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Monthly Archives: June 2009
Indonesia day 18 – Yogyakarta, central Java
We are signed up to an all-day batik course which is run in the losmen’s internet room among the computers and the motorbikes. Our teacher, Giman, is a 49-year-old batik artist who supplements the income from his studio by introducing tourists to the rudiments of this skilful and painstaking art. All the equipment for the course is laid out on piece of lino about 4 foot square and covered in newspaper for good measure – two oil burners warming dishes of wax, a selection of pens with nozzles of varying thicknesses for applying the wax to the fabric and an assortment of brushes. The first step is to trace a design onto a piece of white fabric. I’ve chosen geckos whilst Andy is making a freehand copy of the Spurs emblem. After some rudimentary practice using the pens to apply liquid wax onto fabric without spilling it or creating unsightly blobs, which is much harder than it looks, we begin the task of out-lining our designs. Straight-away we both spill a large scar of wax across them. Fortunately for Andy his mistake comes out looking like ‘go faster’ stripes trailing from the word ‘Spurs’, but mine is more like an alien life-form or a mummified baby and is beyond any attempt to craftily incorporate what will be a large white splodge across the finished piece. Once the outlining is complete the first dyeing takes place followed by blocking all the parts of the design which will be retained in the initial colour. The process in repeated, with another layer of colour and more blocking to achieve until the required combination of colours is achieved. Finally I apply a mix of wax and paraffin to the background, to create a cracked effect when the final colour, black, is applied. The end result is a combination of yellow, orange, red and black and looks quite good for a first attempt, despite the ‘splodge’. Andy’s design is only requires one colour, blue, and he has his finished well before lunch so he starts on another piece, this time the subject is a couple of fish. But very soon a splodge appears which he creatively turns into a squid-like creature along with another couple of splodges to make it look intentional. All the dyeing is done by Giman probably because there are no gloves available to protect our hands and he doesn’t seem to mind having to dip his hands in chlorine at the end of the day. He applies colour washes to Andy’s design rather than block colour and the end result is a mélange of blues, pinks and greens. And the white splodges seem almost part of the intended design.
All-in-all a fun, if rather tiring, day and we came away with two pieces of ‘art’ which might just bear framing when we get home! It also gave us an appreciation of the remarkable skill of the women in the batik factories who chat away while they create intricate patterns with seemingly effortless ease.
Indonesia day 17 – Solo to Yogyakarta, central Java
The door-to-door cost of travelling from Solo to < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /?>
Yogyakarta x kilometers away amounts to a grand total of 28,000 rupiah (£1.70) for the two of us! Improbable as it might seem, that included a taxi cab to the station in Solo and two’ bisnis’ class train tickets. There are no footbridges over the tracks in the station, simply a dip in the platforms to allow passengers to walk across the tracks. Trains are boarded from low platforms either side of the line and, if the carriage only has a foothold rather than a step, getting on an off can be an ungainly and awkward affair. The train station is not overly busy but there are no seats available by the time we have hauled our luggage on to the train, so rather than stand for what is scheduled as a 45-minute journey we park ourselves on our luggage in the wide central aisle. The journey is delayed for about half-an-hour at the next station and finally arrives at Yogjakarta (pronounced Jogjakarta) three-quarters of an hour late. The losmen, Setia Kaweng, which we booked this morning before leaving Solo is only about 50 meters from the station and an easy walk even with our bulky luggage. It turns out to be a good choice. This old-style building is bursting with character. Situated down a small alleyway well away from the noise of the main road, the rooms are small but clean and well maintained. Arcane murals and surrealist paintings by a local artist known as ‘Bedhot’ adorn the rooms and communal areas. A perfectly restored Lambretta stands on the beautiful tiled floor in the corridor outside our room and there is another in the internet room alongside a couple of veteran motorbikes that wouldn’t look out of place in ‘The Great Escape’.
This is the heart of the tourist quarter around Sosrowijayan, an area of delightful gangs (alleys), cheap backpacker hotels and attractive and well patronized eating places.
We are only a short stroll from Jalan Marliboro the main shopping street, its pavements crammed with stalls selling cheap clothing, handbags, shoes, jewelry and souvenirs as well as warungs offering street food. We shuffle the length of the crowded street, across the alun alun as far as the Sultan’s Palace, which is closed, and back. People are eager to stop and engage us in friendly and inquisitive conversation which always leads to an attempt to persuade us to visit a batik arts centre where they get commission and we would get ripped off. They even follow us along the street to make sure we find our way. After a while we get wise to these solicitous approaches and find that the touts soon lose interest when we mention that we’ve already been to the batik centre.
The streets are full of becaks, the bicycle rickshaws that throng Java’s towns and, even at tourist rates, are incredibly good value at around 10,000-15,000 rupiah (60-90p) for a typical journey, negotiable of course. The rate being determined by a combination of factors; distance, number of people and whether the journey is up or downhill. There seems to be an over-supply in the city centre, and many empty becaks, their sleeping drivers reclining awkwardly on their small seats, are to be seen lined up along the streets and around tourist sites. Horse-drawn andong are also a common sight clip-clopping around Yogya although in nothing like the numbers of becak.
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Indonesia day 16 – Solo, central Java
We set out with the intention of visiting the Kraton Surakata, Solo’s largest palace. It’s Sunday, everyone is out on the streets in their finery and there is something of a holiday atmosphere. This is the liveliest we have seen Solo since we arrived. On the way along Jalan Salmet Riyadi we stop to watch a children’s dance troupe which is attracting a sizeable crowd. It’s a sweltering day and I can feel the perspiration running off me as we stand and watch, feeling rather sorry for the children who are wearing elaborate tradional costumes and long thick wigs. The performance is part of the Mozaik Festival and the children are followed by an adult troupe with elaborate feather head-dresses and bells strapped to their carves. There is an introduced in Indonesian by a young woman who must have spotted us, the only westerners in the audience, because she rounds off with a short explanation of the dance in English for our benefit. It tells the story of the hunting and capture of two tigers. The tigers are captured and removed from the stage early on in the dance, but like many Indonesian dances, it is repetitive and long and we don’t have the stamina or will to stay until the end.
The Kraton Surakata is the palace of the premier royal family of Solo and is on a larger and grander scale than the Puri Mangkunegaran, although not is a good repair. It is approached across an Alun Alun – a large, scrubby and litter-strewn square of grass. Here at the main entrance is the Pagelaran, a large open-sided audience hall where the susuhunan held court. Behind the Pagelaran and separated from it by a busy narrow street is the Kraton proper enclosed with a high perimeter wall. Much of the palace was destroyed by fire in 1985 and subsequently re-built. Surprisingly given its recency, most of it is in a rather dilapidated state. There is a small museum containing few bits and pieces many of which are in dire need of restoration. An inner courtyard of tall shady trees leads to the pendopo which is off-limits to the public and the Panggung Saonggo Buwono tower which dates back to 1782 – a white and blue wooden structure which seems slightly incongruous in this palace setting.
There is batik parade some time this afternoon along Jalan Salmet Riyadi, a wide boulevard that runs east to west through the city and is only a couple of minutes walk from our losmen. When seems to be a bit of a moving feast; officially it starts at 2pm but as we sit having lunch in the losmen the projected time is pushed back to 3pm and then 3.30. Around 3.15 we wander down the road to see what’s happening. The street is lined with onlookers but it is still open to traffic. We could be in for a long wait, Indonesians being notorious, apparently, for their poor time-keeping. So we step into what turns out to be a small food court which affords a view of the road and order a drink. The parade doesn’t make an appearance until after 5pm and then is a rather desultory and sporadic affair. The extravagant and theatrical batik costumes and masks are quite spectacular, though the parade is short-lived. Suddenly and without warning the road is full of traffic once more and the crowd has to scuttle back to the safety of the pavements.
Indonesia day 15 – Solo, central Java
The hotel offers half-day guided bicycle tours into the countryside around Solo and we are ready at 9am to meet our guide, Patrick (presumably not his Javanese name, but who knows?). After sorting us out with a couple of rather ancient mountain bikes with somewhat ropey brakes, we set off with some trepidation through the city traffic. Solo is a city of 500,000 inhabitants, but despite its size it doesn’t take long before we are crossing the river Solo on a small rope-operated ferry boat and leaving the city traffic behind. Each village specialises particular cottage industry and we visit several small ‘factories’ making tofu, rice crackers, tempe (a fermented soya cake), arak (rice spirit), roof tiles, gamelan gongs, batik as well as a bakery. ‘Factory’ probably gives something of a misleading impression of these tiny businesses housed in run-down barns with dirt floors and an absence of western standards of hygiene. Our namby-pamby sensibilities are shocked to see the conditions in which food destined for the city’s restaurant is produced. Tofu is left out on grubby-looking bamboo shelves for the geckos to nibble; the soya bean and yeast mix for tempe is packed into banana leaf packets on the floor of a village house; the rice for crackers is cooked, pounded, pressed into racks and sliced into slivers, all by hand in a dark and dingy shed fit only for housing animals before being dried in the sun and then fried and bagged ready for sale. The bakery is an equally dark and dingy affair with huge piles of dough lying on tables and buns being packed into cellophane bags by young girls sitting on the tiled floor; and the distillery making arak for medical use under license from the government is incredibly crude and homespun. The tile factory is involves one man laboriously producing individual tiles using a manual press to shape the clay. The most striking thing about all of these little industries apart from the dubious surroundings in which they operate, is the total absence of any mechanisation. Everything is done manually by villagers on incredibly low wages, some as little as 75p per day.
It is the gamelan factory which is the highlight of the tour. There are only six gamelan factories in
Indonesia apparently, and today they are in the midst of producing the gongs that form part of a gamelan orchestra. Two furnaces which are little more than fire pits in pitch black rooms send showers of orange sparks flying into the air as the metal is lowered in the pit and turned until it is red hot and malleable enough to be beaten into shape. The beaters then take up their 10 kilo hammers and pound the metal one after the other in a repetitive and rhythmic round. The gongs are destined for Bali and the complete set will take three months to produce and cost £18,000.
Back in the Solo alleyways we stop in the quarter which is home to Solo’s famed batik industry. Batik is produced in small workshops and we visit one which is behind a little showroom close to our losmen. The whole process – the tracing of the patterns onto cloth, the application of the wax and the dyeing all takes place in a small room at the back. There are five or six people working here; three women are painstakingly applying wax to create intricate sarong designs whilst two men are creating batik cap which is a method of block printing wax onto cloth to produce a cheaper batik product. Alongside are tubs of wood from which the natural dyes are produced and several vats of dye. Each piece of batik can be dyed up to 22 times to build up the layers of colour in the final design.
By the time we return to the hotel around 1pm we are tired and hungry; cycling in the heat even on the flat is quite exhausting. So we head for the rather characterful restaurant over the road and, despite what we have seen this morning, indulge in a delicious meal of tofu, tempe and rice crackers – and live to tell the tale!
Indonesia day 14 – Solo, central Java
The hotel Istana Griya is a charming little place and full of character. Colourful décor and seating under the shade of a porch-cum-veranda at the front gives it a homely feel and the immaculately restored Harley Davidson parked in the reception is clearly someone’s pride and joy. The staff are very friendly and volunteer information and a map of the city. We set out to do a bit of shopping, post some cards and generally orientate ourselves. No-one could claim that Solo is a particularly beautiful city, but off the main roads are numerous peaceful little alleyways – free of cars and traffic noise – which are home to the kampungs (neighbourhoods) where the inhabitants of Solo live. The city is renowned as a cultural centre for the performing arts – although it doesn’t stand comparison with Ubud in terms of the number and diversity of performances on offer – and for traditional crafts especially batik.
It also has two palaces, the Kraton Surakarta and Puri Mangkunegaran. The former is closed on Fridays, so we visit Puri Mangkunegaran which is the smaller of the two. We are escorted round by our own personal guide and two school children who are observing as part of their tourism studies. There are two royal families in Solo and this palace is home to the second house. It is a Unesco World Heritage site and is well maintained as a result. At the centre of the palace compound is large open-sided pavilion with a lovely painted ceiling and behind it a small, but interesting museum and the state rooms including a reception room – where we pose for photographs sitting in the royal chairs – and the dining room, where it is possible to dine with the royal family for a mere US$30 a head!
Indonesia day 13 – Cemoro Lewang to Solo, central Java
Our tour of the Gunung Bromo and
Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park leaves at 4am from our hotel in Cemora Lewang. A convoy of jeeps snakes its way down onto the crater floor and makes the steep climb to Penanjakan, which at 2,770 meters, is the highest point on the Tengger crater rim. It is pitch black as our 4wd containing us and four other tourists negotiates the precipitous and pot-holed road to the top. At Penanjakan there must be 60 or 70 jeeps at least parked up along the narrow road and a surprising number of mainly Javanese visitors are congregating on at the viewing area eagerly anticipating the sunrise as they jockey for the best positions. To get to the viewing platform we have had to run the gauntlet of numerous stalls selling food, hats, gloves, scarves and other items of merchandise. It’s cold in the mountains at this time in the morning and enterprising hawkers are renting coats to those who have come unprepared. We have hired padded jackets from the hotel for 50,000 rupiah (£3). Hattie is doing duty keeping Andy snug whilst I have invested £1.25 in a wooly beanie.
As an orange and pink hue starts to spread across the dawn sky heralding the rising sun an incredible view unfolds before us; we are looking down on a sea of clouds on one side of the rim and the belching crater of Gurung Bromo and its neighbours to the other. Only a few peaks of can be seen above the clouds, the main being Gurung Semora which at 3,676 metres above sea level is the highest volcano in the national park. The light playing over the clouds is a tantalizing sight changing their topography moment by moment. Then suddenly the sun rises and in the blink of an eye the magic is lost.
Back in the jeep we return to the caldera floor to traverse the Sea of Sands and climb to the crater of Gurung Bromo. The ascent involves negotiating the skirt of the volcano and then tackling 257 steps to the crater rim. We set off to climb it on foot eschewing the easier alternative of being led on horseback. But the effect of the altitude makes a struggle of what in other conditions would be an easy ascent. So I succumb and ride up as far as the steps. The effort of climbing the steps is well rewarded by a magnificent view down into the crater and the gaping gash from which the steam pours out. It’s possible for the adventurous and fit to take the narrow and challenging path round circumference of the crater, but no-one seems up for it today.
After breakfast back at the hotel, we take a minibus back to Probolinggo from where we will pick up our transfer to Solo in central Java. The journey is an experience; there are ten western tourists in the bus when we set off, but along the way the bus stops several times to pick up locals until there are sixteen passengers packed in like sardines, plus one person on the roof with the luggage and another hanging on the external ladder. How they manage to hang on as the driver hurtles down the treacherously steep and winding road is a mystery.
In Probolinggo we transfer to a tourist shuttle which we share with a none-too-chatty couple for what turns out to be a seven-and-an-half hour journey to Solo in central Java. It is a tedious journey in heavy traffic most of the way. We have reclining seats and lots of leg room to make it more bearable, but not the promised air con. The driver is surly and uncommunicative, and like all Javanese, drives like a maniac; overtaking at every hair-raising opportunity (on-coming vehicles just have to move over to accommodate traffic that is over-taking) or passing lorries using what is little more than a hard shoulder provided for mopeds and cyclists. We make a couple of short stops along the way but It isn’t until 4pm that we are ejected from the car without explanation, for what turns out to be a meal stop. We eventually arrive in Solo an hour and half later than expected only to be dropped on a busy street instead of at our hotel and have to complete the rest of the journey by taxi.
We haven’t been able to book ahead, so it is with a certain amount of trepidation that we arrive at the hotel Istana Griya, but fortunately they have a vacancy. The hotel has a good atmosphere and heaps of charm, although the room is a bit skuzzy (as Lonely Planet might say) and like many places here the toilet cistern no longer works so the toilet has to be flushed using a bucket of water. But hey, it’s well located just off the main drag and being in an alley, it is quiet, which is a big plus in this island of mosques and heavy traffic. It’s cheap too, only 130,000 rupiah (just under £8) and internet is only 50p an hour.
Indonesia day 12 – Banyuwangi to Cemora Lawang, eastern Java
Today we are headed for Cemora Lawang via Probolinggo to see one of Java’s most spectacular volcanoes, Gurung Bromo.
The train to Probolinggo leaves Letapang at 9am, so we have ordered a taxi for 7.30am to ensure we have plenty of time and the best chance of securing seats in either executive or bisnis class and thereby avoiding economy which apparently is a bit of a free-for-all. What we hadn’t appreciated is that Java is in a different time zone to
Bali and yesterday we had gained an hour. It’s actually 6.30 am when we present ourselves in reception anticipating that our pre-booked taxi will be waiting. There’s no point in hanging around in the hotel so we leave anyway and just as well we did, as all the executive class tickets are sold out by the time we get to the station. We settle for bisnis class (no aircon) and reconcile ourselves to atwo-hour wait for the train. This is not a busy station, at least at this time in the morning g; there is only one other train leaving before ours. The journey is long and the train is crowded and inordinately slow. If this is bisnis class then economy is definitely to be avoided! At every station, and there are many, hawkers selling all manner of food stuffs parade their wares through the carriages and from time to time the train staff proffer plated meals of nasi goreng.
We arrive in Probolinggo at 2pm. The journey has taken five hours. The only transport from the station appears to be becaks (bicycle rickshaws) who seem to know how to get us to Cemoro Lewang . So we hire two (one not being big enough for the both of us and our luggage) and we are off through the quiet and pretty backstreets of Probolinggo to eventually be delivered to … the tourist information office. Opting for the easy life we allow ourselves to be persuaded to sign up for a package which includes the transfer from Probolinggo to Cemora Lewang 45 kilometres away, a sunrise trip to the volcano Gunang Bromo and a tourist shuttle to the town of Solo, our onward destination in central Java. All of which sounds a lot more appealing than trying to organise it ourselves. The transfer to Cemora Lewang is a rather shabby and cramped minibus up some of the steepest roads I’ve ever encountered. Up and up we climb, passing impossibly-steep cultivated fields, through the clouds to emerge at the Cemara Indah Hotel right on the lip of the massive Tengger crater, some 2000 or so meters above sea level.
And the view is spectacular in an eerie, surreal kind of way. Stretching below us is the enormous crater floor 10km across on which three volcanoes seem to rest on an ashen sea of volcanic sand. The whole scene has the unreality of a computer generated film set. The scene is dominated by a large perfectly symmetrical conical volcano and it adjacent neighbor, the grey Gurung Bromo spread in an untidy fashion across the crater floor. By no means the largest volcano in Java at 2,392 meters, Gurung Bromo must be one of the most dramatic as it belches clouds of sulphurous steam into air. The setting is made all the more dreamlike by what looks like a miniature model temple so dwarfed is it by the imposing surroundings.
Indonesia day 11 – Pemuteran, Bali to Banyuwangi, Java
The journey by car to the ferry port at Gilimanuk on the west coast takes about an hour through tree-lined lanes with neatly strimmed verges and pretty houses.
Bali’s countryside is unerringly beautiful, with every shade of green imaginable, explosions of vibrantly-colourful flowers, dazzlingly clear light and spectacular mountain backdrops. Not forgetting the wonderfully hospitable people. Paradise indeed! Perhaps we should have stayed longer, but Java beckons.
Only a narrow stretch of water separates Bali from Java, but it is still a surprise just how close Java’s volcanoes loom across a strait that can be no more that a kilometer or so wide. It still takes half-hour to make the crossing for all that. The tickets cost a mere 4,500 rupiah each (27p) and are checked three times between the ticket office and the ferry. Foot passengers board by the car ramp and make their way up to the passenger deck, a pretty basic affair with plastic seating and loud Indonesian pop music blarting incessantly. On arrival at Letapang in Java we start to make our way to the train station with the intention of buying tickets for our onward journey tomorrow before heading for our hotel. But we are intercepted by a man from the Tourist Information Bureau who is very insistent that we must come to the office and register our arrival in Java. Whether this is strictly necessary or just a ruse to sell us a tour we are not quite sure, but having registered he wants to sell us a trip to the volcano, Gurung Ijen. We decide not to be bamboozled into signing up on the spur of the moment and instead charter a bemo to take us to our hotel. Bemos are Indonesia’s hop-on hop-off minibuses that form the basis of their local transport system and can either be used as a public bus or chartered like a taxi. They are dilapidated, cramped and uncomfortable but incredibly cheap.
Our hotel, chosen on the recommendation of Lonely Planet, is about 18km from the port of Ketapang, in Banyuwangi. Banyuwangi is not an attractive place and why Lonely Planet saw fit to recommend the hotel is a mystery. It is in a particularly unprepossessing area and is very run down. The ‘best’ room in the hotel has no windows, an appalling bathroom with a loo that doesn’t flush and pipe work that is constantly leaking. To cap it all we are right next to the mosque which might as well be conducting its service in our room, it is so loud and intrusive. But, it’s only for one night and the thought of having to slog around with our luggage looking for something better is less appealing than staying put.
By this time it’s 2 o’clock and our stomachs are protesting. We are on our way out of the hotel to find something to eat when we are accosted by a man in uniform. A policeman perhaps? No it is a government tourist representative come specially to provide us with information! The information he has to impart is pretty sparse and he is of little help with the important issue of the moment – somewhere to eat.
Locating a restaurant proves a bit of a challenge; there are plenty of ‘warungs’ or food stalls around the area, but none very appealing. It soon becomes apparent that there is nothing remotely catering for tourists in this corner of Banyuwangi and we are going to have to try to decipher an Indonesian menu with the help of the limited glossary in the guide book. We settle on a corner café, but with no menu the waitress has to resort to bringing food out from the kitchen to show us what she has, which isn’t very much. Trying to explain ‘vegetarian’ is one step too far and she goes off to find someone who can speak English. Very helpfully he directs us to another café, the Mitra, around the corner where we manage to make ourselves understood with the aid of animal impressions (moo, flapping of arms and the like) and have a tasty lunch for the embarrassingly cheap price of 35,000 rupiah – just over £2.
Walking on the pavement in most south-east Asian cities is a challenge – either it doesn’t exist, is obstructed by stalls and mopeds or is a mass of potholes, broken paving and general detritus – and Banyuwangi is no exception. Often it’s necessary to step around or over obstacles or desert the pavement altogether in favour of the road.
There are two particularly bizarre sights which are quite commonly seen on the pavements here. Hawkers leaning into open-topped cages heaving with hundreds of cockroach-like bugs which appear to be fed on bananas; we suspect they are sold for culinary purposes, but it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to eat them. The strange thing about this arrangement is the bugs never seem to escape out of the top of the cage. Alongside these cages is often a man with a small pile of what looks like rice on a patch of cloth, but I suspect is sweetened desiccated coconut which he sells in very small quantities to passersby. The pile is over-run by large red ants which he is forever trying to keep a bay with a rather grubby looking rag. The ants must also run over him as well, for he is continually brushing his arms, ears and neck. Intriguing and rather perplexing.
Indonesia day 10 – Pemuteran, Bali
There is not much to do in Pemuteran if you don’t want to dive; except chill and today we do just that. Lunch on by the beach, some blogging, a visit to a small turtle hatchery, a stroll to the western end of the beach and the purchase of a sim card fill the day quite easily.
The beach is interrupted in places by a black lava pavement and at low tide the rocky seabed beyond is revealed making it difficult to get into the water. This is not really a spot for swimming, although there are places where it is possible to enter the sea safely and do a little snorkeling around the coral reef which is being created using electric current and an artificial structure. Apparently it’s rather like something from a sci-fi movie, but we haven’t felt the inclination to take a look for ourselves.
The sand is a gamut of colours from areas of jet black to shades of grey and gold and the rock pools are full of marine life from small fish and crabs to sea slugs and strange-snake like creatures with anemone-type fronds for mouths.
The beach is fringed with large broad leaf trees that provide welcome shade and provide a pleasant backdrop that obscures the few low-rise and, it should be said, attractive, resorts. There are palms too and we stop to watch a man scale one of these towering trees, bare-foot and without a harness, to collect the sap accumulating in plastic bottles hung amongst the crown of fronds.
For £1.50 it’s possible to buy a sim card here with 60p-worth of airtime. We have no idea how many minutes that might equate to, but it seems like a good deal anyhow! And since many hotels in Indonesia don’t take bookings over the internet a local sim card is likely to be quite handy. The actual purchase, made at a little roadside kiosk, is a drawn-out affair as attempts are made to activate the sim card for us. But after about half-an-hour of putting the sim in and out different handsets, a call to the network provider seems to do the trick and we are able to make our first call to book tomorrow night’s accommodation in Java.
We round off the day with two Arak cocktails in the bar near our bungalow. Tonight it is quite busy with seven customers including us filling its veranda is full. We chat to a young German couple who are on honeymoon here and are also off to Java tomorrow – on a day trip to Mount Ijen leaving at 4.30 am whilst we will be leaving at the much more civilized hour of 10 o’clock.
Indonesia day 9 – Pemuteran, Bali
Our bungalow is more or less in the centre of the village which is strung along the main coastal road. So we decide to explore in the other direction today, but finding nothing much on the main road take a side road that runs towards the mountains and passed village houses until eventually it peters out in to a little track. All along the way we are greeted with enthusiastic ‘hellos’ accompanied by much waving of hands by adults and giggling children alike. Where are you going? Where do you come from are two other favourite greetings employed by the Balinese. A young man seeing us passing rushes out of his house anxious to explain that this is a dead end path, but of course we are welcome to walk it to the end and even to rest in his house if we wish.
We have lunch in the garden of the Reef Scene beach-side bar. Gamelin music is playing in the background as a group of young Balinese girls in sarongs and sashes practice their classical dance skills.
At dinner we chat briefly to a young English couple who, it turns out, used to live in Kirkstall Avenue, just round the corner from our old house in Streatham Hill. Why these chance meetings with people who have some shared connection should continue to evoke surprise, I’m not sure, since they seem to happen with uncanny frequency. They do, nonetheless!