2/22/10 - 2/23/10 - Hello Singapore! Goodbye Singapore!

Doughnuts and packs in hand, we caught our China Air flight to Singapore. We checked into our first dorm style hostel of the trip, at 98sg. Bunk beds with bright coordinated bed sets. I felt like a freshman checking into the college dorms all over again - it was fun.

We woke up the next morning with a clear game plan:

Quickly stop by the cheap electronics mall, buy a cheap camera, take a train to the zoo, spend the day, and maybe even make it back for dinner in little India.

Singapore - land of great deals on electronics = lie. The cameras were just as, if not more, expensive than they were back in the US. We drowned our sorrows in a fancy sit-down Pizza Hut. It was very comforting, it felt like the cheese was giving us a hug. A review of the Amazon.com return policy, and a call to Canon later, we decided to bite a big expensive bullet, and buy the Olympus Tough underwater camera to replace the broken Canon. We didn't want to do it, but we didn't want to not take photos on our amazing once in a lifetime Asia quest even less. We danced through the streets with our new camera, taking pictures of everything.

(editors note: we originally weren't going to get a refund from amazon for the old camera. After a pleading email explaining the situation, they agreed to refund the money - go Amazon!)

Our glee was slightly decreased once we realized it took so long to get a new camera that we weren't going to have time for the Singapore humane zoo. Sad faces. However, Singapore is one of the only zoos that also offer a night safari to see all the nocturnal animals. Happy faces!

The one good thing about wandering about Singapore all afternoon was it gave us a chance to see the city. I must say, we were super impressed. We would have loved to have spent more time there if we had more time, and more money (it's quite expensive in comparison to the rest of our trip.) Singapore is like a futuristic city plan come to life. It was extremely efficient and clean. The subway station (which,again, was extremely clean and well organized) had a sign that said "No Durians." it's a common fruit in Asia, but apparently smells bad. There is no spitting, gum chewing, or jay walking.

Megan: Wow look at the construction workers! They're wearing shoes!
Steffany: and hats! And they're using metal!
Megan: rather than all bamboo? Weird.

We were sure to be like ms. molly manners during our stay. I was afraid we might get jail time for not showering enough.

Side note: speaking of showering, we had the first hot water shower since we left the US. Singapore could have been awful, and that shower would have been worth the trip.

Apple slurpees in hand, we waited for our bus to take us to the Night Safari.

And waited...

And waited some more.

We double checked the bus schedule. The bus we needed didn't run during week days.

"Is it a weekday?"
"I have no idea."

It was.

"That's ok, we can walk it!"

No we couldn't.

"I think it's this way!"

No it wasn't.

We ended up walking by a highway with the backup plan to hail a cab if we couldn't find the zoo. ::ahem::: hail a cab. On a highway. Going 50 miles per hour... Once it sunk in that this plan was impossible, fate smiled upon us and we were able to get a taxi BEFORE it got in the highway.

We made it to the night safari! We had some time to kill before the main park officially opened, so we went one on one with man eating fish! It was actually a tank of "doctor fish." these are bottom feeder fish that eat the dead skin off your feet. It tickled really... Really...Badly. There was no saving our pride as we squealed and giggled like little girls the entire 10 minutes. There are pictures and videos. Not good.

After a celebratory "yay we have a camera" drink (a Singapore Slinger), we hopped on the tram car for a tour around the park. It was so weird being in a modern city after three weeks in Indonesia. We kept saying it was like a day at Disney, and the tram car clinched it.

The night show proved to be an overload of precious. I don't think we stopped smiling. Animals climbed on ropes over our heads, a white wolf called to the moon, and miniature otters recycled bottles. One little otter just kept spinning the bottle round and round for fun, rather than dropping it in the bucket. Steff and my response to this "Eeeee! Hehehehe! ::claps hands::"

After the show we went on foot to see all the night critters. It was the first time either of us had seen some of these animals so active. It was so cool and fun. I could spend the next hour describing in great detail just how much we loved each animal we saw, but for the sake of time, your attention span, and my little typing fingers, I'll hit a few of our favorites:

Flying squirrel room: we passed through three air-lock style doors and entered a room with flying squirrels swooshing past us from high above.

Indian Wolves: walking down a dark path all alone... Suddenly, we are stopped in our tracks by the chilling sounds of a pack of wolves baying at the moon. Inch forward and we see that they are all gathered in a cute puppy pile atop a giant rock, howling at the moon, catching their breath, and continuing to howl. It was a scene straight out of the mysterious wolf t-shirts.

Bat room: similar to the flying squirrel room, but this time bats of all sizes were flying and hanging around (get it, hanging around? Ha!). We thought the bats were cute, other people in the room did not.

Big cats (lions, tigers, leopards): the crazy cat ladies within took over as we watched and cooed at these giant animals. They're always so much larger and more powerful than I remember. If a lion bumped into us, we would be crushed. We stood back and tried to be quiet so the leopards would come by the glass. It was a little magical when they did. The male was huge and seemed very protective of the pregnant female. Such beautiful animals. We watched them until we realized we were running out of time.

Yay amazing elephants and silly giraffes!

"That was so cool."
"SO cool!"

We had a very pleasant taxi ride home. Our driver chatted with us the whole way. He also informed us that out hostel was in a red light district. Of course it was.

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2/20/10 - Getting Our Craft On

We felt like kids waking up on field trip day. Crafting class day! And what a lovely day it turned out to be. A month with no craft time is way too long.

We didn't have to wake up super early. Had time for breakfast, which was once again... Pancakes. I accepted their offer to put chocolate on mine. It came with chocolate sprinkles, not chocolate sauce. It's never quite what you expect.

Our batik class was held in a gallery/studio/back yard/racing pigeon coop area. After we picked out our designs, we headed out to the yard to practice with the wax pens.

Fantasy: We took to it instantly, like were born to batik!
Reality: It took us 20 minutes to draw a straight line. I spilled hot wax on my hand... Twice.

We really did get the hang of it though, and the very patient man was able to fix... most... of our mistakes.

While waiting for the wax to dry, we talked to one of the boys who worked there. He was wearing the most awesome abstractly batik painted pants ever. It was a work of art. He showed us around the back yard area. Chickens and an adorably fat kitty cat scurried around us. Professional batik paintings were hanging on clothes lines to dry. An older artist worked on a "dry technique" batik painting. He casually splashed the paint around and created a beautiful flower painting before our eyes. He was like an Indonesian Bob Ross. The boy mentioned the racing pigeons... Then realized we had no idea what he was talking about. He then went on to explain that people buy very expensive pigeons, and train them to race. It's a big deal. He showed us all of the pigeons they had, which were quite large and really pretty.

One of the people that run the studio, Suzie, came over to introduce herself and chat with us. We were still waiting for the paint to dry, so she took us to her friend's restaurant down the street. For about $1 US, we were served the best gado gado (rice, veggies, egg, crisps, in a peanut sauce) we've had, and a large glass of sweetened lemon juice. It was one of the best meals we've had, and we thanked the lady who made it about 40 times.

Our batiks were dry when we got back. Next we applied a layer of wax over what we painted. This took a looong time. I think we might need a tiny bit more practice. After we finished (and our mistakes fixed), our instructor dyed the background, melted off the wax in boiling well water, and poof! Done! Amazing.

Batiking was really REALLY cool. They gave us a free wax pen, so we plan on doing a lot more of this when we get back to the States. Look out Green Elevator fans. Now all we need is a boiling vat of wax. Hmm...

Before our silver smith class, we decided it was time to try kopi luwak. This is the really fancy expensive coffee they mentioned in the movie The Bucket List. Made from the pooed out coffee beans eaten by the luwak (hence the name), it sells for $500 a pound or cup (we're not sure which) in the US. A specialty of Indonesia (and much cheaper here) we had to try it. I don't like coffee, so I just tried Steff's and got ice cream instead. It tasted like coffee to me, but Steff tells me it was very good. Yay poo coffee.

We also ordered cheese fries. Fries covered with cold shredded mozzarella cheese, and served with hot sauce. Never quite what you expect... But good.

When someone in Yogyakarta tells you something is close and will take 10 minutes to get there, tack on about 30 minutes to that time and assume it's hard to get to. We were a little late for our silversmithing class. Oops..

I'm going to start right out by saying: this class was fantastic.

It was fun, interesting, really super cool, we recommend it, and give it thumbs up/smiles/other gestures of a positive nature.

Our instructor, Agus, went over the basic steps of working with silver, how to not hurt ourselves with the blow torch, and different samples of what can be made. Yogyakarta is not only famous for its batiks, but also for their incredibly detailed silver works. We now have a new found respect for all those little twists and turns in the metal... Not easy...

We were given small strips of silver to work with. Measuring, cutting, and sanding it down to the shape we wanted. Agus gave us smaller bits of silver wire to show us some basic decorating techniques. Next... The blow torch. It's way too easy to become power-mad with that thing once you realize how cool it is welding metal together. Very queen of the universe, elements will bow to my supreme power - you know? Sanding, buffing, ACID drop, more buffing - makes silver look perfect. I think we said "Wooow!! Look at THIS!!!" about 200 times.

During the class, Steff did great. Her pieces looked professionally done, and had the queen of the universe thing down from the start. I, on the other hand, was THAT kid in class. The one who doesn't quiiite get it, needs a little hand holding, and work looks a bit... Abstract.

[Steffany's note: no she was not. and no i did not.  it was hard. and i spent a good hour working on one tiny technique, while Megan mastered like 5 of them. plus, i think the instructor had a crush on her!]

After I finished curling a wire, Agus said: "You did that well... Much better than I expected."

Yep. I was that kid.

I did get better though! We both had silversmithing down by the end and wanted to make a million things. It was just so cool!

Awesome day. Success!



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2/19/10 - Budda and Blueberry

The bus left for the Borobudur and Prambanan temples at 5:00 AM. We've been getting to know 5:00 AM far too well on this trip. I preferred when that time was a distant stranger.

Once we arrived at Borobudur, Steff and I joined another group so we could all split the cost of a temple guide haHA! We met a boy named Li in the group from LA. He took pity on us and offered to take pictures for us after seeing we were using a disposable camera, and hearing our sob story about the broken one.

The temple was gigantic (the largest Buddhist temple in the southern hemisphere), which made the intricate details all the more impressive once we were closer. Each level was lined with stone relief panels, narrating different Buddhist stories. Our guide tried to explain some of these stories, but apart from several cheesy jokes, he was a bit hard to understand... and it was 6:00 AM. Once you reach the top ("heaven"), you are surrounded by stone pods with Buddha statues inside. With the fog all around, it felt like we were in some other world. We all touched the lucky Buddha foot. I was able to reach the luckiest part: the heal. Thank you long skinny puppet arms. Steff was able to reach the arch. We now have much better luck than those lame-o's who just touched the toes.

Our guide left and we chatted with Li until we were approached by a group of Indonesian students. We were now practice for their final exam in English. They were all super nice, so after our very official conversation, we all took pictures and promised to Facebook them.

Next stop: Prambanan, the largest Hindu complex in Java. Sadly, a lot of the temples had been damaged by the 2006 earthquake, so we couldn't go into a few. They seem to be doing an amazing job at the restoration though. The site was still beautiful and the outside of the temples held up well.

While entering the complex, Steff and I were approached by a boy explaining he was doing on-the-job training, and asked to show us around. Unfortunately, he didn't really speak English so he couldn't actually tell us about the different temples. I also wouldn't really describe him as "spunky" or "peppy." We went back through again ourselves.

The temples really were incredible to see. Again, intricate relief panels lined the outside, with fantastic stair cases leading inside. If we had our camera, I think we would have been there another two hours taking pictures of EVERYTHING. In true Steffany and Megan fashion, we were semi-lost getting out of the complex, caught in the rain, couldn't find the rest of our group, and were late getting to the bus.

After being culturally enlightened, we tried blueberry Fanta. Which is the SAME flavor as blue raspberry. And it turns your tongue bright blue.  So many enriching discoveries in one morning!

The van driver dropped us off at the wrong part of the palace, so we had to walk allllll the way around. Just as we reached a point where we were unsure where to go, who happens to be riding by? Our guardian angel direction-giver, Gus! He chatted with us, gave helpful directions, confirmed that there was a good vegetarian place in town, and told us he was going back to help paint the shadow puppets! Who IS this guy??

With the help of Gus, we made it back to Via Via to sign up for our classes (batik and silversmithing). Since we had so much time to kill before dinner and the shadow puppet show we said:

"Let's pop by the Internet cafe really quick, to book our flight to Singapore."

Three hours later...

"I hate booking transportation in Asia..."

Flights from Yogyakarta to Jakarta to Singapore - booked.

"Um... At least it's time for dinner."

"According to this map Milas (the vegetarian place) is right around the corner. It shouldn't be too hard to find."

One hour, and numerous queries for directions, later...

"THERE IT IS!!!" ::joy::

At least Milas was well worth the quest to get there. Away from the main road, it was a quiet outdoor restaurant in a little garden. All the tables are in little open bungalows, some with chairs, and some with pillows to sit. We order a fried cheese tart type thing. Cheese made us so.. so happy.

Food coma.

"um.. Do you want to see the puppet show another night?"

We decided to just take a becak home. Becaks are one of the main modes of transportation in Yogyakarta. They're bicycles with a seat in the front large enough for two. The side fenders are all painted with different colors and different pictures, adding to the fun art vibe of the city. Other than that slight pathetic feeling of having someone tote me around, I've really enjoyed the becaks. It's a slow relaxing ride that lets you take in the sights. Steff, not so much a fan of the becaks. She is convinced the driver is straining to bike us around (like Kirk in one episode of the Gilmore Girls). Unfortunately, our ride home did not help her impression of this because it was completely uphill...

We get out at our hotel, and paid the driver with three beads of sweat on his forehead.

Steff: "See! We almost KILLED him!"

[Steff's note: seriously, he was going to have a heart attack - he was drenched in sweat!  One becak driver had to get off and push us up a hill - if that doesn't make you feel like a fat lump of lard, I don't know what will.  I quickly learned the term "jalan jalan" which means "walk" and is usually sufficient to let the becaks know we are set on walking.]

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2/21/10 - Puppets and Doughnuts? Yes, please!

Ahh, the first morning in weeks where we didn't have any official place to be.

The plan: sleep in.

The reality: 6:00 AM Christian rock opera.

At first I thought it was a concert because of how loud and peppy it was. Then we heard a few hallelujahs and realized it must have been a church. A very enthusiastic church. A very enthusiastic church that likes to get a verrry early start to their day. We didn't hear the exceptionally bad Indonesian karaoke singers wailing all night, so we had to be woken up by something. Nice try singing Jesus people, but we weren't getting out of bed for anything.

We laid around reading and relaxing until it was time for breakfast. Honey toast. Are you hearing this? We had wonderful delicious toast - NOT banana pancakes! Served with a small dish of fruit, we were in heaven.

Refreshed and ready to go, we set out for a day of walking around the city. It was, of course, the hottest day of the week. By the time we reached the palace area, I was already feeling the heat. That was ok though, because we were going into the palace first where it would be cool and refreshing (editors note: we never made it inside the palace).

While still looking for the palace entrance, we approached by a man saying hello, usual conversation (where are you from, how long have you been here), and asking if we wanted to see the shadow puppet workshop.

(Note: it seems very common here for people to randomly strike up conversation with people that pass by. We were stopped on a regular basis for chit chat.)

We told the man that we were on our way to the palace, but weren't sure where the entrance was, and we might go by the puppet workshop later. After asking about the palace entrance, he started leading us some where. I wasn't sure at the time if Steff knew where we were going (I later confirmed that she didn't). I knew I had no idea if he was taking us to:

A. The Palace.
B. The Puppet Workshop.
C. Certain Doom.

In case you're wondering, the answer was B. The puppet workshop. Which was actually really cool. The puppets are made from buffalo skin. Then the hundreds of decorative/symbolic holes are punched out, and he puppets painted. This entire process is done by hand. It was so impressive to watch how quickly the puppet makers create such intricate designs completely free hand. One of the puppet makers came over to tell us about the puppets and all of their meanings. This was very interesting, inspiring, and so on. But I think I would have gotten more out what he was saying if I wasn't hot, tired, and had a fan blowing in my ear.

We left the work shop, thanked the man for taking us there, and said we ("we" meaning :Steffany and myself) were going to go find lunch. We thought we had said our goodbyes to the man. We were wrong. He had now become "annoying man". Annoying man started to take us to restaurants... We tried to say we might just head off to the bird market... He took us to the bird market.

Other than the cats and dogs not having the best accommodations... The bird market was neat to spend a few minutes walking through. We didn't recognize 90% of the birds we saw.

After a trip through the market, we officially had enough of annoying man "guiding" us around and suggesting we go to his friends store to buy shadow puppets (or something, I wasn't really listening to him anymore). We pretended that we HAD to go back to our hotel VERY quickly. Then scurried away before he could continue to "help" anymore.

Yogyakarta has very long.. very bright.. very dusty streets. We started to feel like little flowers with our petals falling off, wilting in the bright sun with no water. We snagged the first becak that FINALLY came by. We attempted to not look too tired and desperate in an effort to haggle a good price. I think we need to work on our acting skills.

We wanted to try a new place for lunch, we really did. However, I'm the worlds pickiest eater, and Steff is a vegetarian, and we really really wanted to sit and have something to drink. We ended up back at Via Via. We also decided that if we called it our "hang out" it wasn't lame to go there for the third time. Right? Either way, a table of five drinks and two plates of wonderful fried noodles never felt so good. We took our dear sweet time there, and seemed to beat the afternoon heat.

I wanted to stop by the main city market we kept reading about. We didn't realize this was the same collection of stands that we had passed 20 times already. After not letting ourselves buy the really pretty batik dresses (we don't need them, we don't have room for them.. We dint need them, we don't have room for them ::repeat::), we went into a very dangerous place. The fabric store...

I think we could have spent all day, and all of our money, there. Everything was beautiful - everything! The entire front section of the store was batik prints. What were they trying to do to us?! We limited ourselves to cotton batik fabrics that were on sale. After we picked out four wonderful prints, we ran out before we started listening to the "buy more" devils on our shoulders. Scary stuff.

I was, once again, thirsty. We set off to find a Circle K (like a Duane Reade), but Steff spotted something better - a mall.

A mall back in the US would not have interested us in the least... But a mall in Indonesia, after being in little villages for 2 weeks - very interesting.

Indonesia might not translate all western ideas well, but the mall was spot on. We were greeted with cool air conditioning, cookie smells, Asian elevator music, and three floors of semi familiar stores. What is that down the hall? Starbucks? No. Better.

J.co.

J.co is our new obsession. It's the Asian love child between Starbucks and Duncan Doughnuts. They have coffee, frozen yogurt smoothies, frozen yogurt with a ton of toppings, and doughnuts. Doughnuts that are miniature works of art. Flavors such as Blue Berrymore (fluffy cream center, blueberry glaze, sprinkled with shreds of cream cheese). Our frozen drinks (the best we've ever had) also came with free glazed doughnuts (the best we've ever had). We were drunk with happiness. I could actually fill this entire blog to how much we loved it.

Steff: "We're going back tomorrow morning"
Megan: "There is no other choice."

The rest of the mall was equally fun. A Japanese styled version of the teen accessory store, Claire's. We bought panda bear in eggplant hair clips (don't try to figure it out, it doesn't make sense). Pizza Hut is more of a nice sit-down restaurant in Asia. They also serve shrimp crust pizza. McDonald's serves rice and noodles. We also spent a good chunk of time cracking up at English translated t-shirts that made no sense. I think the sales people were confused at our fits of giggles.

The t shirts almost distracted us into being late for the puppet show. Luckily we made it, and it was well worth the wait. The stage area was beautiful with all the puppets lined up (inserted in a HUGE piece of bamboo) on either side of the performance area. This is one of the big things to see in Yogyakarta. The audience (which turned out to be me, Steff, and maybe two other people) could sit in front to  see the brightly colored puppets and the small orchestra, or in back behind the screen to watch the "shadow" part of the shadow puppet show. We moved back and forth to both spots to get the full effect. The show was narrated in Indonesian, so we pretty much had no idea what was happening. There was chanting, people were talking, huge fight scene!, more chanting, dramatic music... huge fight scene!, talking, chanting, talking, fight! This went on for about two hours. I should also note that there is only one puppeteer/narrator. Who was awesome, and I assume exhausted by the end. Fun fact: on the weekends, hard core fans gather for an ALL NIGHT show. Crazy.

We were huge fans of Yogyakarta, but it was time to hit the road. After gathering supplies the next morning (a dozen j.co doughnuts), we said a fond farewell to Indonesia as we hopped a plane to Singapore!

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2/18/10 - Batiks Lost and Found

We woke up at stupid o'clock (3:30 AM) to catch our 6:00 AM flight to Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta is a main cultural center in Indonesia - kind of like a much larger version of Ubud.

While checking into our hotel, the front desk guy kept asking us questions. I'm sure these questions would normally be easy to answer (such as: do you want breakfast in the morning?), but all we could manage was "Umm.. What? Ugh.. I don't know.. We just need to sleep.. Huh?"

Room. Throw bags. Six hour nap.

Luckily after all that it was still only... 1:00 PM.

We made our way down to Via Via, the vegetarian- all natural-arty-hippie-yay earth- we are the world- backpacker cafe to get information on the classes they offered. There was one batik course offered, but it was on painting not dying.

We decided to check out another place that offered a batik class to compare prices and all that. After all, the other place didn't seem far, nor did it seem difficult to find. This was our first of many.. many.. lessons that everything is much farther, and much more difficult to find in Yogyakarta than one might think. I must say, being lost for so long turned out to be a great way to see the city!

Yogyakarta has a casual, grungy, art is anywhere, kind of feeling. Great wall murals, batiks, and colorful splashes of paint decorate the city. This was all really cool to see... While we could still see... Before it got dark.

We were still wandering around trying to find the batik workshop. We tried to look at our maps, tried to follow directions down long dark streets that didn't seem to end, asked for more directions, were led to the wrong batik studio, accepted that it was a failed mission, and decided to call it a night.

What is the first thing we see during our retreat? A carnival. A HUGE carnival. A huge fantastic carnival! We couldn't pass it up. In case you're wondering, that great carnival smell is universal. We walked through the crowded rows of stands selling.. Well, pretty much anything. Pots and pans, clothes, bunnies, food, toys, bedding, mice, jewelry, everything!

We watched an adorable teen Indonesian rock band. No one in the crowd goes anywhere near the stage, no one claps. It felt like we were pretending not to see or here the band as part of a joke.

When leaving the carnival area, there is an entire street of nothing but fried pastry stands all aglow. It was like doughnut heaven, where all the good doughnuts get to go. Amen!

As soon as we reached an intersection, and had to figure out which way to go - a boy magically appeared offering to give us directions! I forget his name... Let's call him Gus. It turned out Gus worked for the city, and gave us a lot of helpful tips and suggestions. He also told us that the art institute was having a sale at their gallery on the batik work done by students, teachers, and professors. All the batiks were hand made, with prices marked, high quality, and so on and so on. Clearly, we HAD to go.

As soon as we left Gus to go to the gallery, another man offered to give us directions! I, once again, have no idea what his name was, so let's go with... Thomas. Thomas was going in the same direction, so he led us to he gallery, which was great because there was no way we would have found it.. ever. He was on his way to the hospital because his wife just had a baby girl. He was excited because they already had three boys. Even with all that, he took us to the gallery, and took the time to explain a bit about the batik painting process. What a sweet guy.

Good news: the batik paintings at the gallery were incredibly beautiful!

We had no idea you could do so much with batik. I only knew about the stamped printed fabrics. However, we were looking at dozens of insanely detailed pictures or wildly free form abstract pieces. We were such kids in a candy shop... Everything was so new and different.

Bad news: the batik paintings at the gallery were incredibly beautiful...

We spent too much money... But too be fair, we didn't really spend that much, and it would have been five times more expensive back home, and they're unique, and we supported the art institute, and.. and.. (this is how we justified our purchases the entire way back to the hotel.)

We confirmed with each other that we had to take the batik painting course at Via Via (now that we understood what we were going to be making). There was no other choice. This changed the basic itinerary we had, leading to frantically planning a 5:00 AM temple trip, and stumbling around half asleep trying to find an ATM to pay for said trip.


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2/16/10 - 2/17/10 - The Great Struggle to Denpasar

Helloooo 4:45 AM. A sunrise hike seemed like such a good idea yesterday. Hmm...

The League of Nations (minus USA Steff and UK Steph) made the morning climb to watch the sun rise over the Crater Lakes. Was it beautiful watching the pink sky turn to blue as the sun rose, it's yellow glow touching the tops of trees on the green mountains below? Yes! Worth getting up and hiking at 5:00 AM to a place I had seen yesterday? Perhaps not. But we did see two monkeys, and that made me happy.

Yesterday we had booked trasportation with Johnny 1. To the Lakes in the morning 2. To get to Maumere. Long story short: too much money was paid to the lake driver after the deposit that should have been given to the Maumere driver. ::sigh:::

Arguing, complaining, going to the lake drivers house with Johnny, money waving, more arguing, annnd success! All worked out. However, this was strike one for the bus ride.

The benches sat too high causing our heads to hit the ceiling. I felt like a giraffe, with my neck bent at a 90 degree angle. Strike two.

Tom's bag flew off the top of the van and had to be attached again. We were then all on flying bag watch. Strike Three.

It stared to pour down rain. We unattached the bags and piled them in the aisle under our feet. Our knees were now resting by our bent up giraffe necks. Bonus strike four.

Going along with our refugee theme: our hotel has a view of a a wall with barbed wire, we swithced from bird watching to rat watching, no shower, no western toilet. The hotel workers are very sweet though. They gave us a fan and free water.

Book a connecting flight from Maumere to Denpasar, to Yoga Karta. Easy! Noo....

Ticket office, another ticket office, walking, bemo ride, phone calls, lonely planet maps, listening to a very explicit techno song in a Muslim family's van, back to the first ticket office - there was a cancelation! Flight to Denpasar = Booked!

Steff and I found the first large grocery store during our trip. All the food was so different. Five loaves of bread, but an entire aisle of different oils. Box ice cream instead of box cake (just add water and freeze!), salmon and sea weed flavored Lays potato chips, and blue berry fanta. We had way too much fun looking at all the different food, causing more stares and giggles than we were already getting when we walked in. We ended up buying cappachino cream cookies, chips, bread, and a hazlenut cream spread (like nutella). Came back to our hotel, pushed our beds together, and had a comfort food iPod movie afternoon before meeting up with he League for dinner.

We said goodbye to Sweden (Adeleine), belgium (Tom), and Holland (Nienke). It was great meeting all of you!

Early morning flight to Denpasar for England and the US. Shockingly, we had no trouble getting on the plane with tickets that weren't under our names (I'm Mr. Fredy Fredy and Steff is Mr. Ferdinand Futu). The ticket people swore it wouldn't be an issue but we were still a bit nervous. Silly us being use to that mattering... Or security checking your ID at all... or security being, well, secure.

We had hoped to get a connecting flight to Yoga Karta that day but it was MUCH cheaper to fly out at 6:00 AM the next morning. This meant Kuta/Legion round two for the night.

We must say, this area the second time around was much more enjoyable. Knowing where you're going, not being jet lagged, fully appreciating menues that include more than rice/onions/meat, and understanding the value of a shower and western toilet... Makes all the difference in the world.



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2/14/10-2/15/10 - Moni Moni. I said yeah. YEAH! yeah. YEAH!

After a serious dark corner mafia style haggling meeting with a van driver, and saying goodbye to Canada (Wes, Ashley, and the two French Canadian girls whose names I never learned) and Scotland (Mike) we were off! Some notes about out van ride across Flores:

1. Our "ten hour" ride was fifteen hours... fifteen... NOT ten..

2. The random Indonesian men (whom we assumed were friends of the driver) that we kept picking up on the side of the road seemed to think it was supper fun to climb up and sit on the van roof. while the van was moving. fast. up a mountain. on tiny roads. We are all shocked they're not dead. Amazing.

3.Our driver had a very broad taste in really, truly, horrible music - played at top volume...for fifteen hours.

4. Forward: goats and street dogs darting across the road. To our right: vans and motor bikes FLYING past us up the mountains on itty bitty roads. To our left: a cliff... Steff and I tried to close our eyes and nap as much as possible.

5. It was so interesting driving across this part of Indonesia. You can really see how poor the country is the further you get away from Bali. The villages had tiny 1-2 room houses. These little homes were made of simple wood or bamboo, with either a rusted metal roof or palm tree thatching. Everyone bathed in the rivers. Most people seemed a little surprised to see us driving by. We became instant attractions where ever we went. Lots of stares and giggles. A few people tried out their English, asking us where we were from. Stephan pulled out the Lonely Planet phrase book and we tried out hand at Indonesian with some children who gathered around us. I think we need more practice.
FINALLY arrived in Moni! No ATMs. No Internet. We introduced ourselves to the 300 bugs we would be sharing a room with and went to sleep.

The next day, Michael, Stephan, Rich, Steff and I walked into town to get a ride to the Crater Lakes. We stumbled upon the "Monday Market" that sells all the local goods of the towns. With in 2 minutes of walking around we were approached by a man named Johnny (I have no idea what his name was, I just made that up) who said he runs a restaurant in town called "Bamboo." He went on a very long enthusiastic presentation about preparing us a wonderful authentic meal that night. We agreed, and signed the rest of the League of Nations up for the meal too.

We then found a half toothless, man named Jeff, to take us up to the Lakes. We decided that Jeff was awesome and became a hero in our head for the rest of the trip. "If only Jeff were here..."

First thing we see when starting our hike to the top: a large red caution sign telling us not to climb up the side of the hill. We then climbed up the side of the hill. This started a trend for the day of us thinking "This is a bad idea" and then doing it anyway. The reason the sign said not to climb up the little hill was that it lead to the edge of one of the HUGE craters. We verrrrrry carefully climbed back down to the path.

Steps.. steps... steps.. Top of the view point! The Crater Lakes are three lakes neseled in giant craters that formed after a volcanic eruption. The draw to this is place is that the minerals from the volcano turned each of the lakes a different color: Bright blue, a greenish blue, and black. They looked like little pools of paint. We relaxed, enjoyed our potato chip sandwich, and enjoyed watching the mysterious clouds roll in over the lakes.

On our way back down to the hot springs and waterfall (editors note: we never found the hot springs), a "guide" (random man selling things) took us on the "shortcut" down the mountain. The "shortcut" was a teensy path through the hillside farms and trees. This turned out to be: amazing, beautiful, fantastic, ect... and... really hard. You would think that going downhill is the easy part..but no. Walking straight down hill at a 90 degree angle for 40 minutes through farm land, bushes, and mud while everything was EXTREAMLY slippery = challenging. Knees shaking and 200 curse words later, we made it to the bottom in this guys tiny village. We sat down.

After a rest, coffee, and purchasing ikats (hand-woven scarves) we, again, set off for the waterfall. The rest of the afternoon:

Lovely chatting, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, ask for directions, walk, walk, walk, walk, a cow, walk, walk, walk, walk, a goat, walk, walk, walk, walk, a bug, walk, walk, walk, walk, village. ask for directions again. saw part of a wedding. gave village children crackers and pens. We have a guide! walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk.

We took our shoes off to cross a river (we still got our shoes wet), crossed over a bamboo plank bridge that reeeeally didn't look like would support us across, changed into bathing suits, climbed down rocks, and jumped into the water below the waterfall! We could anchor our feet on rocks and push our backs against the water fall current to make our own jacuzzi. Joy!

We got back to our home-stay, met up with the rest of the League of Nations, and informed them that they had dinner plans. Apparently they already knew! Johnny saw them in town and assumed that group of out of place white people were the other friends of the first group of out of place white people he had spoke to earlier and told them of the plans!

The sign for Bamboo was on the main road, however, we had to have Johnny lead us from there. You see, Bamboo was a bamboo shelter built by Johnny in (what I assume was) his back yard waaay off the main road. Pigs, cats, and dogs ran around the yard around us, it was fantastic. The food was actually excellent and there was even the promised vegetarian food! Good times.

As were getting ready to leave, another couple came down the dark path, cell phone as flashlight in hand (as we had done), saying: "What IS this?!" We were highly amused.

Editors Note

Sorry guys, we know the blog has a major lack of photos and a surplus of typos at the moment. The Internet and computers have been less than spectacular so far. Once we reach better technology devices, we will be editing the posts I've been typing on my iPod and add lots of pics. Keep an eye out, and we'll announce this on our fan page. Hopefully very soon. Sort of soon. Ehh keep your fingers crossed...


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2/12/10-2/13/10 - The Great Komodo Island Adventure

Steff, the Canadian couple (Wes and Ashley), and I headed out in the morning to check on flight prices at 7:00... When the airport opens. We learned that "open" and "employees working who sell tickets" are two different things.


At this point Steff and I have been pretty much out of money for two days because there was no working US/Canada ATM in Sengigi, we had to spend a lot on the refugee boat, and the night before Steff and I went on a looong walk. At night. By ourselves. To the one ATM in town. Which was out of cash.

"that's ok" we said "the airport MUST have ATMs!" Noo... no it did not.

Walked and walked and walked back to town to the ATM machine again.

Success!

We did a happy "we're not screwed, yay we have money dance"

Set sail for Komodo Island! The 12 of us (the league of nations) stretched out on the small two deck boat we had to ourselves. At the last moment a great middle aged Scottish Gardner asked to join our boat. We agreed, and now Scotland had joined the league! Who could stop us now?!

We spent two days and one night on the boat. It was one of the most fantastic things ever. Ever! We went to Komodo twice to see the Komodo dragon and trek, snorkeled three times, ate the food prepared by the crew (rice.. So much rice), chatted together, and had a giant slumber party.

Komodo Island was like a magical lost land. It was hot and tiring, but we saw some of the most spectacular views we had ever seen. I can't even describe it, none of the photos do it justice. You just have to go there.

Our guides introduced the alligator sized Komodo dragon as poisonous, fast, cannibals that can take down deer and water buffalo. Don't worry though! They informed us that they were going to protect us... With a stick.

According to our guide: we weren’t in danger because it was too hot, or they weren't hungry, or there were too many of us.. Or something. What ever the exact reason, the dragons wandered right past us and we were able to get close to get pictures. They didn't even look real! They looked like some kind of animatronic Star Trek creatures, with their stiff walk and long slithery yellow tongues. Fun fact: they have three eyes and two penises.

Jumping in the water to snorkel after the mornings of hiking felt like heaven. We were lucky with the weather being in the 80's and sunny for both days. On one trip out, we swam with giant manta rays. Steff and I found three swimming together. One swam right beneath me, and even with my arms and legs stretched out it was so much larger than I am. Another spot we snorkeled could have been a series of post cards from every angle. Turquoise and blue water, white sand, rainbow colored fish, corals, palm trees - wow. Three sad things about snorkeling: trash in the water, some bleached coral, and our waterproof camera now has water damage and doesn't work. Fail.

(Editor’s note: we didn't lose any photos, the memory card is fine. We're going to buy another camera in Singapore in a couple of days. The rest of The League of Nations took photos and are going to send it to us for all events post the Great Camera Fail of 2010.)

While we were all relaxing on the boat, enjoying the quiet, views of the mountainous green islands, and warm sun - two little row boats pulled up to our boat. We were all quite bewildered as the men peeked over the deck at us. Then, miles away from land in the middle of paradise, they pulled out the merchandise to sell. There was officially no avoiding the sales people. A summary of our conversation went something like this:

"No, we would not like a wooden figurine of a Komodo dragon... But we would like beer."

They left immediately toward land to get beer to sell to us.

We found this hilarious and awesome.

That night on the boat we all sat around chatting, sharing funny travel stories, and watching the shooting stars. England (Michael and Stephan) shared their rum with the United States (me and Steff) as we are not fans of beer.

To conclude = I think we could have stayed on the boat forever.



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2/10/10 - 2/11/10. Sengigi to Flores. The Great Ferry Fail and New Friends.

Mmm bakery bread picnic on the beach for breakfast. Morning swim. We made friends with minnows and watched a crab fight.

Steff and I took a short walk along the shore. Conversation we had with three different people:

Where are you from?
The U.S.
Aaaah, Obama!!!
Yes... Obama.. 

(editors note: we've now had about 10 people shout "Obama" at us in glee. We sometimes comment that he's better than Bush, and get "ah yes, Bush bad.. Very bad"

Time for our first long journey: Sengigi to Flores. 24 hours: a bus to a ferry to a bus to another bus to a ferry.

On the first bus we made friends with some great other backpackers. A couple from Canada, two French girls from Canada, two British guys, a girl from Sweden, a guy from Denmark, a girl from Holland, and two women from France. We all chatted about our lives back at home, and our current adventures on the ferry while watching yet another perfect sunset. This was in between watching an odd Indonesian TV show that none of us could understand, and pondering if the extremely rocky ferry was safe.

The next bus drove all night. Unfortunately, most could not sleep since the bus was freezing , bumpy, the driver drove like a maniac (which is quite normal here) and someone rear-ended the bus during the night. I didn't wake up once.

The morning bus ride was lovely going through the mountains. Everything was fine, going according to plan, we just needed to get on the ferry, and our journey was going to be done.

The ferry...Left us...

It seems the ferry leaves when ever it wants, not at the time given to us. When was the next ferry you ask? 24 hours later the next morning...

Cue: frustration, arguing with ferry workers, trying to find other boats, looking for hotels or ATMs, confusion.

"What to do?! What to do?!" said the 12 angry backpackers.

Our final solution was chartering a fishing boat. We will never forget that boat for the rest of our lives. Steff was mapping out who was who from the cast of Lost, as we were positive the itty bitty little boat would sink. The boat had JUST enough room to hold all of us on it's flat wooden deck under a tarp. The moter started, and sounded like a mix of 50 weed-eaters and jackhammers. Needless to say we couldn't talk or listen to music for the 6 hour ride. If you're wondering if there are enough positions to sit in to stay comfortable on a wooden board for 6 hours - there's not.

We survived! (yay)

Rustic bungalow hotel on a hill side overlooking the ocean and harbor = wonderful.

Fun fact: the same "ferry leaving disaster" happened to the group of people staying next to us. Apparently, this is quite common. Get it together Indonesia.

The French women went their separate way, but the other ten of us banded together and booked a two day boat to the Komodo Islands.

Dinner. Laundry in a bucket. Bed.

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2/9/10 Tuesday - Bemos and a Bat

Packs on, and we're leaving Ubud. We caught the 7:00 AM bus across Bali. Some of our favorite parts have been seeing the fantastic views of the island while traveling. We bought headphone splitters for the trip so we could both listen to my iPod on the trip. Steff put a lot of her music on the iPod before we left, so we broke out her "Fun Times Driving Mix" from college for the ride. Rocking out to angsty emo/indie/punk across Bali = fun times.

We relaxed on the ferry, chit chatted with Rich, enjoyed the view of all the islands, and looked at the bluest water I've ever seen.

Our great sense of calm ended upon our arrival in Lombok... haggling, bemos, cars, people trying to sell us anything and everything, and so on... We booked our ticket to Flores and continued our haggling battle to Sengigi. Rich = haggling king. Steff and I = getting better from lots of practice.

Sengigi turned out to be a quiet little treat. We didn't really see any other tourists while we were here. After the three of us checked into our homestay, we made a mad dash to the beach. The water was crystal clear, warm, calm - perfect for a well-earned swim. Coral. Surrounded by green mountains. Wow.

We stayed by the shore to watch (and take 80 billion pictures of) the sunset. We asked one of the local boys to take a picture of the three of us. Then he asked if he could have a picture with us on his camera phone. And then another person. And then another. There is now a large group of Indonesians that have pictures with different combinations of me, Steff, and Rich.

Dinner: we had about 10 minutes of collective electricity at the restaurant. A bat landed on me, and clung to Steff. It was good.

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2/8/10 Monday Ubud - Bikes in Bali

Good morning 4:00 AM. What? I'm still jet lagged? But don't worry because the roosters want to talk to me? Great.


Steff and I now adore banana pancakes. Mmm.

We made a new friend! Meet Rich, our organized British pal. The three of us decided to see the "elephant cave"/temple together. On bikes...

Now, Steff has always turned down my pleading for her to go biking with me on a calm bike trail in Brooklyn. I've heard over and over again that she "can't bike" "hates biking" "scared to death to bike" and so on. I love biking, but even I was a bit nervous riding on the edge of a busy road, with no helmet, and buses and motor scooters flying past us - inches away. I turn around to check on Steff... and she's right behind me.. SMILING. It turns out she's a big liar face and was a rock star at biking the whole day!

The Elephant cave was ok, the walk around it in the forest was great. A lady showed us how to make the offering baskets. Our inner crafters were happy. We spent the rest of he afternoon biking to another temple, getting lost, eating the best noodles ever, and enjoying the small towns/country side/amazingly green rice fields.

We got to watch avatar at a local bar while eating dinner. The fell asleep 2 seconds after getting back to our home stay.





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2/7/10 Sunday. Hot Coffee and Hot Springs

Every cartoon has taught me that roosters wake up at sunrise, crow once, and then they're done. This is a lie. Huge mondo humungo LIE. The 3 million roosters that lived around us in Ubud start crowing at the tip top of their lungs non-stop from about 4:30 AM to maybe 10ish. During that time the ducks like to play the "I can be louder than you" game. The ducks sound like a pack of old men laughing, which caused me and Steff to burst out in exhausted/half asleep/this is so ridiculous - laughter.

We met our Australian friends for a mini adventure with Agoose (sp) the van driver. First stop: coffee/cocoa plantation. So neat. We knew we've lived in New York too long when we were amazed by every plant we saw. The workers poured us samples of their fancy coffee (Steff tells me it was good), ginger something, hot coco, and hot coco with ginger (Which was really.. Really.. Really.. Good). Before heading out, they let us feed giant bats fruit. They were so cute we wanted to squeeze them to death.

Next stop: hot springs. Lovely afternoon? Yes! Worth the time and money to go to a swimming pool style hot spring? Not so much. We had a great time playing with the underwater camera though. Steff and I also discovered that we are really and truly horrible at taking under water photos.

Final stop: a view of the volcano. Our grand idea was to go trekking around the volcano, forgetting the rainy season might put a damper on our plans (get it.. rain.. damper.. ha!). The view from where we were was incredible though. We took 5,000,000 pictures and bought some saboo (sp) fruit. Success.

That night we left the boys to take in a little Balinese dance in Ubud. Super neat. Great costumes the orchestra played (from what we could gather) really fancy shoe horn xylophones with pick ax hammers. The dances were small graceful movements, while looking VERY surprised.

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Quickity quick update

So... Finding a good internet cafe where I can upload photos = not easy so far.

Quick update:

We left Bali yesterday and arrived in Lombok. Right now we're in Sengigi to enjoy the beach quickly before heading out on a ::heavy sigh:: 24 hour bus/ferry ride to Flores. The beach here was so beautiful this morning it made me sick.

Next up: Komodo Dragon! Rawr!

Legian to Ubud - Bali, Indonesia

Yesterday was a success! We moved a mileish up shore to legian. It's still in the Kuta beach area, but a little bit less insane. Kuta is a huge touristy westernized town, legian is the same but it doesn't have long stretches of KFC, McDonalds, ect.


After taking um... the scenic route... To our new hotel, we were pleased to hear that the room was in our price range. It also has a pool, which took us all of two minutes to jump in, and a lovely little patio in a garden. We rested up then went on a quest for smoothies. We're still fighting jet lag, so we haven't been that hungry during the day because our bodies think it's the middle of the night. Since a huge meal sounds reeeeally bad when you think it's 3:00 AM, we've formed a new obsession with fruit juices/smoothies.

Fate was some how on our side that evening,because we stumbled upon, what I assume, was the only vegetarian restaurant in a 20 mile radius. Steff was so happy, and they put a little flower in her juice. No random pork/chicken meals and flower decorated juice? Perfection.

Since we walked soooo far, with our heaaavy backpacks, we decided we, obviously, deserved a warm stone massage. I can't even describe how wonderful a 90 minute stone massage is. I just tried in my head.. And it can't be done. Afterwards they gave us some kind of honey tea, and we chit chatted with a German girl. She was amused to no end that we had just quit our jobs and came to Asia, as they must give 3 months notice to quit their jobs in Germany. Intense.

Now at this point we were fed, massaged, feeling all happy and zen. Hey, maybe we should stay an extra day? Then we walked back to the hotel... Up until this point we really hadn't minded the shop owners yelling at us to buy something every 2 feet, the itty bitty sidewalks that made us walk single file to avoid the other people, or the moterbikes zipping past us (inches away) constantly. However, we had both just had our fill of this on the way back. "I'm really over Kuta."

We skipped the movie bar idea, watched the end of little shop of horrors on my iPod, and went to sleep at 9:45.

I am writing this at my jet lag wake up time - 5:00 AM. Waiting at least for the sun to come up before I mosey out of bed.

Today's game plan: Going to Ubud! And NOT going to bed at 9:45.

Next day:

Hello readers! This is Megan and Steff reporting once again at 5:00 AM. We just made a serious hard core vow of no naps today. I think I will have to turn to our friend, caffeine, to make that dream a reality.

Yesterday we enjoyed a lovely breakfast of fresh bread and cheese, with fruit juice and coffee. Steff was more a fan of the Bali coffee, but my watermelon juice made me smile. I LOVE that every restaurant has a full fruit juice menu. Over breakfast, we planed out depart from Kuta/Legian to Ubud.

A shuttle bus picked us up at our hotel for the 1 hour ride. We shared the ride with 4 other guys (3 from Australia and 1 from Germany) and we all made friends along the way. The boys had haggling down so we all went on a quest to find a new hotel together. One of them got our room prices down from 150,000 rp to 100,000 rp (about $10).

We all went for a short lunch (yay juice) then off to the monkey sanctuary for a healthy dose of cute. A van driver offered to take us there. The boys, again, haggled he price down. The main talker of the boys asked after all that if he could drive the van driver said... Yes. The next ten minutes were hilarious, nerve wracking, and fantastic. We even some how made it with out crashing or killing any of the poor motor bike people who didn't realize they reeeeally should have kept their distance from our van.

I think I expected something more like a zoo where you see the monkeys from behind a fence of some sort. Nooooo. Monkeys... Everywhere. They came right up to people to be fed, steal food (or anything else they wanted), or jump atop you head. Luckily, Steff and I only almost had our purses stolen from these adorable little bandits, and not the head jumping experience. The whole place was something out of king kong. Monkey statues, moss, huge trees, vines and trees everywhere. Every corner was a photo opportunity.

We were driven home by, you guessed it, the same van driver. We also spontaneously booked him to take us to the hot springs and volcanos today.

On the 2 minute walk back to the hotel.. We helped build a house. There were a few men building a house ( who didn't speak English) and the boys just wandered over and just started helping scrape cement. Which was somehow totally acceptable. Before we knew it we all took turns joining in scraping cement, digging, and hauling the premade cement! The ladies at the seamstress shop across the street were cracking up. One of the Indonesian men yelled something over to the seamstress lady. She told us he said "thank you, come back tomorrow" which made us all burst out in a fit of laughter.

Once we got back to our hotel Steff and I planned to go out once the rain stopped to explore the local shops. This turned into Steff reading, and me falling asleep at 7:00 PM. Again... No 10 hour naps today.

We Made It! - Kuta Beach, Indonesia

So the 24 hour flight (with 4 hours of layovers) wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be. Luckily I was able to sleep away flying over the US, until being woken up in Alaska for a one hour layover. We were not expecting to experience culture shock in out own country. However, the Anchorage Alaska airport is an interesting little place. After getting off the plane we entered a place that looked like a 70's hotel. We stopped in a shop and to our surprised their main item for sale was: salmon products... lots of them. Wild berry salmon syrup. Enough said. The airport did have free WiFi (unlike those rats at JFK), so we feed our internet addictions like the happy little junkies we are on my Ipod.

It was about 3:00 or 4:00 AM (I think) for us, so as soon as we got back on board we fell asleep. Suddenly, lights on, chairs up, here comes another meal...

Steff waking up bewildered and looking like she was going to cry: "They're feeding us again?"

The rest of our flight: Hearing that stupid China air dvd with Chinese chanting over and over, vegetarian meals REALLY confusing the flight attendants, a super awesome meal at the Taipei airport. INDONESIA!

After an interesting ride from the airport we are now in Kuta Beach Bali.

We paid too much for our room.

We took a 5 hour nap after saying "We're NOT going to fall asleep.. We're NOT going to.. fall.. asleeeepp...zzzZZZZzzzzZ"

Fail.
We're now rested with a game plan! We're changing hostels this afternoon. Beach laying. Girly drink. Massage. Watching surfer movies at a bar tonight. One more day here then off to Ubud.

Here we go!

Cheers. Asia. Call a car.. Where is everything?! here it is!

We're off!

First stop Indonesia!1