Awesome and overwhelming Java

Dear family and friends,

OMG the last week I have seen and experienced so many awesome things!! I am sorry, but this blog will probably seem like a book haha…. Even though I tried to make it less… Hope you will still be happy to read it!

Sunday the 24th of June I flew to Yogyakarta, Java in the early early morning. The flight was good. When I arrived at Yogya I ended up taking the local bus to my hostel. That was really exciting. I was so proud haha and it only cost me €0.25. Still I had to walk for 15 minutes to my hostel from the busstation. With my bags… Not really my thing. Since I knew Andrea was also in Yogya, and her hotel was on the way to my hostel, I decided to have a little pause at her hotel haha. So together we had a great breakfast and after that I went to my hostel. I did not book anything yet, but the score on booking.com was 9.6, it was cheap and it looked great as well. Fortunately for me there was still space available in the dorm. The hostel was beautiful, clean, comfortable and it felt like home right away. Even though I was exhausted at that moment, Andrea and I went to the Sultans palace at 11 AM to watch a traditional dance. The Javanese dancing differed not that much from the Balinese dancing, though they were wearing different clothes. In the afternoon we just relaxed at the pool. Later a Dutch friend of Andrea joined us, a great girl called Perla. At night we went for dinner with the three of us at such a cute place where you were able to eat in the garden.

On Monday Andrea and I decided to go tube caving!! The tour operator promised us more then we literally got in the end, but still it was a nice experience. To go into the tubes we had to climb down a little bit. The tourguide asked us to jump down into the water from the rocks. I thought it was a joke, but apparently he really meant it! So… even though it was so scary and my legs were literally shaking, I jumped down from a couple of meters high haha. Then we got into the tubes and the tourguides led us through the caves with a lot of bats inside. We also had some time to swim. It was a very relaxing noon. In the afternoon Andrea and I went to a travel agency to make our plans for the next days. My schedule turned out to be quiet busy, with a lot of lack of sleeping, but it was totally worth it for sure. That night I met some really nice people at the hostel, who turned out to be my travel mates for a couple of days.

On Tuesday I had to wake up at 5:30. The owner of Andrea’s hotel would take us for his weekly walk through Yogya. Thanks to him I was able to actually see something of the city despite my busy schedule. We walked for 1.5 hour, following the river and a lot of poor neighborhoods. It was nice to see though. After 1.5 hour we ended up at a five star hotel, where we had the best breakfast ever: buffet. Such a nice reward after our long walk haha. When we got back to our hotel, I joined a girl to a school she “works” at. It is a Dutch school for Indonesian children with one Dutch parent. So they only speak Dutch all the time. It was really nice to see the school and hear the children speaking Dutch all the time. So cute!! When I got back at the hostel around noon I was really tired. Somehow I ended up talking to Ari for two hours, a staff member. I joined him sitting behind the reception desk and when a couple came inside to ask something they actually thought I was working there. It was really funny since I could actually answer their questions haha. So…. If my life does not work out as planned I can always work at a touroperator at Bali. When Sanne and Maria, my roommates, came back, Ari took us to the center for some coffee and early dinner. We laughed so much! However, Sanne and I went to bed early because….

At Wednesday we had to wake up at 3:30. We were planning to go to the two famous temples Borobudur and Prambanan. I really wanted to go there badly already, they were on my bucketlist. First we went to a view point, to see the sun rise behind Borobudur. It was not that spectacular because it was cloudy, and just when we went down again the sun came through the clouds. So we kind of missed it. After that we went to Borobudur, the world’s largest Buddhist temple. It was so beautiful! Unfortunately there were a lot of Indonesian children who asked to make a picture with us (white people omg!) every second…. So they actually thought we were way more interesting than the temple itself. It kind of ruined my experience of the temple. However the temple really was a beauty. After this temple we went to Prambanan, the biggest Hindu temple in Indonesia, characterized by its tall and pointed architecture. We were there at the hottest time of the day unfortunately, so we didn’t feel like going around a lot. When we got back into our hostel, Sanne and I moved to a big family room. We both had to extend (since we were both leaving the next morning to the east of Java) and did not book yet for the last night. The dorm was full, so they offered us for a cheap cheap price an awesome room. We felt like we were in heaven for one night!! That night we went for a goodbye dinner with all of our new and old friends. In the restaurant I found carpaccio (my favourite!) on the menu, never saw it before in the seven weeks, so I had to try it. And it was delicious!!

On Thursday Sanne, Gernot (our German friend) and I left at 8AM for our three days trip. We would go to two volcanos in two days. The volcanos were also both on my bucketlist, so I was happy that I managed to do both!! So the trip to a city near the first volcano, Bromo, took us a 14 hrs drive in total. However, the minivan was comfortable and the time flew by. That night we stayed in a hotel, a really small room. Sanne and I shared a room since it would spare us some money. So, this day was not that interesting haha.

The next day, Friday, we had to wake up at 3AM to go to Bromo. First we went by jeep to a viewpoint again, to see the sunrise. It was very crowded, but we passed the gates and found a little spot where it was less crowded. The sunrise and view were beautiful! After this the jeep brought us to the beginning of Bromo itself. We had to walk twenty minutes before we were totally up. It was awesome though! The volcano lies with two other vulcanos in a vast plain called the “Sea of sand’, which is 8 by 10 kilometers! The volcano last exploded in 2004 and is still active. After we had our time at the volcano, it was only 8 AM, we went back to the hotel to clean ourselves and then continue to the next mountain. This ride took us a couple of hours in total, so we arrived around 5 PM. We were all so tired! Sanne and I went to bed at 8PM (yes mam, really haha) because….

The next morning we woke up at 1:30AM! The minivan brought us to Mountain Ijen. This is for real the prettiest thing I have ever seen!!! Ijen is a volcano, which has a one kilometer wide turquoise-colored acid crater lake inside it… First we had to walk all the way up for 1.5 hour. This was really heavy since we didn’t have breakfast yet and a big lack of sleep. When we were finally up, we had to go down again, into the crater to hunt the blue fire! There were many people (or lights haha, you could only see the little lights) and many guides. But still it was sometimes a little scary and we had to be really careful. A couple of months ago somebody died there, but he was going down without a guide… Anyway everything went well and when we got down we saw the blue fire! The blue fire is ignited sulphuric gas, which emerges from cracks at temperatures up to 600 degrees Celsius! The flames can be up to 5 meters high, some of the gas condenses to liquid and is still ignited. Even though we had a gasmasker, it was no fun standing in the gas sometimes (because of the wind). However, it was so awesome!! So when we went a little more down from the flames, Gernot and I ended up at the lake. We could also touch it, but it was so unbelievable warm. I put my hand in and we made a picture, but afterwards my hand pretty hurted for while haha. It was so dark, we had no idea how big the lake was. So around 5AM (!) Gernot and I decided to climb up again, before the sun actually rose up. When we were almost there (though I thought we were just halfway), we decided to just sit there on one of the rocks and enjoy the sunrise. It was so awesome, because first we didn’t see anything but the lights. Then a little part of the lake, but we thought it was a small lake. Then the sun rose and it turned out to be so big, blue and beautiful! After we sat there for a while and Sanne joined us again, we went up and decided to go up higher and walk around the volcano. It was pretty cool, because up high there were a lot of plants all of the sudden. After a 20 minutes walk, we found this perfect spot where we could sit at the edge of the volcano (with the lake beneath us), without being really unsafe. So we just sat there for 20 minutes, listening to the quietness of the nature around us, no sounds, only little birds singing there morning songs. And of course… throwing down some rocks and twigs. When we decided to walk back, we noticed that we really late. We had 40min left and it would take us at least one hour to get totally down. However, even though it started to rain, we kind of ran down the whole edge of the volcano and the whole mountain- heavy though. We ended up being only 15 minutes “too late”. After we came down the minivan brought us to the harbor in the east, which was only one hour away, from where the boat to Bali went. Even though my original flight was from Jakarta, this is the reason I decided to go to Bali again. It was so close and would safe me a lot of time. So with our whole travelgroup we took the ferry to Bali, which cost only €0.47. So cheap! Then we all split up, I decided to go to Lovina beach. I didn’t go there yet and I just wanted to chill and do… NOTHING AT ALL (haha Rona). So I decided to spoil myself and book this great, huge room in a guest house with swimmingpool. For Bali standards it was expensive, but for Dutch standards it was totally fine of course. So the last days I literally just tanned and swam a lot in the pool. The first day I was back I actually slept all day, I didn’t feel well. Probably also because of the sulfur…. Oh and even though all my clothes are washed, they still smell to sulfur….. 

At this moment I am waiting on the airport of Bali to go to Singapore. I am so excited to go there and mostly…. SHOP! Who would figure that haha (normally I don’t like shopping). I will fly with KLM now, I am so happy! I ended up buying this whole new retourticket since it was cheaper than buying a new one to Jakarta and one back to Bali. Yes I am going back Bali again!! Since I felt so comfortable being in Ubud, I have been really busy trying to arrange an internship at GL the last weeks. And it worked out!! From next Monday I will be staying there for two more months! I will get a bed and food in exchange for a lot of help. I am so happy!!!

Finally, the last weeks I came to this conclusion: I am not a backpacker, but more a backsettler type of person. With my bag on my back, I like to settle at one place for a longer time haha. So that’s what I am going to do! So that was the latest update! Thank you for reading, I am sorry it took a little long. I will keep you posted!

Love, Lisa