lives into our hands by joining the hordes and renting motor-bikes. Read on.

IN WHICH WE GO ON A TREK
Along with our rather solitary leader, Mr. Toil (really), we set out early on a public bus headed for a large hill-tribe village where we'd start our hike. In order to experience the countryside more fully, we were led off the road and through some paddies to a junglish hill which we slogged up and over. On the other side of the hill there was the corn patch where Ben got lost for half an hour. Needless to say, his version of this story differs from the rest of ours, but we can all agree that our little group was mysteriously separated in the surprisingly labyrinth-like field for a significant period of time.After we'd all successfully negotiated the corn patch, we waded through streams, beat down brush, wound our way through a bamboo forest, and hiked small dirt paths. I got 3 leeches.
That night we had a bonfire and drank tea and learned from Toil about the political apathy and almost wholly agricultural lives of most hill-tribe villagers. He also told us though, that for the first time, the hill-tribes have food for at least a year and improved connections to the outside world. This was our home for the night.We also watched the most perfect and brilliantly bright full moon that I have ever seen light the sky as it rose above the trees.

The next day, we did some serious up-hill hiking and re-prised much of the day before, arriving at last in the sun-drenched village where it had all begun the day before. We hitched a ride home from some friendly military folks in a pick-up.
IN WHICH WE TOOL AROUND ON MOTORBIKES and feel like badasses... We're still alive, and we have no tell-tale burns or bandages the way half the other foreigners wandering around town did. We spent two days scooting around the area with Ben and Pierce manfully steering us out to waterfalls and hot springs, around elephants, etc. The countryside was just beautiful and we had perfect cruising weather.

Chiang Mai

In Chiang Mai we met back up with Pierce and Hannah, which entailed a lot of poker while we waited for Monday to arrive so we could go to the consulate and apply for our Indian visas.

Border Crossing: Laos to Thailand

Here were our options to get from Luang Prabang, in northern Laos, to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, just a wee distance apart on the map.

1) Fast boat + bus = a speedboat which is liable to disintegrate on contact with Mekong River debris and is so dangerous that it may soon be outlawed to foreigners (1 day) + border checkpoint and 2 buses (1 day)

2) Slow boat + bus = 100 foreigners packed onto hard wooden benches for 10 hours one day, and 7 hours the next day to reach the border (2 days) + border checkpoint and 2 buses (1 day)

3) Bus + bus = 17 hours of windy, muddy, pot-holed roads in Laos to get to the border (1-2 days) + border checkpoint and 2 buses (1 day)

4) Plane = 1 hour

We like to consider ourselves intrepid travelers, but we were staring down the barrel of one month and three countries left in SE Asia... we took the plane.

Luang Prabang

First off, Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world heritage site, mostly, as far as I can tell, because of the number of wats and monks. The town is filled with these wats (small monastery/temples) where monks of all ages go about there daily lives. Around 6am each morning the monks process to receive food offerings from locals and, increasingly, tourists who are sometimes bused in just for the show, and line up in droves with cameras on tripods to capture it. I had been pushing for us to get up and see the procession, but we found ourselves embarrassed to be among the other tourists, and decided to refrain from taking photos and take a quiet stroll instead.

We had great company while in Luang Prabang, including friends from southern Laos and an Irish couple who had spent 6 months in India and were on their way to China; we exchanged lots of stories and tips. One of the quirks of Luang Prabang is that the whole town closes up at 11pm except a Chinese run bowling alley on the outskirts of the area. One night, after a lovely evening of drinks by the river and all-you-can-fit-on-your-plate vegetarian food for $.60, we piled into a tuk-tuk and bowled the night away. The 3 Americans far out-bowled the Cambodian, the Belgian, and the 2 Irish. In case you were wondering.

While we enjoyed an afternoon cycling around town, and evenings of fantastic street food, our favorite day took us out of town to the Kuang Si waterfall, hands down the best I've ever been to! On our way in, we stopped by the moon bear preserve where several rescued bears, captured when babies to harvest their bile for "medicine", were living out their lives in peace. They're called Moon Bears for the distinctive half-moon shaped swoop of white marking their chests.

The waterfall itself was super dramatic.


Walking up to it, we passed some beautiful smaller pools, and once at the top we were able to hike up around the side where we found a wooden staircase which went straight up through some cascades to reach the top of the mountain.
Back in town, we climbed Phu Si hill on our last evening in order to catch the sunset and the lovely views over the whole area.