This holiday was booked a long time ago with Explore and the last 3 months there was a question whether the tour would run or not. This is because of the volcano eruptions since October. The tour started in Yogyakarta which is about 30kms from MountMerapi which was constantly erupting at the time. Ash clouds had damaged or closed most of the sights in that region like Borobodur which I think is the biggest temple ever. I’m not so hot on my facts so I may be wrong.
I was arriving 1 day later anyway as I normally say hi to my family in Malaysia for the first night. When I eventually arrived at Yogya to check in to the hotel I was surprised that not only was I one of the first to check in but the other 6 people hadn’t even turned up.
I was a bit oblivious as to what had happened in Heathrow where the group flight was coming from. I knew the snow was coming hence my overnight stay in Stansted just to make sure I wouldn’t be stuck on a motorway somewhere and miss my flight. Other people had the same idea so I joined them for an uncomfortable night on Stansted’s floor. In the morning everything seemed fine and there was not much snow around. We took off ok except for the hour delay because the cabin doors wouldn’t shut. The engineers were called and thank goodness it was fixed but I had visions of the doors opening mid-flight.
Once I joined the group I realised 9 people cancelled the trip because of the volcano, 5 people were stuck at Heathrow because of the snow and 1 lady had simply vanished. Nobody had a clue where she was and we never found out what happened to her. Never mind I thought, small groups are always nicer and was glad to meet up with an American/Canadian lady and a guy from the UK, they flew in via Singapore and Taiwan so didn’t have the snow hassle. A nice intimate group and they were extremely good company.
Volcanoes aside not that much of a memorable trip, Java was pretty much as I expected minus the trip to MountBromo because of it exploding and what not. I heard another group tried to do it but the cars were stopped by the ash getting into the engine. I think it was stupid to try. I guess it would have been nice to see an erupting volcano but from afar. We kind of a got a glimpse of a couple that were smoking but nothing spectacular. We had a couple of days of rain and the first trip to the temple was pretty much in torrential rain. Holding onto an umbrella and taking a photo is quite a skill to have. The photos were pretty much rubbish because of it. The rain eased off for a while luckily for us the Borobodur temple visit was on a sunny day. In fact we were extremely lucky as the day before the temple was closed as they were still cleaning off the last remnants of volcanic ash. The destruction of this was still apparent on all the palm trees in the surrounding area. Instead of its leaves showing in a bouncy arc it looked like someone had squashed them all by hand.
I was still in Java for Xmas and my birthday. I spent it in an eco lodge with no TV, lots of mosquitoes and relatively expensive restaurant. But the football match made it more memorable as Malaysia defeated Indonesia in the much publicised and well known Suzuki Cup…slight hint of sarcasm here. For some reason the final was played in 2 stages, the next match would be in Bali.
I was a little disappointed with Bali. I’ve heard so much about it and was looking forward to spending new years there. Well we nearly didn’t make it. 5 minutes from the harbour our ferry crashed into the large stone pier just before it, with a massive bang. There were lots of screaming and slightly panicked looks. I banged into a sharp edge and hurt my thigh. Then there was another bang and some people headed for their cars downstairs. I had a look and saw the distance and wondered if I might have to swim for it. Finally the ferry docked and we drove out of it sharpish before anything else happened.
North of Bali was not really developed yet and the beaches were rubbish and actually full of rubbish and the only people I saw on the beach were all the hawkers. We stayed in LovinaBeach but it should really have been a lunch stop. Then we headed to Ubud which was central and more of a cultural place not like the beaches so it was slightly more interesting. More things to explore but after a day there wasn’t much else to do but eat and shop. I enjoyed the Monkey Forest, scared the crap out of me and was anxious at all times that a monkey was about to jump me or steal my stuff. They are cute buggers and little show offs.
New years was only memorable because of the restaurant we had dinner in which had a very rude name and the torrential rain with thunder and lightning which we thought were fireworks. Any ideas of hanging out at the local town area to watch the display had gone out of my mind. We waited for a while until the rain eased off a bit but it never really did so we made a run for it. There was so much rain like a waterfall and the streets were flooded. The umbrella I had was no use as I was soaked. I ran as fast as I could to get to the hotel and avoid the cars splashing me but I shouldn’t have bothered. I looked a state. I watched the fireworks from my balcony and was still able to hear it way after 2am.
This was an ok trip not that exciting but I do remember being crapped on a lot during the 2 weeks. A bird got me in the royal palace, then I was attacked by a gecko and it also slightly pooped on me obviously I scared the crap out of it. Then the eco lodge we stayed at had lots of animals around including farm animals but I highly doubt the cows crapped on my front porch every morning. There was loads of crap on my porch and no one else seemed to have any on theirs. I left my trainers out so I promptly checked there was none in them before I put my feet in. I thought it couldn’t get any worse when I got crapped on by a bat during dinner in LovinaBeach. I knew it was way on top of us on the ceiling and hoped it wouldn’t do anything but hang there. I heard a splash and felt something on my arm and there it was…bat poop.
So a thoroughly crappy trip…literally. Its meant to be lucky it seems so let’s see what 2011 has in store for me.
