Belated tales from Indonesia...

Just to tidy up loose ends from the previous post Mike and I ended up back in Kuala Lumpur for three days where we opted not to stay in backpacker central and after traipsing around some more homely hostels found ourselves lodging at Pondok Hotel (nothing to do with being situated above a bar with Guiness draught!) a large building with bare rooms but gigantic, relaxing common rooms and a free breakkie:) It later turned out to also have bedbugs, requiring pesticide spray machines, and rats running about the common rooms... It was a peaceful few days spent pottering around the markets, sorting out the next legs of our differing ventures, exploring the Golden Triangle area (and taking comic "boy" photos of the Twin Towers) and indulging in some western fancies, combining giant plasma coverage of the premiership with proper battered cod and chips washed down by a draught pint and topped off with apple crumble and custard. We parted ways at the train station with Mike taking the shuttle off to the airport while I caught an overnight train to Singapore. The train station at Singapore is little bigger than Sandling and surprisingly unconnected to the airport so I had to wander through the city to find an underground station and take two lines before I arrived. At least this afforded me the briefest of glimpses into the city though my limited observations were confined to the startling obedience to traffic lights in which hordes of people line up politely, almost in formation, on the pavement edge and don't twitch a single muscle until the green man appears. Now bred a Londoner who knows that you will never get anywhere in the city without suicidal forays onto the roads to forcibly halt traffic it was a strange experience. My second observation also derives from the cultural difference between two supercities as after getting lost in finding the underground and then spending another ten minutes trying to locate an attendant who could help me make sense of the ticket machines when I finally did get on the train and prepare myself for the fourteen stops to my destination I was ravenous and tore open the breakfast I had picked up and began devouring it only to realise I was attracting a number of disdainful looks which had nothing to do with my frenzied gobbling but the $500 dollar fine for being caught eating or drinking on their spotless trains... Having not been particularly keen to stay in a city almost expensive as London my fleeting experience of Singapore did nothing to make me rue my decision and I was more than happy to have reached the airport, meet Rich and catch our connecting flight to Bali without any problems. We reached Denpasar later in the afternoon and found ourselves queuing for visas only to realise that I had left half of my stash of dollars in my checked in luggage as part of my security checks and didn't have enough to pay the extremely irritated attendant...it meant losing our place in the huge queue, being escorted out of the visa checkpoints to an atm and withdrawing the Indonesian equivalent before returning and queuing up again. Having eventually passed through we headed straight to Kuta, the intensely touristy part of the island, and managed to find a room at Kedin's Inn which though on the pricey side had the luxury of a bath and a swimming pool and slap up breakfast included in the price. We spent three days in Kuta mainly on the surfer's beach and wandering around the labyrinthical back passages of the Poppies Lanes checking out the cheap shopping. On the first night we headed north up the coast to Legian and ended up in the legendary Engine Room and stumbling out realised we were so lost amongst the maze of alleys that we didn't know how to get by. It's a sad indication of the commercialism of Kuta that we were only able to signpost our location by the McDonalds, Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts outlets though even these weren't enough and to our shame we had to hail down a taxi (the urgency enhanced by being physically accosted by ladyboy prostitutes) and take the poor driver down every alley until we eventually reached Kedin's... Tearing ourselves away from the sun, and hundreds of aggressively minded touts, we booked the cheap Perama bus to the central island highlands determined to do some less touristy and commercial activities. Most people opt to head to the Gurung Volcano but we went even more off-piste and headed to the mountain top village of Munduk. Taking a bus to a tiny village halfway between Kuta and Munduk we found ourselves and bags bundled off and informed there was no way we could reach our destination unless we hired the extortionate private taxi as the roads were too small for the bemos. Reluctanly, we agreed to the rip-off which turned out to be the best option as we plunged down roads cut seemingly on a knife point into the mountains that only a local taxi driver would have dared! We stopped off on a plateau to look at the two giant lakes filling the valley caused by the mountains en route to our beautiful homestay. Run by the softest spoken staff in the world who met us with ice-cold orange squash we were shown to our vast room and taken to lunch on the balcony terrace overlooking the spectacular drop into the mountains. It was so peaceful in contrast to the hustle and bustle of Kuta that we were perfectly content to lounge about the homestay and just soak up the incredible vistas. We did finally stir and explore the little village, gaining looks of consternation from the locals unused to seeing tourists invading their sanctuary which turned into looks of incredulity when eschewing the option of motorbikes decided to walk to the waterfall. This involved an almost sheer vertical climb back up the mountainside which had us drenched in sweat within minutes before leaving the road behind and tumbling into the lush rainforest. Following the little dirt tracks we eventually found one, and fortunately largest, of the four waterfalls and then embarked upon finding the remaining three on the circuit. Sadly our every twist and turn was thwarted by my old travel nemesis...wild dogs!! Once we had to run back up a clifftop to escape two ferocious dogs and on another occasion found ourselves blockaded between two territorial sets of dogs having to wait (a long time) for the arrival of local children passing on the track who beat the dogs away and allowed us to follow in their wake! Sadly this prevented us from finding the other waterfalls or the beautiful paddy fields we could espy from our balcony and so had to settle instead for glorious sunsets drowning in a miasma of golden smoke in the valley. After a few days of retreat it was time to reimmerse ourselves into the tourist scene and we headed south-east to Ubud, the cultural capital of the island. A sprawling town with art galleries everywhere you look and a vibrant cafe-coffee culture it was the perfect way to ease ourselves back into the hustle and bustle of Bali. The transition was made easier by our Hanging Gardens of Babylon hostel, Sania's, which came complete with pagodas, Hindu shrine, swimming pool and a menagerie of pets wandering about the grounds. Every morning we woke up to find a thermos of tea on our verandah and then would sit out and order breakfast. Rich had brought over some squeezy tube marmite from the UK as I had been complaining about withdrawal symptoms so we used to ask for an extra plate of toast with our brekkie to lather the marmite on but became so predictable that on the last day the staff brought out a plate stacked high with toast before we had even asked - was like being at the Ritz! Our first stop was to the Monkey Forest Sanctuary, a sacred forest filled with crumbling temples and now heavily populated by tribes of monkeys protected by the sanctity of their Hindu environment. Turned into a tourist venture you pay a small entrance fee and can wander around the temples clad in the traditional green and yellow sarongs and buy a bunch of bananas to feed the monkeys. However, you have to be extremely quick as the monkeys are well practised in the art of de-bananing and as soon as they espy them emerge from nowhere in there hundreds to swarm you - we saw one girl who was sadly too slow and had her top removed by one particularly laviscious ape. Even when you don't have any food the monkeys still play up to their mischievous tag pouncing on you from the trees and there was one temple ruin accessible only by a stone bridge upon which hid one of the monkeys who waited until you had crossed the bridge then sprung you from behind the pillar and pushed you down the staircase; we had to wait until one unseeing Japanese photographer was being attacked before we could run back across the bridge without being caught!
Our second stop was to go walking along the Campian Ridge and explore the area surrounding the urban centre of the town. This involved trekking through elephant grass that completely submerged me and carving our way through rice fields and remote villages on the very outskirts of the border that revealed a completely different side to the town. On returning to the centre we rewarded ourselves with chocolate cake and library books at my favourite cafe, Rendezvousdous, before heading onto happy hour mojitos and thus undoing all the hard work of our physical exercise.

In fact because of all the culture on offer we had no choice but to gorge ourselves in true Balinese style during our stay in Ubud. Every night there was different live music on in the cafes and bars from ultra cool funk-reggae to karaoke-esque air-guitar rock to rhythm jazz that had everyone dancing. Every other building was some kind of pastry selling cafe so that all we seemed to do was roll from one venue to another snacking on all this incredible food including a superb tapas restaurant that served up all the Balinese delicacies on a deceptively small plate but which were so rich and filling we had to waddle home.

Leaving Ubud provided the complete contrast as we endured the public bus to the coast and then sat on the public ferry to cross to Lombok during which my sea legs completely gave out as our lumbering pile of rust lunged back and forth in the middle of lurching waves that rocked us from one side to another and left me pinned to the deck trying to think about everything but the spinning world around me. A route that takes four hours to do 20km took six and a half hours, with the additional two and a half hours coming sat at the port on the other side queuing to dock at the one ricketty port to the extent that locals row up to the ferries and for astronomical fees offer to whizz you over to land as long as you are willing to jump through the windows onto their boat! We refused, in spite of my need for solid land beneath my feet, and had such sensibility punished as disembarking from the ferry we realised that in spite of all our militant security consciousness we had somehow been fleeced of our wallets and bank cards during the journey by one of the many aggressive touts who had been cornering us on our desks where pinned by our huge backs we were completely at their mercy. Fortunately we had spares hidden away in secret places but spent the evening frantically trying to cancel our cards in the town of Sengiggi which was best comparable to the location in the League of Gentleman and suffice to say as equally unhelpful and unfriendly. Instead of progressing with our trip we were unfortunately confined to Sengiggi for another day as our insurance policy required a police note from the scene of the crime and so we spent all afternoon in the local police station with the one officer who vaguely spoke English running to and from our prison-cell themed hostel in the scorching heat of the day to fetch the various bits of paperwork he kept forgetting to ask us for. To heap insult to injury at the end of this debacle in which the officer had tried his best in his broken English to console us by appearing to be our friend he charged us a "fee" to process the note he had made; completely at his mercy as he had copies of all our documents and fearing we had entered one of those towns where the eradication of our existence would not be blinked at by anyone we reluctantly gave into the bribe and angrily gave up the remaining hard cash we had.

It should have been an indication that we were meant not to leave the joys of Bali behind and that we should have stayed in the land of indulgence rather than trying to be intrepid travellers as things went from bad to worse. Finally escaping Sengiggi we were able to start our trek up Mount Rinjani, a beautiful active volcano that had only recently been reopened to the public and was the sole purpose of our excursion to this island. The trek started well, albeit with difficulty, as we marched for eight hours up the crater ascending 2600metres on the first day. The journey was made lighter by the accompaniment of a Swiss-South African couple who were far more hopelessly prepared for the climb in spite of their brand new sparkling climbing gear and our two shared guides, Adi and Andre, who with the porters cooked all our food and kept us entertained with their anecdotes, clean and filthy....The last hour was really difficult as though only about a 500metre path was covered in volcanic ash that imposed a one step forward two steps backwards style of climbing that had everyone slipping and covered in dust. It was however well worth it as reaching the edge of the rim, above the cloud cover, we camped for the night looking down the crater which afforded a view akin to feeling like you were standing on the periphery of heaven looking down on the world. It was so warm in the evening sun that we all, alongside the twenty or so other trekkers camping for the night, ended up stripping off and lying on the grass soaking up the rays. By the time dinner was ready the wind was picking up and swirling the dust around so that instead of sitting around the campfire we had to retreat into our tents which we didn't mind as we were all exhausted. Unfortunately the worst storm in six years brewed that night and we didn't sleep a wink. The wind was so fierce it ripped two of our walls so that we were protected only by the mosquito mesh on two sides and prevented us from being able to step outside as it bent the poles and flattened the roof against our faces, suffocating us. We could hear each squall brewing up in the valley and then gaining in velocity and sound as it gathered momentum before smashing us perched on the rim. It was all we could do with the weight of two bodies and bags to keep ourselves from being blown over and within an hour or so we were caked in inches of dust blown through the mesh. It got so cold that in spite of three layers of clothes and a sleeping bag we were frozen to the bone. When the storm finally disappeared with the morning sun and we were able to get out of the tent without fear of being blown away we realised that we had in fact been the luckiest in our group; every other tent had had their poles smashed and canvas blown down the crater. No-one had slept and everyone had been petrified. The guides quickly packed up our tents and insisted we headed straight back down rather than continue over the crater edge into the hot springs as we had planned but perhaps because of the sleep-deprived madness we all insisted that being only a few minutes away from the very tip of the volcano that at the very least after everything we had been through we wanted to see the crater lake that was the focus vista of the whole trip. Eventually we persuaded our guides and picking our way through the wreckage climbed the final part of the ascent and were rewarded with an indescribable view of the shimmering blue volcanic lake and the burnt ash cone through which the lava is pummeled as it erupts before we very, very quickly headed back down to lower and safer climates.

Just when we thought we had endured everything that could be thrown at us in the last 48 hours our up until then overly friendly guide told us that there was no refund for the loss of the trip and we were out of pocket for two days budget to compound the bank-cardless state of our finances. That was enough for me and while everyone else swallowed it I called up the manager to complain that while we didn't blame them for the weather neither should we expect to be punished and after much wrangling got him to agree to put us up at a hotel he knew for free for the next couple of days as a partial recompense. While not fully placated it was enough to gain a mere concession and when we arrived at the hotel we realised we were staying at somewhere far more luxurious than we would normally pay for and were receiving what we had lost on the trip in the accomodation and free breakfasts provided which felt like some kind of moral justification.

After all the traumas we spent no time hanging around in Sengiggi and headed straight for the Gili Islands to collapse and lick our wounds. The Gili Islands comprise of three separate land masses, each only a mile or so in length and width, so small that there is no motorised transport, only old-fashioned horse and carts! They are famed for their pristine white sand Robinson Crusoe tropical beaches, turquoise water with reefs for snorkelling and little thatched huts on the beach that ensure you feel as if you have left the real world truly behind. Each one has its own character: Gili Air is the family friendly island with lots of beachside restaurants where you lounge the days away under the cabana thatched roofs eating, drinking and sunbathing; Gili Trawangan (or Gili T ai it's lazily known) is the party island with lots of beachside bars and clubs, where the alcohol is insanely cheaper than the food; Gili Meno is the honeymooners paradise, the smallest, most remote and most untouched. We started off on Air and treated ourselves to the luxury of a two-tiered "bungalow" complete with a daybed and hammock downstairs next to the bathroom and a verandah overlooking the sea upstairs. While our lungs, muscles and minds recovered we did nothing but move from the bungalow to the beach hut to the beach and when it got too hot the water. Eventually we plucked up enough energy to go snorkelling, which for a pound a day was a veritable bargain as the reef only a couple of metres from the shoreline was packed with marine flora and fauna. We spent most of our time hanging out with a hilariously London yuppie couple who helped us sample the many cheap restaurants and when we finally felt young again took the narrow longboat to "hop" across to Gili T. The crossing was derailed by the appearance of a 6ft long seasnake on the jetty which sent the female contingent running while I amongst all the men fought to take the best pictures of the serpent! It was perhaps a symbol of our arrival on Gili T which in many ways was like being back in the Thai party islands in the sense that there wasn't much to do except walk down the main strip and drink through the long, long happy hours. Having geared ourselves up for the first night I ended up devouring a salad with peanut sauce, throwing up in the toilet and being in bed by 9pm...After the peace and beauty of Gili Air it felt a bit marred as we were surrounded by ghastly British property developers, lads-abroad holidayers and gap yearers with more of mummy and daddy's money to frolic with than sense to use it. To be fair it was nice to go out and party and meet lots of people our age and I loved the sunset bar where we watched the sun disappearing behind the volcano at night causing a fantastic silhouette of peak and horizon in a burning orange sky. However we did feel like we were turning into grandpas with our complaining about loud music and all-night partying neighbours so we escaped to the idyllic and remote Gili Meno which was stacked at over-hyped honeymooner prices which meant we could only afford to spend one night (because the islands have no atms or banks you have to take all your money with you before you go and ours was rapidly dwindling...) and so decided to see out our time back at Gili Air where we had so enjoyed ourselves. Due to the dwindling finances it was a downgrade to just the one floor cabin though by then we had sussed out the cheapest eateries and gave up nights of table dancing to make the most of the free DVD booths with dinner, eat Devil's Rings doughnuts stuffed with Bailey's ice-cream on the island peninsular in front of sunset and order the cheapest fish on the huge open air barbeques lining the beach.

Having planned a week on the Gili Islands we had made our money stretch to ten days and would have seen out the rest of our visa here had the rupiah not disappeared so quickly from our pockets....so it was with great reluctance we endured the horrific journey back to Kuta which began with a longboat from the Gilis to Lombok, a mini-bus down the coast to the port, the awful ferry journey back to Bali and another bus to Kuta, eating up a whole precious day of our time.

The last few days in Kuta were spent shopping down the Poppies Lanes where I bought an unprecedented number of ripped off DVDs for an obscene price (having been deprived of TV for half a year) as well as kitting out our anticipated campervan by buying lots of cheap brightly coloured sarongs to upholster any unsightly travel-worn material...We ended up staying in a wicked hostel next to two Canadian girls and a Scottish lass who took us out surfing and taught us for free and in return we treated them to a moustache-themed party with Geoff the Giraffe (our travel mascot) at the Engine Room. We also found the mall with a pick'n'mix bakery that tasted like manna and managed to explore the nearby resorts of Legian and Seminyak though everywhere was so heavily security-conscious with the anniversary of the two Bali bombings approaching the end of our stay that we didn't want to pry any further than we were allowed.

As we returned to the airport I actually felt a bit sad to be leaving Asia behind me. Sure, at times it's been difficult, hassle-filled, frustrating, confusing, and nonsensical but as well as being part of its charm after six months that had all begun to feel like normal. I was actually feeling a tad apprehensive about immersing myself in western culture again and the prospect of having to plan my life by more than just at which bakery I wanted to eat at for brunch or which country I wanted to wake up in. However with a job, home and campervan to find I'm sure there's going to be little time to miss anything...