3,400 miles on a motorbike

 Everyone is driving on the wrong side of the road here

I never thought I'd tell a story about the time I spent nearly three weeks solid sitting on the back of a motorbike, but that day is finally here. 53 hours of driving time, straight, each way, (and we didn't go straight). It seemed like an incredible idea before we left, and more amazing in hindsight, that we're still alive to tell the story. It's also easier to remember the trip fondly as time passes - I'm slowly forgetting how much pain I was in! 

My driver/boyfriend at the time, Dhevon, hails from a town near Jakarta, the messy capital of Indonesia. He lives in Labuan Bajo, which is where our trip originated. For some reason, it made sense to travel by motorbike the massive expanse of Indonesia - including nearly the entire length of Java, to get to his hometown in time for the festival of Idul Fitri - which is spelt differently depending on where you are - anyway, the festival at the end of Ramadhan, which is typically a big celebration with your friends and family, with lots to eat.  

Just about space for 2 people...

There were plenty of stops along the route - I joined the party from Lombok, while the boat was having fun at Gilli Air. One 20 minute ride took us from the Gillis to Lombok, and a 4 hour drive through the mountains of Lombok to the port on the other side. A five hour ferry ride took us to Padang Bai, on Bali (fast boats are available directly from the Gili Islands in less than 1 hour, but are unable to transport motorbikes). And then straight to Ubud, a beautiful spot that we enjoyed so much we spent a little longer than expected. 

Hanging out in Ubud was such a contrast after the dust and grime/sand of Labuan Bajo and Gilli Air - there are at least 4 Polo shops that we saw in town! Along with plenty of awesome eateries. There is a fantastic 'Padang' restaurant located on the main hill through town. Padang food is some of the best I've eaten in Indonesia, and although it is the specialty of one area (No prizes for guessing it's name: Padang) it can be found throughout the country and even internationally. 

Rolling rice fields of Bali

We spent an afternoon visiting the rice terraces, which is a beautiful valley with carefully sculpted narrow strips of clay for farming rice. There was also a drive to Kintamani where we saw Gunung Batur, along with the surrounding lake. Although we hadn't had enough of hanging out in the tourist-friendly Ubud area, or the delicious food, it was time to leave for the rest of our trip. 

Highlights of mine along the way: a totally wrecked, burnt out minibus, that had been mounted on a concrete plinth as a grim reminder to drivers to slow down before the sharp curve at the bottom of the steep mountainside road. Sorry, I wasn't quick enough with the camera to get a photo of that one! 
Meeting plenty of new friends and learning enough bahasa to understand the following conversation that we had with nearly everyone:

Stranger: Where are you going?
Dhevon:Jakarta
S: Where did you travel from??
D: Labuan Bajo, Flores! 
S: On a motorbike? Are you crazy?!
D: No. 
Me: My butt thinks 'yes!'

My next favourite stop was in Jogjakarta, which is the arts and crafts capital of Indonesia. I was in paradise! After studying the batik process very briefly way back in school, I decided it was high time I invested in a kompor or 'machine for melting wax' (whatever that's called in English). Plus the wax. And some tjantings. Plus material. Oh and then dye, when we got back in Bali...somehow I've managed to choose the least transportable hobby possible to take with me on the rest of my travels. 

Whilst doing my best to avoid getting back on the motorbike in Yogya, we did a couple of day trips - firstly to see the fantastic sunrise at Borobodur (a large Buddhist temple) which we arrived at in good time for the sunrise on top of the nearby hill. I've never seen such spectacular scenery - watching the first rays of light appear behind a smoking volcano and slowly lighting the valley before you, complete with tendrils of mist in the bottom of the valley with the highest parts of the temple poking out. It was inspirational.

 Also to Prambanan (a Hindu temple), the Royal Imogiri Cemetery which was interesting despite being mostly shut for the duration of Ramadan and inside the old walled Kraton, the inner city of Yogyakarta with Palaces, reception halls and the water castle spread out within it's gates. As well as a market or two, a batik factory (to learn my new craft) and some dancing on the street!

Leaving Yogya/Jodja/Djoja we decided to take the scenic route through the mountains and were happily surprised when we stumbled across Saturday night in a fairly small town - Magetan. This was one of those times when travelling without a plan really worked out. We ate dinner in a restaurant packed with Muslim families who were waiting to hear the call from the muezzin before they could begin eating. Wandering out into the square outside after eating we saw loads of young people hanging out - eating snacks from the many vendors, playing fairground games or hiring neon-lit bikes/vehicles to do a turn around the park with their friends. It was a great and completely unexpected night (that might have been why it was so much fun). Being the only bule around meant I was treated to a lot of stares and requests for photographs. One such example was a group of young girls who spoke excellent English. They asked for a photo with me, which I happily agreed to, before they admitted they had no camera so I'd have to use my own!

The temples at Prambanan

We stopped off at the village on the way to Jakarta for one night. Finishing our journey in Jakarta we relaxed, met old friends, hung out and tried not to offend anyone by eating on the streets during the day. A great day trip was Taman Mini - a sort of theme park with different sections where you could effectively travel the whole of Indonesia in a day. I especially enjoyed the cable car ride over the whole area, where we had a good overhead view of the central lake which has artificial islands in it, creating a large aerial map of Indonesia.

The family vehicle

A couple of days later, we rode back to the village in almost double the amount of time it had taken us to get there - Delina's dad told me it was one of the biggest annual migrations of people anywhere in the world, when around 9 million people leave the city to go back to their homes for the celebration. On the last day of Ramadhan I tried to see if I was able to fast for the entire day. Although I woke up at around 4am to eat before sunrise I caved at lunchtime! 

The day of Idul Fitri itself was very interesting to me, as was the village life in general. I'd done henna for Dhevon's sister, Maya, which meant that half of the girls in the village wanted some before I left. 

I learnt about the lovely traditions the Indonesians have when greeting people - if the person is older than you, you kiss their hand after you shake it. If you are not that close to the person, it's acceptable to shake their hand, then touch your hand to your heart. Also when giving/accepting anything you should grip your right elbow with your left hand to show politeness. 

 We started with a visit to the graveyard to pay our respects to the dead members of the family (everyone else started with a visit to the mosque first thing in the morning) which is a slow process to get there and back, because you have to greet everyone you meet on the road with a handshake/kiss (and working out who should get what is no mean feat when you don't have an example to follow!). On the way back home, you call on close members of your family (basically in this village everyone is family...some first cousins were getting married shortly after our visit). The village I went to had a predetermined order of age in which you should visit; the eldest being the first you should go and see. I should just mention that at every stop you are basically force-fed cake/sweets and made to drink tea or water. After the last month of not being allowed to offer visitors refreshments if they came to your home, the Muslims were desperate to make up for it. In some cases, this was not enough; many family members wanted to feed me too. I think I ate around 5 meals (with second and third helpings being pushed onto my plate) which were incredibly difficult to refuse.

After stuffing ourselves silly for two days we eventually had to make our departure - there were some fifty plus driving hours between ourselves and Bali. On the way back we managed to discover an incredible 80m waterfall almost by accident: we didn't quite make it back to our favourite spot of Magetan from Yogyakarta and asked in our hotel if there were any tourist attractions nearby. We decided to go first thing in the morning, before the next long days ride. There were several things you could do there, including tubing down the river for a bit, or take a zip wire across. It's interesting how cheap these things are when you find an area where all the tourists are locals. It cost less than $2 to go across on the zipwire, despite the presence of 6+ staff kitting you out with the harness, a helmet and all the rest of the safety precautions etc. Doing an activity like that in an equivalent location at home would doubtless cost an exorbitant amount of money. As the only foreigner in the area, everyone watched me and clapped when I finished, although I'm still not quite sure why. Dhevon also overheard some local ladies admiring my outfit (jeans and a t-shirt) because it was respectful to the local culture. It's nice to know people appreciate it when you show you are aware of their customs. 

It was a fantastic trip altogether. It was great to live with a family and get an insight into the Muslim way of life, which is something I really didn't understand too well before. Also it was nice to have the freedom of the bike (despite the sore butt) in that traffic times were majorly reduced, and it was possible to stop anywhere we wanted, unlike on a bus. Having said that, I was very glad to see the boat back in Labuan Bajo at the end of my trip!






  

Day trip for Dirty Girls

Recently we took a trip out to explore the natural beauty of the Kota Kinabalu area - we sailed out to Pulau Tige, the location of the first Survivor series. One of the attractions of this beautiful island is of course, the volcanic mud baths. Sorry if you were expecting something a bit more exciting based on the title...

 After walking along the excessively long dock where we'd left the dingy we met a group of Chinese who seemed to be heading in the same direction, with the help of a couple of local guides. We bravely entered the jungle first, and began the slightly uphill hike. Plenty of monkeys were jumping from tree to tree ahead of us. The Chinese were laughing and squealing at the monkey antics, or the bugs in the air. Wanda (on the boat just for two days) froze as a loud rustle came from the bushes.
'What was that?!'
Everyone stopped to listen and scan the area around us. The Chinese girls edged slightly closer. Everyone was thinking of all the scary animals hiding out in the jungles of Borneo.

Of course it was only a huge monitor lizard slowly ambling out from the bush and across the path. No reason to panic, then.

When we got there, the guide from the other group showed everyone how easy it was to slip into the mud  - and managed to make it look very graceful.

Our resident geologist identified the mud as 'clay with bits in'. The crewbie, Petrina, comes from the States (the part where they eat road kill for Christmas dinner - Minnesota).

Sitting in the mud was a peculiar sensation  - I've floated in the Dead Sea, but this was different. The mud is so dense that it's really hard to get your feet to touch the bottom (it was only a metre deep). Also the mud was so thick it didn't move much - you could lie back and be completely supported and have a nap if you wanted - you wouldn't move unless you intended to. Who needs memory foam?

While we were sitting there enjoying the very faint smell of sulphur we all had another scare as a large bubble of gas rose to the surface. There was a bit of a 'whodunnit' moment, until we figured out it was a natural part of the volcanic baths.

The only downside was the amount of stuff floating around in the mud - something would be touching your arm and you'd freak out that it was a leech/worm/creepy bug and then realize it was only a leaf! Eek. Mosquitoes were the only insect around (that I found!). We hung out there for a while - one of the guides kindly gave me a nice back massage and helped me rub the mud onto my face.

We made a less graceful exit, as the mud was incredibly slippery. It was safer to risk the unknown creepy crawlies on the ground rather than attempting to wear shoes for the walk back. It became slightly harder to maneuver as the mud began to dry and crack on our bodies. I felt like my face was frozen in a smile from laughing so much.

Me, Wanda and Petrina

At the beach we jumped into the sea and washed off the mud from our soft skin - an excellent spa day in a much more natural and beautiful environment!