Munduk

We started seeing some nice scenery and our expectations grew high. We reached Munduk fairly early, considering the lack of directions and the condition of the up/down potholed roads. Found the first guesthouse with a window covering the whole wall, with a beautiful flower filled balcony, right on the edge on a huge valley with 2 mountains on the side. I couldn't stop smiling, which made price negotiations a little bit difficult :) I think every time I looked at the scenery, I was smiling, and I was waking up with a smile. How the nature could be so beautiful, and how do the tourists overlook it, is beyond my comprehension.
In the morning we went for a short waterfall hike, then we met some (probably the only) tourists on the way who had a map, and followed them down down to another waterfall. I was very worried for our hike back up, considering how much down we went and our lack of water, since we thought that we'll only go to 1 waterfall, but luckily the path went out straight to the road and we only had to walk steep 3 kms up it :S Considering my interest in walking uphill, I stopped the first local on a scooter, and asked him to give me a ride to the parking lot, I waved Kostya hello on the back of the bike, and then went back to rescue him :)
No more hikes for today, I'm tired. Instead we drove to botanical gardens which is a branch of botanical gardens in Bogor to which I couldn't get to for 2 day from Jakarta. We stopped at a beautiful view point of two lakes where I had a yummy lunch and looked in amazement at an Indonesian girl having her lunch facing the road and not the valley with the lakes. Botanical gardens were beautiful, big, green, organised, spotless, with no motorbikes allowed, no people, we almost had it all for ourselves. Too bad it's the rainy season and most of the flowers don't bloom.
I went to an important temple which was kinda boring and then it started to rain. I was all wet, I was cold, but I guess I'm used to it. Then as suddenly as it started, it stopped, and we stopped at the 2 lakes viewpoint again to enjoy the view of the angry clouds hovering above them.

https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/Munduk

Batur & Lavina

We bought fruits on the way, as always Kostya bargains Russian style. LP says that guides could be a nuisance, and that tourists are ripped off. I'm never worried about it when I'm with him, he won't allow himself to be ripped off not for a penny. Arrived at yet another volcano, Botur. What a beautiful viewpoint! The craters are inside a larger crater with a blue lake on the side. We absorbed the setting at a cliff restaurant where even there Kostya took off 50% off the price for tea. Then we watched a local girl pray to a statue while decorating it with flowers, and drove down the crater walls into the heart of the volcano.
For the volcano trek, we took the price down to $30 for 2 people, and met a couple who will pay $45 each! But even $30 for 2 is a lot, so we'll do it in the morning on our own.
We got lost! the directions don't make any sense, there are no roads which exist on the map and nobody to ask for help cause nobody speaks any English. We drove a huge circle around the volcano, and came back. On the way I came face to face again with normal Russian rudeness, and I'm feeling like enough is enough. Why should I be in a bad mood on a volcano?
Stopped at a beach town - Lavina, for a night cap. What a nice little place. It wouldn't be nice to come here specifically, but for a random night cap, it's quite a place. On the way we stopped at a local warung to have rice with veggies and chicken. A huge plate cost $1. The owner was very happy to welcome us, took our picture and shook our hand. It's almost always a pleasant surprise to eat with local people, though you usually can't get anything more than fried rice or fried noodles. Lavina, a backpacker corner in the middle of local north coast. Very lovely guest houses, big, clean, green, swimming pool, cheap, great! And our guest house looked like it was built in a fairytale. Black sand beach, cute restaurants offering fresh sea food to the sound of life acoustic guitar.
I signed up for LP recommended diving site, I thought to skip it because it's expensive, 125 euros, but after a complete lack of interest from my side to his "best" and "only for me" prices, I agreed to go for $60 for 2 dives, and what do you know, they signed me up. There were only the 2 of us with the guide, everyone else was snorkeling. Unlike Koh Tao where you see more divers than fish, here we had a huge never ending wall all to ourselves. It was a feast for the eyes, though we didn't see any big fish, the amount of varied corals on the wall was very impressive, like a coral forest, I didn't know where to look or what to focus my eyes on. Once I decided to count how many different corals I see in say 2 sq mt and I lost count. Our guide didn't bother us with too many questions. Are you ok? How much air you have? Come here! Stay level! Are you ok?? He just asked us when we descended and left us alone. Usually when you're at 50 bar, it means almost out of air, time to come up. When I reached 50, I asked my buddy how much he has, he also said 50, and then put his index finger to his mouth ... shhhh ... we'll come up when we'll come up. When we came up, I was at 25 bar. The next dive wasn't as impressive as the first, but here I decided to explore everything on my own. I would hover around a coral or a fish in the cave, away from my buddy for a minute or so, then see where they are, swim close to them, and start the rediscovery again. Not very advisable to stay away from your buddy on such depth (advisable distance is about 2 meters) in case of panic or malfunctioning equipment, but I don't know ... I don't feel much in danger.
When I got back to town, I was hoping that Kostya would like to stay another night, but he disliked the owners for some reason and we hopped on the scooter for the mountains.

Sorry for too many sunset pictures :)

https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/BaturLavina

Ubud

And again we rented a bike to do a loop around Bali, mainly to get away from the tourist trap, but not before surrendering our passport for another month visa extension.
There is a lot of police on the way, mainly to stop the poor tourists for road "mistakes" and of course ask for a bribe. I almost convinced Kostya to dress like the Balinese people do: long pants, long sweaters, gloves in the 30 degree weather, just so that the police won't see our skin color... or to do a fake police report for $20 that everything's stolen, including our wallet which contains the international driving license. But unfortunately it was Saturday and this office was closed till Monday, we decided to risk it, rented a bike and off we went to the under-explored, under-visited beautiful Bali, Bali that unfortunately most people skip due to fear, alcoholism, club-ism, shopaholism ... or rather fortunately for people like us that such conditions exist.
The police didn't stop us thank god, but somehow we stopped near the police to look at the map. I quickly flipped to the map of the area and immediately asked them how to get to some temple, to get their mind off the idea of a potential bribe. Then they shook our hands, wished us a great journey, and through clenched teeth I repeated to Kostya quickly "Drive off now, quickly, quickly, start driving!" ... feeeeewf!
Ubud is a cultural town as opposed to the party town of Kuta, and on the arrival we started seeing lots and lots of sculpture, glass, paintings galleries. We stopped at one, but it had so many birds in cages that I felt like I was in a bird prison, I told the owner that I feel uncomfortable being there and we left.
Ubud is beautiful! There are a bunch of temples, gardens, it's super green, galleries, jewelry shops, cheap and amazing cafes with nice decors and unordinary menus. It's so beautiful, so detail oriented, so relaxing, it's amazing.
In the evening we had a smoked salmon salad with rocket, potatoes & capers for $2.50. Then we went to get culturally submerged in a Balinese dance show. It was all fun for 20 minutes, but then I got bored. There were about 70 men sitting in circles chanting and waving their hands, while in the middle some guy chases a beautiful woman with popped out eyes and completely unemotional face in an ever slow motion.
Next morning we went to the monkey forest. I'm officially scared of monkeys! And they're everywhere, alone, in couples, in groups, sleeping, eating, playing ... and who knew that monkeys are excellent divers. They were all chasing each other around a tree, doing back flips into the pool and emerging at another side. It's fun and all, but I'm feeling anxious and all I want to do is get out.
After the park we went for a LP recommended walk around Ubud, into the center of traditional lifestyle. Maybe for a regular traveler it would be interesting, but for us nothing new and nothing special, and way too hot!
A few hours later back in Ubud, I visited 2 museums, but again, left disappointed. Except the view in one, and an old photograph of Bali in another, there was nothing special.
In the evening we bought local wine, chocolate, grapes, nice cheese, sat in our garden porch listening to soft music having the best dinner ever. "Indonesia wouldn't be Indonesia without you" ... both of us say this. So easy when both of us have the same taste in almost everything. Hotels, restaurants, activities, same schedule, same interests, same limits, get off the tourist track desire and get your nose into trouble characteristic :) I think we started fighting less, that's the only problem, sometimes we don't understand each other. Say one thing, mean the other thing and understand something completely different. I think it's the Canada/Russia mentality difference.
We're moving on. We have a long way to go, and unfortunately due to time constraints we only picked half of what we wanted to see. I guess the other side of Bali will have to wait for the next time. Had an easy road to an ancient monument. 10 shrines are carved into rock face, it's ok as a midpoint stop, but nothing too special. A local lady motioned us to "come here" and took us through rice fields to a small waterfall. Lifted her shirt to show her breasts (go swim naked). It was hot, there was no one in site and the nice cool water looked tempting, she moved away a little bit and gave me thumbs up while picking through the bushes to encourage me :)
Next was a temple with holy/magical springs where people get blessed just like in India, and put rice on their foreheads, behind the ears and drink the holy water. It was alright, but the best thing was the ginger coffee that we tried, highly recommended to try at home! And the steep manicured lawn on a hill with a modern house on top which looked cool amid the temple roofs. The holy man was walking and picking through the offering plates, and I see him picking rice, egg, cookies. So good to be a holy man, live a life for free.

https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/Ubud#

Kuta & Nusa Lambongan

We went to the first guest house which comprised of cottages situated in a nice green garden full of palm trees and singing birds seeming to be miles away from the crazy Kuta alley traffic. In the evening went for a super nice restaurant in the most posh part of Kuta - the beachwalk, awesome food, awesome service, decor, location, price. People, start travelling and get the value for your money!
In the morning I decided to do some shopping, spent the whole day and bought nothing. Regular items are low quality, and good items are the same price as in Canada, so might as well buy them there when I'll get a job. I went to a very expensive massage, 75 mins, $30. It was recommended in lp that it got international awards, it's all male stuff and the name is translated to "dancing fingers". It was the best massage ever! So sensual, so good, I never got a massage like that before, the masseuse really understood the body, and definitely knows what women want :) Unfortunately not a lot of men do, and most rub women as though they're rubber dolls. All I know is if he was my type of man, I'd probably jump on him :) The massage was followed by the best shower, with gel, shampoo and conditioner that I wanted to eat!!! Too bad I'm on a budget and can't have that massage every day :(
After having breakfast on our veranda, we rented a scooter and went to better beaches. The beach in Kuta, the most touristic center of Bali, sucks! It's dirty, the sand and water is brown, and there are no views. We drove to a little cute beach, with crystal clear water, small cliff, but there were many people, and it rains all the time, so all the garbage is washed ashore. While driving, it seems that Bali is nothing but temples. There are temples every 50 meters, houses have temples inside, gates are built like temples, there are humongous statues everywhere, and people make offerings every morning. There are plates with flowers on motorbikes, cars, on sidewalks, on everything that's important to you, you put a plate on :) Then we drove to an important temple, the temple itself was alright, but its location is beautiful, right on a high cliff with waves pounding on it. I couldn't stop taking pictures, but I'm sure if mom was there, she wouldn't have been too happy, not that Kostya was happy either :) The temple as any other important temple is full of monkeys, these god damned adorable creatures. Since volunteering with them, they hold a high score on my list of respected animals. I tried to avoid them, while Kostya laughed why I'm so scared of them. That's until one of the alpha monkeys finally jumped on my head and stole my sunglasses. He bit them, angrily grrrr-ed at anybody who tried to take them away. Finally the monkey tamer stole my sun glassed in exchange for a banana and a few bank notes. Now my sunglasses are the most valuable item in my suitcase, with monster bites on them :)
On the way back it started raining. It always rains when we drive a scooter. Maybe if we won't drive a scooter it won't rain?
We don't like Kuta, it's too touristic, too much hussle, and we took a boat to a nearby island of Nusa Lembongan. We thought it would be a sparsely populated island, but when the boat was approaching we were welcomed by bungalow hills instead of tree hills. There isn't a dock for the boat, and they just stopped it near some stone walkway, used a wooden board between the boat and the walkway, and told people to get off in quiet times, when they didn't see the wave coming. Wow, what an exit. There were people on hills with a bunch of suitcases, I got my camera ready for the chance to be in America's funniest home videos show ... but no luck :(
Except the first disappointment, we rented a scooter, found ourselves on an isolated beach with a good restaurant and not another soul nearby. Kostya wanted to stay there, but I told him that I'll kill him out of boredom and we moved to another bungalow which I was eyeing right from our arrival. It's so beautiful, with a flowery garden, our room is on the 2nd floor with a balcony overlooking the garden and the crystal blue water. It's not a beach for swimming, but I feel in heaven. We drove around the island, it's much much bigger than we initially thought. I thought we'll be driving for 10-15 minutes, and we ended up driving for over an hour. That's it, beach time! We ended up on a dream beach. Oh man!! It is dreamy. It's a small, crescent white sand beach, with blue sea and double decker infinity pool. My heart was singing with joy! We finished with a dinner on a 2nd floor restauranat looking at a sunset. The sunsets last very long time in here, about half an hour! And on the rating list of the most beautiful sunsets, Indonesia wins hands down. On the drive back, on every intersection, without us asking, everyone who saw us, stopped and gave us directions. We fell asleep to the sound of geckos, crushing waves and the gentle breathe coming from the ocean.
We rented a kayak and went on our own to the mangrove forest. I took a peddle from Kostya and started to maneuver the kayak through it. Kostya didn't feel relaxed at all. He told me that it's the first time in his life where a woman is doing something physical while he's relaxing. I told him, that if I'll give him to do everything, how will I learn anything? And asked to leave his chauvinistic ideas back in Russia :)
We then went snorkeling to one of the best snorkeling sites on the island. We asked where it is and where pointed straight about 200 meters from the shore ... well that's kind of far. Kostya took the mask, swam about 50 meters, came back and said that there is nothing to see but grass. I took the mask and started kicking. Grass, more grass, seaweed farm, oh, a few star fishes started to pop up. I'm kinda far away from the shore :S Then white dead coral, nothing and more of nothing, suddenly a huge reef appears with colorful corals and too many fish to count even by type. Amazing! Too bad Kostya didn't make it ...

https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/Kuta
https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/NusaLambongan

Bromo & Ijen

We booked a 3 day tour to 2 volcanoes. It's much cheaper than going on our own, and much less headache, no need to change 5 buses and taking twice as long to get there. We got picked up by a big minivan with 12 spaces, and there were only the 2 of us. We put the seats down to sleeping position, we slept, watched pictures, listened to music, I even managed to exercise in there. 11 hours went unnoticeably. When we arrived at an agency, we met 4 more people who came also by a big minivan from the same place as us. Why couldn't they unite? It seems like such a waste of effort, money and gas. Up on the mountain it's so cold, in the evening it was +15, in the morning it would be +5. Went to sleep at 12:30, wake up at 2:50. Too bad, cause it was the most comfortable bed ever with a very high quality of sheets.
Arrived at a lower view point at 4:30, it's dark, it's freezing, and I was dancing to warm up. Our driver suggested the lower view point, and we were only about 20 people, where as on top there were about 1000. The view was beautiful, Bromo volcano is located inside a much larger crater, it's shape and clouds floating around it gives it a magical feeling. We then went to the cater itself, but there were too many tourists, and I wasn't that impressed.
7 more hours in a jeep till the next volcano. In these 7 hours we passed through volcanic landscape, sea, rain forest, jungle, pine forest, views, I can sit in this jeep forever. Arrived at a sweet little village in the middle of a coffee plantation, went to a waterfall and hot springs in the evening. People are so friendly everywhere, in fact I think Indonesia is one of the most interesting countries with the friendliest people, everyone's smiling, laughing, talking to us, and I feel like my soul is flying.
We relaxed in a jacuzzi under a heavy rain. There was another couple in it with a child who kept on playing, mainly diving in and out of water, while they constantly telling him to stop otherwise he'll go sit in the room. Despite many attempts from our side to convince them that he doesn't bother us, he ended up in the room. I don't get it. What's the point of being a child then? I've noticed many parents give unreasonable reasons for their children to behave in public, and I'm not talking when they're lying on the floor, kicking their legs and screaming their lungs out. A child is only a child once, let them be.
Today we actually get to sleep in, the wake up knock on the door came at 3:40! We had breakfast, and drove to the volcano. 1.5 hours up the hill is a good dawn exercise. The views were beautiful again, nearby are 2 active volcanoes blowing smoke into the sky, and to the left is a vast valley ending in an ocean. The crater was very beautiful as well, with a green lake at the bottom, some sort of smoke coming out and hundreds of miners picking yellow sulfur stones, the place looks like an ant farm. They take about 60+ kilos of stones up the crater and down the whole path, making 5 cents/kilo. (60kgs = $3). They work through the night, young and old, breaking their backs, indeed their backs and necks are in weird positions, with probing bones. But they're all smiling and saying hello, I wish I brought cookies to give them. We went down to the lake, and walked around the sulfur fumes. The "all correct" German couple stayed at the top because they've decided that they don't have enough time. ???! Going to the lake and walking along the fumes with all the workers was the best part of all!! Down there, thank god the wind blew in the right direction. The fumes would blow up, and you could literary stand right beside it and breath fresh air in. Half way up, the wind has changed and all the smoke started blowing everywhere. It's an almost vertical 40 minute ascend and we were running up. 3/4 way up, the smoke was all around us, my lungs started to burn and my eyes started to tear up. Lets say it wasn't pleasant. Somebody gave me his hat so that I could breath through it. I have no idea how they work in these conditions. On the way down the path, it got cloudy and all the views have disappeared. Good thing that I took pictures on my way up!
Long way to Bali. Sat at a local bus with no leg space and smashed to the person next to you, people are smoking, there are no windows and I feel like I'm doing a hot yoga class with no benefits. we crossed the waters to Bali on a ferry, and on the other side half of the tourists got off the bus to take a taxi, whole 100kms! That's how hot it was! But when it started moving, it was actually bearable. We got a surprise... the bus stopped 30 kms from the town, although it said the town name on the front! And then it left with my luggage in it cause we didn't know what's going on. It was funny as both of us were looking at the leaving bus and none of us got stressed out. Well ... what can we do now? We found security who contacted the security at the exit gate who stopped the bus. My luggage is safe, and I'm happy that Kostya is not a stressed out maniac. In fact we never, not even once got stressed due to any circumstances. Always thought things through, reacted appropriately and reached a solution calmly.

https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/BromoIjen

North of Java

Kostya and I hired a bike to drive to the unreachable areas of North Java, unreachable both by transport and by tourists. On the way we stopped at the largest Buddhist building in the world, the Barabudur temple. Indonesia would've been so much beautiful if not for the rain season. There were supposed to be mountains and volcanoes all around it, but mostly we saw black clouds and faded mountains in the distance. Nevertheless it was very beautiful with hundreds of Buddhas sitting on all its levels and hiding in bell shaped shades, and the rain never touched us, even though it was raining all around us. That's the problem of the rainy season, we have to budget extra hours for the "rain hiding" time. Sometimes we can't finish everything, at other times we just get soaking wet due to no other options. It's so good that random people sell gas on every corner in here because Kostya's phrase "The more I drive, the more gas I have" gave me some doubts. Apparently some idiot designed a gas meter with full tank sign on the bottom and empty tank sign on the top and it's exactly the kind of scooter Kostya rode before.
We entered the destination on google maps to find a route, and it gave us a straight route. Well that's a lot of zig zags I thought to myself. We ended up hell knows where, bad roads, no roads, people told us to go all the way around. Most of them looking at us like it's the first time they see a white person in their lives, though everyone is very friendly and respectful. A lot of the times I walked while Kostya was struggling on these vertical, rocky roads. Breaks barely work, sometimes it doesn't start, it makes funny noises, it started to rain, it got dark and I'm scared! I was so stressed out that I almost started crying. I told Kostya that I don't care about the route, I want to go down to some passable road. So all these hours going apparently up the volcano went in vein. Yes, now I know better to look at the map and avoid the zig zag roads, and absorbed 2 new lessons in life. 1. The straightest path is not the fastest. 2. If using maps, when a road goes near the volcano, go in the opposite direction!!!
When I couldn't take it anymore, when it got dark and stormy, when it was dangerous to drive and we still had no idea where we are, we decided it was a good idea to look for a hotel. We stopped near a large house that looked like a hotel. It was just a regular house :( But the owner knew perfect English, said that the hotel is 28kms away (1 hour drive), but we can stay in his house for a bit and relax. We happily took his offer, and were even happier to take most of our wet cloths off for a slight chance to dry while we sipped on sugar water with a strong coffee flavour :) The owner barely looked in my direction, but he found a lot of common language with Kostya. I was just happy to relax. Then to our surprise his wife came in and told us to go to the kitchen and have dinner which we had alone(!), and finally they offered us to stay the night, though sleep in separate bedrooms :) I slept with 2 of his girls in 1 bed. It's so strange that the house is very big, they have lots of money, but inside it's so broken down and dirty, it's unbelievable. Must be the social status thing again. It's only supposed to look good on the outside.
Apparently I overslept when Kostya came to wake me up at 6am. Everyone here is Muslim and wakes up at 4am! The girls' school is far far away, and they have to leave 2 hours before it starts anyway. We had breakfast, then couldn't thank them enough and drove on to the Diego plateau. I think the bike from yesterday is really breaking down. It barely works, especially the breaks ... not a very good thing in mountains. We fix them, but they don't take any money from us. Then our front tire got flat, again, they didn't take any money. When we reached the plateau it got flat again. At some repair shop they took the whole tire off, checked for punctures, them put some rubber on it and something hot on top to melt it. Gave us coffee, Kostya got some local weed. The whole thing took half an hour, and they only charged us 50 cents! Life in Indonesia is cheap when you're not a tourist.
Kostya became my husband #2! There is only 1 hotel in town and LP says that they might not take non married couples ... he took my last name, what a gentleman :) We went for a walk, it's so beautiful, terraced fields with vegetables and everybody works on them. It's a volcanic land and you can have 3 harvests in one year! All kids are as always yelling hello, are playing near us, where we go, they go. Boys are loud, yelling, playing, posing, screaming all the English words that they know yes/no/yes/no/cappuccino, you turn your camera on girls and they scream and run away :) Girls are so polite, will approach you with a smile, extend their hand: "It's so nice to meet you miss, where are you from?" People in Indonesia in very remote locations actually speak English, maybe not good English, but still, better than anywhere else so far. Local people are so friendly, as always, the further from city you go, the friendlier the people become. Everything is covered in clouds and it might rain any second, we run away from a place, and it stops raining half a minute later, it's so unpredictable. You can see very heavy rain right in front of you, or all around you, and somehow it will never reach you.
In this town, mosques are everywhere, and every hour if not more often, prayers sound from them all over the town. Imagine you put a note on a fridge saying "be strong"/"today is a good day"/"never give up", and it enters your subconsciousness. What if you hear these prayers all day every day broadcasted around the whole town?
Woke up, had fried rice for breakfast and took the scooter for a ride around town. We missed yet another steaming sulfur crater and took a road that looked the most scenic without any maps or any directions. It rains all the time, and it alters our plans and schedules on an almost hourly basis. We stop at street food stalls, and thank god there are many of those. Who knows how many thousands we already spent on all the tea we buy to warm up and to wait for the rain to stop. We got into heavy traffic coming into town. As always 1 lane turns into 3, and it's ok when bikes/cars/tracks take over from all directions, and it's always a problem when you see a huge pothole and you can't just go around it, you always have to check both mirrors and make a quick decision, but that's ok, what's worse it's when the cars take over from the opposite direction and push you to the side, and the sides of the road are always full of potholes.
I was protecting the most valuable stuff: LP, camera and Kostya's tablet under my waterproof jacket and under a poncho. I felt that the water began to get in from the top and wanted to rearrange the stuff. Suddenly I didn't feel something. I was trying to feel for it here and there and nothing ... oh oh!!! Kostya's tablet is missing!!! :((( I don't know how, but it somehow fell. It was lying nearby right in the middle of the ankle deep flooded road, and with the traffic of course someone managed to go right on it :( No more directions, no more phone, no more videos or contacts, no more nothing :( Kostya I don't know how didn't yell at me, or raised his voice, or said nothing. Instead while I was in a shock with tears on my eyes, he gave me a hug and told me not to worry about it. Needless to say, I felt bad for days! The good thing that came out of it is that we headed on main roads following signs instead of GPS directions which lead us to volcanoes. And we talked to more locals on the way to ask for directions.
Driving the whole day again, even though it's only about 100 kms, feels like forever. Maybe the weather, maybe the roads, maybe the crazy traffic ... probably everything together. Thank god that both of us can drive in this mad house and we take turns to relax, but of course I can never relax when someone else is driving. Arrived at night to our next destination. Some locals helped us find a cheap hotel. It took us a while to ask for the price, and the mighty Lonely Planet came to the rescue again when I flipped to the dictionary and common phrases sections and tried to compose something that would make sense. It also took a while because it was so cheap we couldn't believe it so we tried to make sure that the price is per room and not per person. Everything is cheap when it's not touristic!
5:30 am the alarm clock went on. We couldn't get up no matter how hard we tried. 6:30 we somehow crawled off the bed. We open the door and everyone is already up watching TV. Oh these Muslims!!! They all wake up at 4 in the morning to pray.
Of course when we got to our next site we were an hour too late. We only got a few moderate pictures until the clouds covered all the beautiful views. When we got to the parking lot it started raining heavy. Rain, rain, rain non stop! We gave up on the idea of covering 80 kms that day and stopped midway at Borobudur again. I'm all wet, cold, rather frozen, all bag is wet, my waterproof cloths are not waterproof, but at least we went to the recommended LP guest house which Kostya saw and declared that he's not moving anywhere else. The room is beautiful and huge and it has a balcony overlooking the rice fields. It wasn't too beautiful too long, as it was all covered with our drying cloths.
The guest house was located near a mosque and after evening prayer a question came to my mind which I asked a guy who was working there: I've never heard women saying the prayers over the microphone, why is that? The answer which I got was: "Because it's written in the Koran that men are leaders. It's so funny to me to hear that some women want to be equal to men in other countries, I just don't understand it." I told him that if you were to say that to your wife in Canada it will guarantee you an instant divorce!!
I can't wake up. We know that the weather is only nice in the mornings, but I kept on sleeping till 12 with the "Alah Acbar" howl interrupting my sleep. It's so relaxing on the balcony, we're listening to soft music, drinking tasty tea and enjoying the rice fields and a volcano view ... why go anywhere else?
Somehow checkout out at 1. Went to a pottery village and made a ceramic oil lamp, too bad it takes 2 days for it to dry. Went to the washroom while I was there. OMG! It's so sad that actually now that I've traveled quite a lot I can say that the majority of people live right on the ground with walking food right in their house with no furniture, no proper kitchen, no privacy. The washroom was outside, and the wall which separated the toilet and the outside world was barely higher than my waste with no door to close behind you. Weird ... !
Then we went to a house which produces tofu using traditional methods. We tried it straight out of the boiling oil. It was goooood :)
Again riding the scooter in the rain. But it started pouring like from a bucket right the second when Kostya pulled in for a yet another tea break.
Our guest house was full, and everyone was trying to help us find a hotel with a free room. Then we went for a dinner in a Western restaurant and I must have looked at the menu for half an hour, I want everything!! I ended up having a tomato juice and a pesto pasta. I know that I eat fried noodles everyday, but the sauce makes that much difference! We finished our evening at our favourite doughnut place, hmmmmmmm-ing with every bite :)

https://picasaweb.google.com/100036016632387453128/NorthOfJava

Yogjakarta

The 3 of us continued on to Yogjakarta - Gogja for short. The train left at 8am, and it was my idea to just show up at the train station. No more seats for 8am ... oooops!! Oh well, but at least I had time to catch up on my sleep till the next 4pm train. Not a very good idea to spend pointless days on a 1 month visa. The ride was 9 hours long. Thank god I had an Indonesian woman sitting next to me feeding me everything even though she didn't speak a word of English and for some reason didn't accept anything I offered her. And thank god for the deck of cards that we had with us, and we played a long long game consisting of 32 separate games, where at the end I won!! :)) Well, kind of... it was my turn to deal the last game, and I dealt wrong, even though I realized it before everyone picked up their cards, and according to the rules of the game, you're punished for every little misstep, which I think is wrong! The train staff and service were amazing. They constantly went with a menu, drinks, garbage bags, cleaning halls, cleaning toilets. It would've been a beautiful scenery as well, except that it was raining like crazy.
Arrived at 1am. Went to a big hostel built like a university campus, it fits over 300 people and is fully booked every day. Next day we hired a scooter for a 2 day trip to a temple and a volcano. The agency brought one brand new scooter with 16kms on it, and the other one completely broken down with and a missing right mirror - "No problem" they tell me, "the cops won't mind"!. Maybe the cops don't mind, but I certainly do! We went hell knows where and spent hell knows how much time to find another scooter, and left only at 1pm.
The road there was beautiful, as in the rest of Indonesia. Endless green with palm trees and rice fields. Forget about the rice fields of Thailand/Laos/Cambodia/Vietnam. If you want to see them properly, come to Indonesia! The same could be said about Volcanoes/diving/scenery/culture/oceans ... Indonesia has the best of the best collection of everything!
The entrance to the temple was $4 for locals, $18 for foreigners. Kostya didn't go. Me and Julia fully dressed against the rain waited for it to stop first, tied a sarong around us, took a guide and off went to explore the temple. The temple was beautiful, Indian ... man I missed Indian temples, here India wins hands down, but hey, they have Indian temples in Indonesia as well :) The guide was fun and extravagant. Pretty much he told us about the stories which are engraved in the temple walls. There was also some sort of an elaborate ceremony within the temple grounds with added to the mystical atmosphere. Hundred people all dressed in white with a bunch of bells and whistles chanting and spraying water on themselves and the usual sacrifice of cooked chickens to the gods. I have no idea what they were doing.
On we drove to the volcano.
3:30am wake up for the hike. It's raining outside, and everyone took it as an excuse to continue sleeping. That's until half an hour later when Kostya got up and went to check things out. We ended up jumping from the bed and running to the breakfast room to eat and have our briefing. This rain goes on every morning and usually stops when it's time to go for a hike. Mirapi volcano is 12 years in a row the world's most dangerous volcano. And since our guide is the expert and a member of some volcano society, we'll get to go to a restricted red zone which requires a special permit! We have to climb up rocks holding the tree roots and our grins are up to our ears :)
We watched a sun rise and saw the volcano towering nearby with the smoke circulating around it. The volcano erupted 5 times in the last 13 years causing massive destruction. There are 7 stations monitoring it and 4 levels of signals and evacuation procedures. The last time, the army came in to evacuate people who didn't want to leave their houses. People didn't listen, and army was rough and aggressive, people hid in their houses, the army destroyed the houses and shoved the people in the trucks. Simply said, it wasn't a peaceful procedure. The problem was that beforehand, the lava went only 6 kms from the volcano, but this time the lava went 20 kms from the volcano. Around 300 people died. Our guide was in the town, but far away from the volcano. His wife was in the other city watching the news. With broken communication lines she was worried so much that she ended up in the hospital for 5 days in the intensive care unit. Here you go, what can happen due to stress alone.
By 8am the clouds rolled in ... no more volcano. All the people who came for a day trip from Gogja missed it all.
Throughout all the trip Kostya is being pretty rude to Julia. He doesn't like that she's in some sort of a life changing cult. He lost a friend in it who pretended to be some sort of a Reed product to kill ants and doing an ant eliminating dance .... it didn't work too well ... and now he can't tolerate anyone who went through it. As far as I've heard from Julia, the classes seem like fun, informative that make you learn, understand things, understand yourself better. But Kostya thinks it's more of a brainwashing alteration. I don't know ... seems like all religions are brainwashing, and everybody should do what suits them best. Julia told me about one exercise: after you spend a few days with your group, you have to go through each person and say their name without prior warning to remember their names. If you don't remember their names, you look them in the eyes and say "I don't care enough about you to remember your name"! Kind of tough, many tears, a lot of guilt, but she said that after that she didn't forget not one name after any introduction. The classes teach you to better work in a group, to think of others as well as yourself, open up, become stronger and make some tough life altering decisions. As a side effect, it seems that everyone who goes through the course ends up breaking up with their partners. Google says that over 400,000 people attended that training, there were 30 lawsuits, including death. The participants' memories are changed, they say one thing, but in subconscious mind another thing remains. It's bad for people who are weak are broken down since their mental stability is usually damaged. The point is ... there are many angles to the truth.

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