Borobudur, Prambanan and Yogyakarta - cultural heritages of Indonesia

This will be the last blog entry of this trip as I am catching my plane this afternoon and I will be back tomorrow noon.
After I had taken the train from Solo to Yogyakarta I just checked into my hostel and went to bed very early as I had to get up the following day quite early, 4.45 am. I had booked a half day tour that was taking me to Borobudur (famous Buddhist stupa from the 9th century) and Prambanan (Hindu temple complex).
It was intended to be a sunrise tour of the Borobudur monument, but by the time we got there the sun had already risen. It was still spectacular, as there was still mist surrounding the monument.

Borobudur just after sunrise

Buddha statue hidden underneath those giant bells

After that we headed to Prambanan, which in my opinion is the more spectacular tourist sight. Unfortunately you can only go inside of 2 temples, as after the 2006 earthquake quite a lot has been damaged. In reality we (me and a couple of Germans) were the real attraction at Prambanan, as a bunch of schoolkids always wanted to take pictures with us (quite a funny experience).

The Prambanan complex partly under restoration

After getting back from this tour I spent the afternoon doing absolutely nothing as the weather wasn't as pleasant and I had a long day in front of me.

The next and last travel day I spent exploring Yogyakarta. I started my day at the Kraton, the royal palace of Yogya, where I could watch a classical dance performance (stunning!!!) after that I ended up going not only to a wayang factory (where shadow-puppets are made) but also to a batic gallery. I was warned before, but since both were inside the Kraton, the people working, were still working for the Sultan and I was not even pushed into buying anything. The people spent actually time explaining the meanings of those artistic creations. And just because of that I had the urge of buying something as I knew there intention was not business in the first place. Thats at least what I tell myself!!!

Royal wayang factory

Classical dance performance inside the Kraton

View of the old center of Yogya

After exploring a full day of Yogya I went back to my hostel and started packing up my things. My luggage has actually decreased as I have left most of my stuff behind along the way.
So this is the end of my trip, and I am very excited of going back home now, as a new chapter will start for me next year. So hope you enjoyed!

Solo - still travelling by myself

So after visiting Mt. Bromo I intentionally was heading for Surabaya as I had a reservation there. Then I was told that Surabaya is a Moloch so I changed my plans and bought a direct busticket to Solo (formally known as Surakarta). Well guess what? I had to go to Surabaya first to change the bus as the direct bus or mini-bus had broken down. Funny side to the story was that my busticket was taken away instantly while entering the first bus to Surabaya, so I had no busticket to show on the bus from Surabaya to Solo. I dont know how they did it, but the ticketcollector somehow knew that I had bought a direkt ticket to Solo. On the bus I met an Indonesian doctor, who was so friendly to accompany me to a possible accomodation as we arrived quite late in Solo.
So for the next day, as I had only little bit more than half day, I planned on visiting the Puri Mangkunegara and the Kraton Surakarta (the two royal palaces of Solo). I had to change plans again, as I had found out that latter was closed as it was a Friday and a muslim holiday. So I visited Puri Mangkunegara first, which is in my opinion the most impressive royal building in Indonesia, as it also exhibits jewellery, crockery, ccrystal, armery and old furniture.
After that I was offered a lift to Candi Sukuh (the remains of a Hindu temple). I was impressed by the scenery that surrounds the ruins of this temple, but also by the remains of this temple, as there are several sculptures representing fertility symbols. So not only a Hindu temple but also a temple dedicated to the worship of fertility.
After the temple my driver of the motorcylce dragged me into two batic stores (traditional way of painting), where they sold different batic clothes. As that is not really my taste of clothing I was able to resist.
At noon I made my to Yogyakarta, where I was going to spend the last days of my trip.

Ijen, Baluran and Bromo - Java's natural wonders

After leaving Kuta early morning I travelled the full day to the eastern part of Java, where I was going to spend 2 nights in Banjuwangi and 1 night near Mount Bromo.
After arriving in Banjuwangi by taking the local ferry I had to get up very early the next day as it is rainy season now, which means in the afternoon the mountainous areas are very dangerous to visit as it will be very cloudy and rainy. But not only dangerous also not very pleasant as you wont see anything.
So on Tuesday morning I visited the Ijen crater, which has a stupendous sulphuric lake inside and every morning you can watch men collect sulfur from the bottom of the crater, they then carry up to 120 kg for 3 kilometers up and down to the entrance of the National Park. I tried to lift it, impossible it was!!!

View of the Ijen Crater with sulphuric steam covering almost the entire crater in mist

Up to twice a day and carrying around 80-120 kg

After hiking up and down to the Ijen crater, I spent the afternoon at Baluran National Park, only 30 minutes away from Banjuwangi. So both parks are easily accessible from Banjuwangi and it is a full 1-day tour.
Baluran National Park is a birdwatchers paradise but it is also possible to see sambal deer, which I did see in a herd of around 100, and wild buffalo, unfortunately I left to early for those. Baluran is unique for Javanese National Parks as the landscape reminds you very much of the African Savannah and grasslands.

Somewhere in "Africa" or is it Baluran National Park?

Spotting Sambal Deer

After this full day tour I travelled to Bromo National Park, another full day of travelling. Traveling in Indonesia is no fun as traffic is enormous and trucks tend to slow down and hold up the other cars and motorbikes.
After arriving at Bromo I was not sure if I was going to see anything of this volcano as it was raining buckets again. Well lucky me it cleared up and early morning I took a motorbike to one of the view points. Although there was no sun out, still being too cloudy, the atmosphere was amazing. After that I walked down into the bigger crater and passed the sand sea and up Mount Bromo, nothing really challenging as it was only 3 kilometers and a height difference of maybe 500 meters. But the views were stunning, it kind of looked like ''Mordor'' from Lord of the Rings.

Mt. Bromo around sunrise

Somewhere in "Mordor" or is it Mt. Bromo?

After my early visit to Mount Bromo I was already off again to my next destination: Solo, part of my next blog.

Kuta - why on earth did I even bother?

Kuta, in the South of Bali is truly a place one should never visit and if you
have to stay make it short.
The annoyance of people trying to sell you ''massage boss or motorbike boss'' was incredible, as I was asked this question not 3-5 times but at least every 3-5 meters.
As I was there only for one night, still too long, it was easier to handle, but I do not understand how you can possibly spend an entire week there.

so much for Kuta, now to my next adventure which happened in the East of Java, but another story to be told.

Bali - Island of the Gods!!!!

View at the valley in the North-East of Bali

Bay between Tulamben and Amed (another dive area)

Well now I have found some time to finally write about my diving experience. The last 7 days I have spent in Tulamben, in the North-East of Bali. Tulamben is a very tiny fisherman village and besides diving there is not much else to do. Even though internet was available it was so slow that it was not worth waiting 30 minutes for a page to load.
My diving experience has been amazing, unfortunately I was not able to take any pictures as the camera I was about to borrow, just broke before I got there. The dive center I stayed at is recommendable to anyone interested in some private time and budget diving (Ocean Sun http://ocean-sun.com/); very competent, friendly and helpful staff.

Attached restaurant at the dive center

Ocean Sun/Blue Water Dive Center

Budget rooms at dive center

This had at least the advantage to fully concentrate on diving instead of wasting all my air, while trying to handle the underwater camera.
Bali's dive sites are quite different to the places I have dived before (Egypt and Honduras). The diversity of fish and other ocean species is incredible, the corals are not as beautiful as I have experienced in Egypt caused by a volcanic eruption about 30 years ago. So most of the corals are rather new. As it is rainy season the visibility was not as good as I was hoping for and there are far more currents you end up struggling with.
Even though that might sound quite negative right now, it was actually the opposite for me, as it gave me the opportunity to advance my skills through those challenges.
So right now I am in Kuta, in the South of Bali getting ready for my last adventure taking place in Java. As I will be off to several National Parks I will continue my blog in probably 3-5 days.

Melaka, Malacca, Malakka - Alien invasion (past and present!)

After the great wildlife encounter at Taman Negara NP I went down south to Malacca (there are a hundred ways of spelling it).
Malacca is a very nice city with a lot of cultural heritage sites, which I did enjoy visiting but the main reason for me going to Malacca was because I wanted to visit a special exhibition. So the full 1 1/2 days I had time in Malacca I wondered around the city centers main sites, catched up on my blog's entries and visited the international exhibition "The Science of Aliens" (http://www.aliens.com.my).
To better understand this blog's title Malacca has been under the influence of Portuguese, Dutch and British settlers throughout history. So the colonial buildings you can see are from different historical areas and there is even a small group of people that still speak "Christao" a 16th/17th century Portuguese dialect.
But the main highlight of this trip to Malacca was actually the exhibition on aliens. But to not entirely get this wrong, this exhibition does only talk about aliens in outer space but also about aliens (alienated animals) on planet earth, e.g. the animals that life in the very deap sea. It was very fascinating to see all this information on the other planets in our solar system and the likelihood of actually not being alone, or the only planet with living beings.

Right now I am in Singapore waiting for my flight (and I can't wait anymore!!). To be honest Singapore is like any new big city (high skyscrapers, shopping malls and entertainment parks). It is sufficient to stay there for 1 full day, after that I would be bored. Tomorrow I am off to Bali for 5 days diving and then to Java for the rest of my trip. So I might not be able to continue my blog for some time as I don't know if I will be able to get online while diving.

Taman Negara - spotting animals in the wilderness

After leaving Cameron Highlands I made my way to Taman Negara National Park, the only primary rainforest on the Malaysian peninsula, supposedly 135 million years old. The driver of the minivan didnt get much sleep the night before (thats what everyone guessed at least), as he kept closing eyes as if he was about to fall asleep. We got there without any problems and accidents and I decided to go to bed earlier as I wanted to get up relatively early to encounter some wild animals.
But my encounter with wild animals should not happen until later that day. So I got up at around 7 to hike up Bukit Terisek, which is a relatively small hill but very steep to climb and it was so humid by the time I reached the view point I was one wet towel.

View point of Taman Negara

Overlooking Taman Negara National Park

When decscending I decided to take a different route, which was a mistake as I had the feeling after one hour that I had taken the wrong path. So I decided to walk back the way I came in the first place. At night I realized that if I would have continued I would have reached the park's headquarters a little bit earlier. So after my 4 hours hike I decided to explore the longest Canopy Walk in the world and after returning from that place I encountered my first wild animal at Taman Negara. A female pheasant not being bothered by my presence at all.

A female pheasant I

A female pheasant II

At night I took part of an guided Safari Night Walk and compared to the Night Walk we did in the "jungle" of Sabah I really did see a lot of wild animals. At first we saw a wild boar, unfortunately to quick for me to take a picture of that. Apart from that it was really amazing, as we did not have to go very deep into the rainforest and still see all sorts of different animals. Here is an excerpt of it:

Forest gecko

Wild mouse

Blue feather pita

A forest frog (no idea what kind it really is)

Glow-in-the-dark mushrooms (its hard to see!!)

The last highlight of the walk were the blow-in-the-dark mushrooms (these are luminescent mushrooms). Unfortunately the picture taken does not really demonstrate this kind of beauty.

After this wonderful day in the wild, I went to Melaka, UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site, where aliens have played a big role in the past and even today, but that is another story to be told later on.

Pictures!

Finally I had the time to add pictures to the last 6 posts, so take a look and enjoy!

KL and CH - using abbreviations now!

After my dad and I got back from our Borneo adventure we had one full day together to explore KL (Kuala Lumpur, for those who haven't figured it out). So we went to see the Petronas Towers and the KL Tower (used for television). As we were quite late there were only tickets left for the 5.30 to go up the Skywalk on the Petronas Towers and we decided to skip that.


After that we walked around Central KL, visiting the Central Market (buying some souvenirs before going home) and Chinatown. As may hair and beard have been growing enormously I decided to pay an Indian barber shop a visit to get my hair and beard cut.

Before...

and after

At night my Chinese Malaysian friend Edwin came all the way down from Penang to see my father for 1 1/2 hours and then had to leave early as he had not booked a hotel room yet. And then I was all alone again, as my dad left for the airport, but after a couple of hours I was joined by Antje (the german girl I met through Edwin in Penang). As she wanted to visit a Heavy Metal concert in Kuala Lumpur and me being interested in how Malaysians enjoy listening to Heavy Metal, we had decided to go together. Unfortunately the gig was cancelled, as this is something not very uncommon here in Malaysia ( I guess the music is to loud for them, :-D). So instead we spent the entire Saturday at one of Malaysias biggest malls, watching the latest James Bond movie and treating ourselves with some extraordinary food (Sushi-time).

On Sunday I was off to CH (Cameron Highlands), where I had been before one night but as I appreciate the much cooler atmosphere and the scenery there, I decided to go again. This time I was rather lazy and booked a half-day tour visiting a rose garden (tons of different flowers blooming there), a straberry farm, a bee farm, a butterfly farm and buddhist temple and a tea plantation (the tea factory was closed on Monday, which was actually one of the reasons I signed up for this tour in the first place).

Tea plantation at Cameron Highlands

As I had met two German girls on arrival, the three of us took a stroll in the afternoon to two waterfalls near by. They needed some sort of distraction, as they have just arrived from Mumbai (I was really shocked by the story they had to tell).

Right now I am in Taman Negara getting ready to leave for Melakka, but that is another story to be told.
I will also post more pictures as soon as I get down to Melakka (including older posts I have written).

Sabah (Borneo) - animals, animals and more animals

After our one night in Sandakan, the rest of our trip included a visit to the famous Turtle Island and the Sepilok Orang-Utan Rehabilitation Center.
At Turtle Island we had the entire day for swimming, lying on the beach and snorkeling on the reef just next to the island (due to poor visibility it was very hard to spot any fish at all). At night it was turtle time, where we not only had the opportunity of watching a turtle lay there eggs, but they were also collected in order to increase the percentage of hatchlings surviving. Then we watched the eggs being carried to the hatchery, where they are safe from potential predators. The last part of this guided tour was the release of hundreds of hatchlings into the open sea, where they will spend the rest of their lives.

Beach on Turtle Island

Protected area for the hatchlings

Sunset on Turtle Island

After Turtle Island we travelled back to Sandakan to get ready for our last Borneo adventure - having a close encounter with the man of the forest (as orang-utan can be translated from malay). Even though we did not see them in the wild, at least we had the opportunity of seeing them at the rehabilitation center, where there natural habitat is still preserved. The reason why it is hard to spot any Orang-Utans in the wild is because their natural habitat has radically been destroyed because of legal and illegal logging, agricultural land adaption, etc.
We also visited another sanctuary where they are rehabilitating Proboscis Monkeys ("Nasenaffen"), but you can also see Long-tailed Macaques and Silfer Leaf Monkeys.

Feeding time for the Orang-Utans

One proboscis monkey

One proboscis monkey family

So in the end we did finally see some animals in Borneo. Our last night we spent in Kota Kinabalu before my dad and I returned to Kuala Lumpur to spend one final full day togehter.

Sabah (Borneo) - Mount Kinabalu and much more

Well it has been quite some time since I had the opportunity of adding something to my blog, but the last 10 days without any internet connection made it impossible to write about my travel experiences.

Right now I am almost at the end of my Borneo experience, 4 more days left until I return to the Malaysian peninsula. So what has happened the last 10 days: after arriving in Kota Kinabalu (we left our group in Sarawak and joined another group of 10 people for our Sabah trip) and an amazing malaysian-indian dinner our first destination was a homestay with the Dusun people, who are nowadays mountainguides or porters apart from being farmers. They work for the National Park, as for tourists guides are required and porters are sometimes necessary for climbing the highest mountain in Sout-East-Asia, Mount Kinabalu (4095 meters).

What we were to climb the next 2 days

The second night in Sabah we spent at a Dusun Village, where we had another encounter with the famous local rice wine (this time I had a little bit too much, resulting in a headache the next morning). Luckily we did not have to climb the mountain the next day.
After our stay with the Dusun people we drove to Mt. Kinabalu National Park Head Quarters, where we had the rest of the day off, getting ready for our climb the following day. My dad and I took the opportunity of visiting a botanical garden, where you could see different pitcher plants and orchids that grow only around Mt. Kinabalu.
So the next morning our 2 day hike up to the top of Mt. Kinabalu began. We had the choice of taking a more scening but longer route or taking the straight way up. My dad and I chose the longer version, called Mesilau trail, which started at 2000 meters and took us over almost 8 km up to our first stop at Laban Rata (around 3300 meters). There we spend the first night (not really the entire night), and we got up at 2.30 am to climb the remaining 800 altitude meters and 2,7 km up to the summit of Mt. Kinabalu to watch the sunrise. This experience was truly breathtaking, not only because of the altitude but also because of different colours appearing in the sky.

Scenery while ascending Mt. Kinabalu

Just before sunset

We finally made it!!!!

Cloud formation at Mt. Kinabalu

Reflection of Mt. Kinabalu

After the sunrise we descended to Laban Rata for an early breakfast and then it was another 6 km down the main trail back to the entrance of the park. Concering the weather we were very lucky as we had absolutely no rain the entire 2 days of hiking (in total we hiked almost 20 km and 5200 m in altitude difference)
After that we drove to Poring Springs, where we had the opportunity of spending more than 1 day relaxing and soothing our sore legs in hot springs. Unfortunately the weather was not on our side as it was pooring cats and dogs and the facilities of these hot springs were not as inviting as I first expected them to be. It took those bathtubs almost 1 hour to fill up by 1 centimeter. So instead of resting our entire body it was only the feet that were sort of refreshed.

Rafflesia (Not very pretty to be honest)

After our adventure at Poring Springs, where we spotted the largest flower in the world (Rafflesia), we went into the jungle of Sabah. Actually you would not say jungle, as it is only secondary forest (only 30 years old), but then again I spotted more animals within this area as anywhere else so far. We saw different primates including the endangered proboscis monkey and long-tail macaques and several different species of hornbills (very rare and endangered birds) and many other birds. We stayed one night in hammocks (unfortunately the sound of the very close highway was louder than the jungle noises) and had a guided night-jungle walk.

The base of the jungle camp

Our 5 star hotel

The next day we had the opportunity of cooking our own lunch with the help of Malay volunteers from Mescot (http://www.mescot.org/), an organisation that coordinated the jungle experience and the following homestay. After our lunch we watched and were invited in a typical cultural performance with traditional music, and after that we enjoyed a volleyball game with the local people of this village.
The last night we spent at a homestay coordinated and organized by Mescot. Out of pure luck we stayed at a local family, where we were invited to a muslim wedding party, as friends of them were getting married. This was quite an experience, with a local band playing and a huge buffet with very delicious food to choose from.

Muslim wedding

Right now I am in Sandakan, and the next days we will visit Turtle Island, which is just off of Sandakan, and the Orang-Utan Sepilok Sanctuary. So I will be able to add more to this blog probably in 2-3 days from now.