Nuts on Bents Blog

Hugging the north coast and then swinging down south into central Java, we arrived in the city of Yogyakarta (or Jogja, as the locals call it). It is a popular tourist destination that is considered to be the very heart of Javanese culture and handcrafts. All classical Javanese arts (batik painting, wooden and shadow puppet shows, gamelan music recitals, and so on) thrive in Jogja as nowhere else in Indonesia. Most tourists are attracted here not only by the arts, but also by the nearby temple complexes of Borobudur (Buddhist) and Prambanan (Hindu).

The day we arrived in Jogja was another public holiday – thus making it almost impossible to find a room for the night. We didn’t realise that the next day the Sultan of Jogja would lead a special religious ceremony in the palace – which meant that all of Indonesia had descended on Jogja for the occasion!! Thankfully we found a tiny fan room in a back-street losmen (like a family run B&B).

Borobodur – the largest Buddhist temple in the world

We had to get up before we went to bed (or so it seemed at 4am in the morning!) – so we could catch the magnificent sunrise at Borobudur, and have it to ourselves before the hoardes of tourists arrive. The temple is a colossal multi-tiered Buddhist stupa from the 9th century. It is rather squat – like a collapsed pyramid – and the sheer size of it is not that obvious at first glance (hence the aerial picture we got off the web). It has three tiers – the first two covered in reliefs depicting man’s earthly existence, desires and passions (first tier) and man’s path to enlightenment (second tier). The top tier has no reliefs as it depicts man’s reaching nirvana, represented by a huge stupa in the middle. Each stupa at this level contains a Buddha image, the stupa covering his form, as nirvana signifies a state of non-being or formlessness.

From the top of the temple we could see Volcano Merapi in the distance – ominously smouldering with a plume of smoke (see last photo below). Our guide explained that the locals were expecting an eruption that year, since it came every four years. One week later the volcano was in international news – with an eruption expected imminently. Evacuation plans were being put in force.

Prambanan Hindu Temple Complex

Contemporary to the Buddhist Borobodur is the nearby Hindu temple complex on the Prambanan plain. It was built by the Hindu dynasty that took over power from the previous Buddhist dynasty. The complex consists of six temples, dedicated to the three main Hindu deities: Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu. Alas by the time we got there the place was crawling with school kids on a day-trip, thus rendering it almost impossible to climp the narrow steps into each temple to see the god/goddess statues inside.

For us in Europe when you speak of Indonesia most people think of aromatic coffee, the resort island of Bali, and the loudest ‘bang’ in the history of the mankind – Krakatau. It had been a childhood dream of Nic’s to one day visit world’s most famous volcano – ever since seeing the disaster movie ‘Krakatau, East of Java’ – though the makers were obviously too busy to consult a map whilst filming as it is in fact just off the West coast of Java!

Visible and visitable from Carita beach on West Java, Krakatau was the epicentre of the 1883 explosion whose force was equivalent to 10,000 Hiroshima atom bombs. The force of the eruption blew the volcanic island apart. The air pressure waves stopped clocks and smashed windows in Jakarta, 250km away, and was heard as far away as London and Alaska. However most of the damage and deaths in the region were caused by the colossal tsunamis that followed – one single wave as tall as a seven storey building raced outwards to the coasts of Java and Sumatra, demolishing everything in its wake. Three hundred towns and villages were simply erased, and over 36,000 people killed. For two years after the eruption, ash blown up into the atmosphere lowered global temperatures and caused psychedelic sunsets all over the world. 30 years after the eruption a new volcano (Anak Krakatau – child of Krakatau) rose out of the sea on the spot, and is still active (and growing) today.

Considering it is one of the major attractions of Indonesia, getting there from Jakarta was surprisingly difficult. All inclusive tours were prohibitively expensive (upwards of $200 each). Getting there by public transport is dramatically cheaper – though a health hazard due to the chain smoking locals on the bus – and also there is no guarantee that a cost-effective boat trip will be available once you get there. We decided to chance it.

The journey was very painful – thick pungent cigarette smoke, no air condition, cramped seating (worse than budget airlines), and the interminable stoppages as the driver pimped for more passengers along the way. The roads were terrible, and every stop would bring on-board numerous hawkers selling drinks, food, and more cigarettes. What should have taken 2 hours by car actually took us 5 hours!!

We had expected Carita to be a lively bustling resort town – particularly since it was a public holiday weekend. Sure enough there were plenty of hotels along the beach – but almost no-one around as the day drew to a close. We found a hotel, than went in search of a boat tour to Krakatau the next morning. Fortunately the volcano god smiled on us – there was one company running a boat the next day, and there was another tourist in town (a Canadian called Erwin) who had been waiting for others to share the boat cost with! At $70 each it was still quite expensive for us, but we decided to do it.

The next morning just as we were about to board the boat, two more Canadians (Ian and Michael) joined our group, thus lowering the cost per person to a much more affordable $50 each. We counted ourselves very lucky – having heard about two tourists who waited for 5 days to share the cost of the boat, and finally gave up and went home.

The boat ride to the island of Krakatau took 4 hours – the sea was choppy, with rain clouds in the distance. We landed on an amazing black sand beach by the volcano – it was really black like powdered charcoal! From the beach it was a short hike up to the shoulder of a hill next to the volcano. Although it wasn’t smoking the day we got there, the volcano showed signs of activity and the rangers did not allow us to climb to the top There were amazing views of the sea and nearby islands, and a wind strong enough to almost lift Sedef off her feet!

After the volcano we were taken to another nearby beach for lunch and swimming, then around the island to a nearby reef for snorkelling. The boat moored right above the reef, at about 15m depth, with the reef wall plunging into the depths of the ocean on one side. Nic was nervous at the prospect of swimming in such deep waters, but he wanted to give snorkelling a go. So he showed amazing bravery and resilience, and after holding on to the boat’s ladder for 15 minutes, finally let go – to paddle around in his life jacket! :p The coral was quite extensive, with both soft and hard corals, shoals of tropical fish, and anemones and clownfish (like Nemo). The amazing underwater sight took Nic’s mind off his nervousness and together we enjoyed the underwater scenery.

The weather started to take a turn for the worse and on the way back the waves grew larger and it started to rain. Thankfully our experienced captain managed to bring us back onshore in one piece.

We spent a day in Pekanbaru, deliberating over the difficult dilemma of how to cross Indonesia. The facts were:

1. We had to cover 4000kms
2. We had to do a minimum of 6 ferry crossings from island to island to get to Timor (some ferries only running once a week or less frequently)
3. We had to do all that in 30 days!!!

Clearly it was not a possible feat, even for the fittest cyclists… So we spread out our map looking for a way to cut down the distance to cycle. We had also been informed that the hurricane of the day before had caused serious flooding and road damage in east Sumatra (on our initial planned route). So with much regret we decided the best option was to take a cheap domestic flight to Jakarta, thus cutting out 900km of cycling in Sumatra… We would therefore get to the island of Java (the most populated island that contains the capital Jakarta) much sooner than anticipated. From there we would see how far we would get in the remaining time – we could always fly/sail to Darwin from Bali, if we ran out of time and couldn’t make it further…

One day and a two-hour flight later we arrived in Jakarta. We found a nice cheap hotel in Jalan Jaksa (main traveller’s area) and spent a couple of days in the city, planning a detour visit to the Krakatau volcano, and then further on east into Java. We found Jakarta to be much more ‘Western’ than we had imagined – with Starbucks, Pizza Huts and a nice fast bus lane connecting key points in the city (their equivalent of a Metro). There was not much to see in the way of historic monuments or any other major tourist attractions. We paid a brief visit to the quaint old district of Batavia (now Kota), which still retains its colonial Dutch influence, including the infamous Cafe Batavia, worth visiting for the exquisite colonial interior and sumptuous (though pricey) chocolate-mint shakes!

We also took a stroll around the Sunda Kelapa harbour – one of the few working ports in the world still using wooden schooners and porters to load and offload cargo… Afterwards we took the lift ride up to the top of the Monas monument – a 137 m tall column with a viewing platform on the top. It is often referred to as ‘Sukarno’s last erection’ by the locals – thus referring to the dictator’s philandering, finally ousted from power in the 1960s. The country is still undergoing significant political upheaval on the road to democracy – as we witnessed ourselves in the form of a three day demonstration for changing the labour laws. At one point the crowd started to get violent, smashing lampposts, and we had to take shelter in a nearby Starbucks which promptly brought down its steel shutters!!

We caught the highly efficient Singapore ferry from the World Trade Centre, to the Indonesian island of Karimun – a slightly unconventional jumping-off point for Sumatra, but much nicer than the traditional stop-by island of Batam, just off the coast of Singapore. In true Singaporean style our departure at the ferry terminal was highly clean and efficient – with airport style luggage check-in and all the amenities of a modern international terminal.

How different it was arriving at our destination, Tanjung Balai port on Karimun island. A wooden jetty and a crumbling wooden building, with customs officers chain-smoking underneath the no-smoking signs plastered on every wall. On arrival we were dismayed to find out that we would only be able to get a 30 day tourist visa – the visa rules having been changed recently! This put a serious spanner in the works. Indonesia being a very large country, our planned route covered almost 3000kms, and would need approximately 2 months to cover fully on bicycle! We realised we would have to take some shortcuts to cross the country in time…

We stayed one night on Karimun, and caught a fast-ish boat to another port just off the coast of Sumatra, called Selapanjang. From there we would transfer on to the river-boat that would slowly wade for 14 hours upriver to the town of Pekanbaru, in the middle of Sumatra. We had 1 hour to kill on Selapanjang – Nic wandered off 3km into town in search of some food, but came back empty handed. In the end we bought some chicken curry (claw!!) and rice wrapped in a banana leaf from a local woman on the jetty. No cutlery so we ate Indonesian style (with the right hand).

About half an hour later a wooden boat-cum-mobile-pigeon-coup that looked like it had been on the water since the 19th century moored up. We took no notice of it, waiting for the nice river-boat on which we had booked two ‘kamera’ (rooms) for the overnight trip. Whilst waiting Nic joked that wouldn’t it be funny if this was our boat! The smile was quickly wiped off his face when realisation dawned that ‘this WAS our boat’!!

Quite daunted we boarded and placed the bikes at the bow. Once inside, the boat wasn’t as bad as it looked from the outside. It was WORSE. The two ‘kamera’ that we booked turned out to be a floorspace separated by planks from the next compartment, each about 3×6 ft. The whole inside of the boat was all open-space so there was no privacy, and worse still, no shelter from the chain-smoking locals. We decided that we would probably die of suffocation by the morning if we stayed there – so we clambered up the outside of the boat on to the roof. We were warned we might be cold in the night by the locals – but we decided to brave it nevertheless. There was in fact no need to worry since it was a dry balmy night (though the locals promptly put on their wooly hats!).

We had the roof pretty much to ourselves the whole journey. The boat meandered its way at a whopping 10kph through the mangrove forest and oil palm plantations. There was no habitation in sight other than the odd logging station and oil palm rigs. A few small settlements were largely primitive – no cars or electricity and everything made from wood.

As the night fell we watched the sunset and a large storm to the east – we later found out that it was a big hurricane that caused serious flooding and damage to the roads on our route. Thankfully it stayed dry on the river and we fell asleep watching the stars.

Woken at dawn by one of the crew, we watched the sunrise over the oily calm waters of the river. Finally the boat docked – we were on Sumatra, the largest island of Indonesia. It had taken us three boats and 36 hours to get here – each boat was worse than the one before and the standards of living had dropped dramatically with each boat. From the clinically clean Stepford-wife suburbs of Singapore to the third-world streets of Indonesia, where children played bare-foot…

Singapore…as all the tourist t-shirts put it: “A fine city”. It is indeed a city of ‘fines’ – one for almost every conceivable public offence. Some quite expected, but some really obscure… There is for example a hefty fine for not flushing a public toilet, for chewing gum (anywhere in the whole city!!!), or even sipping a bottle of water on the metro… As our friend Jessica rather painfully found out, having taken a sip from her bottle on a particularly hot day, when all the other passengers gave her looks of utter disgust…

Singapore is a wealthy and very orderly modern city – the streets are clean, the lawns manicured, and everything gleaming shiny. People are courteous, though somewhat cold. All this comes at a price of course – the city is ruled by a benign dictatorship, where there are laws and rules for every aspect of life. There are also a staggering number of expats living in Singapore – 1 in 4 people is an expat. Expats are paid extremely well (sometimes at European levels) – which goes a long way in Singapore. However, they are not allowed to own landed property, so permanent settlement is extremely rare. Expats transit through Singapore and the scene is constantly changing as people come and people go.

The indigenous population is heavily Chinese, as many of the older buildings and monuments bear witness to.

Singapore is also home to the Raffles Hotel and their infamous Singapore Sling cocktail – here is the recipe if anyone wants to try it at home! Parental guidance advised :p

Singapore Sling Recipe
30ml Gin
7.5 ml Cointreau
7.5 ml Dom Benedictine
15 ml Cherry Brandy
120 ml Pineapple Juice
15 ml Lime Juice
10 ml Grenadine
A dash of Angostura Bitters
Garnish with a slice of Pineapple and Cherry