April in twenty-six paragraphs

Well apparently blogging regularly isn't my forte, but anyone who knows me and my habits of procrastination shouldn't be surprised. And in my defense, is has been a busy month. I’m Borneo-bound tomorrow and, fueled by mini eggs left over from a very un-Eastery Easter, I plan to bring you all up to speed on what's up in Asia (so if you’re looking for a long distraction from work or studying, this post is for you).

So let’s back things up to about four weeks ago. My two-week visa run kicked off with an overnight train ride from Malang to the nation’s capital, Jakarta, with Margit, Sarah and Mafalda. Given the horror stories told about the economy train from Malang to Jakarta – overcrowding, heat, mysterious skin infections (I kid you not), theft and other general mischief – we opted for the fifteen hour (and surprisingly comfortable) business class train.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard a positive review of Jakarta and thanks to my incredibly low expectations, I was pleasantly surprised. True, you could hardly walk down any major street without chocking on exhaust fumes, I was barely able to see through my contact lenses after spending three days in the city, and the tiny bugs in my hostel bed were quite annoying. But sitting in a taxi on our quest for some Jakarta nightlife, driving down wide, tree-lined boulevards lined with shining office buildings, shopping malls stocked with designer goods, and even past a Sizzler, I was surprised by how modern the city can be. Is this Indonesia?

Favourite moment: Being led through the world’s third-largest mosque, Mesjid Istiqlal, dressed in long batik robes and listening to the description of the hundreds of symbols behind its design – everything from the year of Indonesia’s independence to the prophet’s birthday had been incorporated by the Catholic architect from Sumatra. 15,000 people pack into the five-level mosque every Friday, with more than 200,000 during Ramadan and Aid.

After three days in Jakarta, we were more than ready to head to the airport. However, my visa run had apparently begun one day too late. After being escorted away by Indonesian immigrations officers to pay my whopping $20 fine (I tired to bargain, but apparently this is one price that’s not negotiable here), Sarah, Margit and I breezed through security and onto our $17 flight to Singapore.

Back at the University of Manitoba, I met a ton of crazy and awesome exchange students who (for whatever reason) chose my city to study abroad in. Three of these brave souls, Wini, JS and Kunali, live in Singapore and so it was great having the chance to meet up with them two years post-exchange.

Singapore is quite possible the cleanest and most attractive city I’ve ever seen. With 5 million people jammed into an area the size of Winnipeg, what I’m guessing is a constant fear of being fined keeps everyone in line. The endless numbers of glittering shopping centres, insanely classy food courts, wonderfully cheap (at least by Singaporean standards) hawker centres, restaurants, cafes, and nightclubs ensure that no one ever goes hungry, thirsty or without commercial goods.

Favourite moments: Everything food and drink - cocktails at New Asia Bar on the 70th floor of the Swissotel, with stunning views of the city below; Chocolate heaven with Wini at Max Brenner; frog legs at the Chinatown hawker centre with JS; and free drinks on Ladies Night in Clarke Quay with Kunali.


Honorable mentions: Walking along the Singapore River, the amazing cityscapes during dinner at Thai Express with Wini and JS, and the indescribable Western comforts of hot water, toilet paper and clean streets.

After a quick and expensive three days in Singapore (and one fantastic night in Clarke Quay), we dragged ourselves onto an early morning bus bound for Malaysia. Our first stop was Melaka, a charming little historical city on the Malaysian peninsula. It was a laid back, quiet and relaxing stop over between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur that was only made better by our amazing hostel owner, Howard.

Favourite moments: Going out for laksa (an amazing coconut milk, chili and lemon grass soup with seafood, tofu and egg) with our diverse array of fellow hostel stayers – from a couple of middle-aged white guys to a cute little Chinese girl; a spur of the moment Melaka-by-night bike tour, complete with baskets and bells, led by Howard and his portable speakers blaring Top 40s as we rode down the boardwalk along the river. So random and so much fun!

My final visa run stop was Kuala Lumpur. I had about a day and a half with the girls before they boarded a plane for Bali, so the remaining four days were spent embracing the joys of travelling solo (or at least trying). I did miss having a travel buddy, but I have to admit that having the freedom to wander a giant English-language bookstore, sit in a cafe for hours reading or writing postcards, splurge on amazing foot reflexology while hiding from the rain, or just wander aimlessly throughout the city streets and markets, all without having to confer with anyone else’s plans, was kind of refreshing.

KL was a surprisingly modern city with fantastically cheap prices and a decent mix of old and new – everything from huge designer shopping malls to ancient Hindu temples. And as a single white girl I was more than happy to be able to walk around alone without issue.

Favourite moments: Dining on random Chinese-Malaysian dishes from street vendors along Jalan Alor; seeing the city descended upon by thousands of Westerns for the Formula One races; that amazing hour of foot reflexology (did I mention it was amazing?).

I returned to Malang relaxed and satisfied from two weeks with hot water and dishes that didn’t contain rice and got to work applying for jobs back in Winnipeg. In between the job applications, I was also trying desperately to fit an entire Indonesian experience into seven days for Steph’s upcoming trip to Indonesia.

Steph and Kristina (her super sweet friend from work) landed on a Friday night, giving us no more than one week to see all that Indonesia has to offer (well, Central and East Java, at least). We kicked off their trip in Malang, wandering through the bird and flower markets, catching angkots all over the city, checking out the AIESEC exhibition for local small businesses and dining on bakso, all before loading into a van for an overnight drive to Yogya (check out my previous post, "A weekend in Yogya," for a recap of my last trip to the city).

There possibly isn’t a better opportunity to practice Bahasa Indonesia than when you’re sitting in the front seat of a van at 1am beside a driver who keeps falling asleep at the wheel. In my (very) broken Bahasa, I tried my best to negotiate with the man to pull over and sleep, or at least stop for a coffee break, but there was just no getting through to him (not that he didn’t understand me; on the contrary, he was arguing that he wasn’t tired – a victory for my language skills but not for my general well-being). The rest of the night was spent wide-awake in the front seat, preparing to grab the wheel when necessary and occasionally harassing the driver with more broken Bahasa.

Amazingly, we arrived safely in Yogya at 5:30am on Easter morning (an Easter miracle, as far as I’m concerned) and within 15 minutes we had found a hostel and crawled into bed for some much needed sleep. The rest of our Easter Sunday in Yogya was spent shopping for beautiful batik and other souvenirs. We ate a bag of Reese’s peanut butter eggs to celebrate the holiday and had a delicious dinner (I ordered pizza) and a cold Bintang beer with a couple other travellers. Very un-Eastery indeed, but it was still great to spend the day with an old friend and a few new ones.

As I had already explored the wonders of Yogya and the surrounding area a couple months before, I was determined to see Borobudur at sunrise this time around (especially since the characters in The Beach mentioned it at least three or four times as a kind of right of passage for backpackers in South East Asia, I figured that it was now or never). We headed over to the village of Borobudur and spent the night in a beautiful little hotel with hot water, mosquito net canopied beds and a patio over looking rice paddies, all for $10 – I love this country.

We met the boys of Jaker (on the recommendation of Lonely Planet – thank you!) early the next morning before sunrise and loaded onto motorbikes to drive through the surrounding villages to the base of Mahitan hill. With a bit of effort and cursing, we arrived at the summit just as the first rays of pink and purple were staining the sky. Watching the sun rise directly from behind the cone of Mount Merapi (an active volcano), with the stupa of Borobudur nestled in the mist of the valley below... amazing.

A less-terrifying van ride brought us back to Malang early Wednesday morning, with just enough time to wash clothes, introduce the girls to serabi, sate ayam and terang bulan (see my previous post, Selamat makan!) before we boarded yet another van at 1:30am. Our driver navigated his way up the ridiculously twisty roads to the gates of Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park and we switched over to a 4x4 jeep to reach the peak of Gunung Penenjakan to watch what is supposed to be an utterly amazing sunrise over the three active volcanoes that make up the national park. It was dark and around 4am by the time we made it to the lookout point and I honestly never thought it was possible to be cold in Indonesia, but we were freezing. We spent the next hour and a half huddled in a tiny wooden shack/cafe around a tiny metal pot with burning charcoal, freezing our asses off and waiting for the sun to make an appearance.

All in all, Thursday was just not our day – we were met with a sheer white wall of clouds and ashes instead of a glorious sunrise. After abandoning hope to ever see the beautiful Gunung Bromo, we were told (through a very confusing round of back-and-forth between someone else’s tour guide and a pack of jeep drivers) that the volcano was, in fact, active again and we weren’t able to climb the crater to take a peak inside the volcano as originally planned (this explained the fine covering of ashes over Malang the day before). So we loaded back into the jeep with our hopes dashed and began the 6-hour journey to Ijen Plateau. We arrived just as the sun was setting and drove through acres of coffee plantations before reaching our hotel, taking a quick dip in the hot-spring-fed hot tub, and heading to bed. Up at 4am once again, we arrived at the base of Ijen just after the sun came up and started the 3km trek up the mountain to the lip of the crater.

Being a girl from the Prairies, I’ve never done any type of trekking in high altitudes and I was pretty sure I was never going to make it up that damn mountainside. I was thankful to have the occasional semi-flat piece of trail and a few families of gibbons here and there to keep me going. Reaching the crater, however, was like stepping into another world. The center of the crater, where the beautiful blue and green sulfur lake lays, was clouded over with volcanic steam, and the haze across the sun made the rocky landscape seems oddly lunar.

I should mention that Ijen Plateau is not only a great place to trek, but also employs a couple hundred men who hike up and down the sides of the mountain and into the crater to haul out hand-mined sulfur. These men pile the giant yellow blocks of sulfur (with little more than a cotton scarf across their mouths to filter the sulfur fumes billowing out of the vents in the volcano) into two baskets connected with a flat piece of wood, hoist it up onto their shoulder, and off they go up the crater wall and down to the base of the mountain. These baskets weight anywhere from 60kg up to 95kg (132 to 209lbs)! That’s more than the entire body weight of these little Indonesian men. As I was stumbling my way up the loose rock after visiting the mines and shores of the sulfur lake at the base of the crater, trying not to choke on the fumes coming up from below, I was in utter awe of how these men make one or two of these trips, day after day, usually with a cigarette balanced between their lips.

We returned to Malang and I said goodbye to Steph and Kristina as they headed to Surabaya at the lovely hour of 3am to catch their three planes back to Winnipeg.

I’m onto my final month in Indonesia! It’s almost hard to believe. Once again, true to my procrastinating nature, I spent last night dragging Cinthya around Malang to find Malaria pills. About three hours and $12 later, I had visited a doctor, hunted down my prescription and went home to inspect myself for any signs of an allergic or adverse reaction to the pills. Now more or less jungle-ready, I’ll be spending the first two weeks of May exploring Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) with Mafalda, searching for jungle adventures, floating markets, boating down a river through national parks and wild orangutan sightings.