Indonesia Travel Journal
2004 12 15 (Wed) Indonesia,
Visiting the Family
The
purpose of coming to Indonesia
is to visit my relatives. I have tons
of relatives (on my Father’s side) which most of them I have never met in my
life. That is why I am coming with
my dad. He will be with me for a
week and after that I will be on my own, and start my travel journey.
Indonesia has the 4th
largest population in the world, about 203 million, after China, India,
and United States. I think one of the contributions is from
my grandfather. He had 11 children,
not counting those were dead when they were kids. He could form a soccer team. His eldest son, my 1st uncle
has 10 children. These days I am
doing a family tree to see how many family
members are there. After
interviewing for several days, for those still alive, there are 4
generations. My dad is
counted as first generation. We
have 142 family members. Isn’t that
terrible? Most of them I still have
not met, and not even know their names.
Discovery:
Did
you know Indonesia
has more than 17,000 islands?
2004 12 16 (Thu) Jakarta, Visiting Some More Relatives
Went
to visit several of my uncles and
their families.
2004 12 17 (Fri) Bangka Island,
My Dad’s Birth Place
Woke
up at 4:15 and went to the airport.
Due to the terrorist warning, the airport security had taken more seriously. People had to
pass the Fiscan before going into the check in counter. The funny thing is at the check in
counter, they did not even check the picture ID.
Flew
to Bangka Island, my dad’s birth place. The plane was a Boeing 737-200. By looking at the engine, it appeared to
me that the plane was at least more than 20 years old. It took us less than one hour to fly
from Jakarta to Pangkal Panang, Bangka Island.
Our
first stop was my grandfather’s shop.
Right now it is own by the Dad’s 2nd brother’s son. A part of it is doing the courier
business and the other part is using as motor cycle repair shop. The interesting thing is they are still using typewriter to
do their documents.
Later
we went to our ancestors’ grave to pay respect. There sits our grandfather, grandmother,
grandmother’s mother, and some of my Uncles.
Discovery:
Bangka used to export a lot of pepper. Unfortunately, it is now beaten by the
Vietnamese pepper because they use the Bangka
pepper and improve the gene of Vietnamese pepper.
2004 12 18 (Sat)
Terrorist Warning
Thanks
to some of you sending email message and phone SMS to me, telling me about the
terrorist warning in Jakarta and Bali. I always say,
‘Once I have the Lonely Planet guide book, a credit card, no one and nothing can
stop me.’ Terrorist
warning? Even terrorist cannot stop my journey. I will take
care of myself. Thank you for the message and please keep me update.
2004 12 19 (Sun) Jakarta, Museum Day
Jakarta has several museums, such as Indonesia
National Museum,
Museum of History,
Maritime Museum,
Jakarta History Museum,
etc. However, if you are a museum fan, you will be
quite disappointed about the things exhibit inside as there aren’t that many to
see.
For
the Indonesia
National Museum, about 1/3 of its exhibitions are filled with Thai
culture. And another 1/3 is filled
with Chinese porcelain. For local Indonesia
culture, it has only very few display.
However one thing I think was very interesting and worth mentioned was
the discovery of Java Man in Indonesia.
Darwin published his “The
Origin of Species” in 1859. Not
until 1900, the missing link between ape and human was still unfound. According to theory of evolution, a kind
of ape (Australopithecus) changes to Homo Habilis, from Homo Habilis to Homo
Erectus, and from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens (human being). In 1902, a Dutch doctor, Eugene Dubois
came to Java and found the skulls at Solo
River in Trinvill, East
Java. It was known as
the Java Man, the first Homo Erectus.
Museum of History sits at the basement of the
National Monument. There, they used
48 dioramas to demonstrate the history of Indonesia, simple and concise. The entrance fee is very cheap, only
5,000Rp (about US50cent). However,
using its toilet will cost you 1,000 Rp.
Isn’t that funny?
At
the National Monument, you can take the elevator and go all the way up to the
top. There you can see the panorama view of Jakarta city. It was very nice.
2004 12 20 (Mon) Bandung （萬隆）
My dad went to high school in Bandung for half a year. Besides, one of my aunties lives in Bandung. Later I found out that she is my
grandfather’s younger brother’s eldest daughter. If counting my grandfather’s brother’s
side, I will have a total of more than 200 family members. We can form a mafia.
Bandung has about 2 million
people. It is quite famous because
the Asian-African Conference was held in 1955. Zhou En Lai of Mainland China and Ho
Chi Minh of Vietnam had participated the meeting. Unfortunately, the venue is currently
under renovation. It is not allowed
to visit.
Also
went to the Geological
Museum. This museum has a lot of good
display. Many pretty minerals and
rock samples. Also with a lot of
models to explain the volcanoes and plate tectonics because Indonesia lies
on the active earthquake and volcanic zone. Indonesia is sure a good place to
study geology, earthquakes and volcanoes.
After
visiting the museum, we went to a little field trip, to see a volcano
crater. It locates north of Bandung and the volcano
is a dormant one. The crater is a
huge one.
Discovery:
Did
you know Indonesia
has 129 active volcanoes? It is
about 13% of active volcanoes of the world. 10% of the population still lives at the
volcano dangerous area. For the
last 300 years, more than 175,000 people were killed by the volcanic eruption.
Did
you know Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island,
east of Kalimantan, is
the junction of Indo-Australian, Eurasian and Pacific Plate? I went to the junction of Eurasian and American Plate in Iceland
on July 5, 2002. Some day, I will go to the junction of Indo-Australian,
Eurasian and Pacific Plate in Sulawesi Island, but not this time.
2004 12 21 (Tue) Bogor
Took an early train to Bogor to see the
botanical garden. After that, I
went back to Jakarta and visited the Wanyang Museum
(Puppet Museum)
and Fine Art Museum near Jakarta Kota
Station. Then, I took the motor
tricycle back to Uncle Ah Fa’s place.
The drive asked for 10K Rp. and I bargained for 7K. Later I was quite unhappy because 10K
was the right price. I squeezed him too hard, I was too mean.
2004 12 22 (Wed) The Journey
Begins at Yogyakarta
Separated
with my dad at Jakarta
Airport this
morning. He flew back to Hong Kong
and I flew to Yogyakarta (Yogya should
pronounced as ‘Jog Ja’). Now I am
on my own and my journey begins.
Yogyakarta
of Indonesia is comparable with Angkor Wat of Cambodia, or Bagan of
Myanmar. There are two famous sight
seeing places in this area, one is Borobudor and the other is Prambanan. Borobudor is a Buddhist temple and
Prambanan is Hindu.
2004 12 23 (Thu) Borobudor and
Prambanan
Woke up very early this
morning and visited Borobudor and Prambanan with a group of people. They were some Dutch, a Swiss, a Danish
and a New Yorker.
Borobudor
is a Buddhist temple. It is the
largest single Buddhist temple in the world built in the 8th century. It took 100 years to build (about 4
generations). However, it was used
for only 100 years and then the Mt.
Merapi erupted and
destroyed the temple. The volcanic ash covered the whole
temple. The temple was rediscovered in the
late 18th century. After that, it had gone through a few
restorations. They had put
foundation and drainage system to the temple so that this temple could last very long.
The
temple has three layers. Each
layer, there are carvings and relief telling Buddhist stories. The total length of these relieves is
more than 3 km. A tour guide said it was one of the 7 wonders of
world but I doubted. To my
knowledge, only Taj of India is the only 7 wonders of the world that is still
exist. There are many Buddhist
statues and they are all in 6 different sitting positions.
About
1.5 hour drive east of Borobudor is Prambanan. It is a Hindu temple. It was built about 50 years later than
Borobudor. It is the tallest Hindu
temple in the world. Like
Borobudor, the wall has a lot of relief telling stories about Shiva.
Discovery:
Although
Indonesia
has got the largest Buddhist temple, did you know that Buddhist has only about
3 to 4% of the total population?
90% of the population is Muslims.
Some
interesting people I have met recently:
1.
A man from UK who has worked
in Hong Kong as a bartender came to Solo, Indonesia to learn mediation a few
years ago. I asked shouldn’t he be
learning mediation in India
instead of Indonesia? He comes back to visit his teacher.
2.
A Swiss who has been traveling for 16 months (on the ground), still have a few
months to go. All the time he
traveled mostly in Asia countries.
For instance, he stayed in India for 5 months. His original plan is to travel for 3
years.
3.
A Danish who is working his master’s thesis about third world urban development, has lived in Bangkok for 6 months. He speaks a little Thai too.
2004 12 24 (Fri) Climbing the
Volcano Mount Merapi
As
I mentioned yesterday, Borobudor was destroyed by Volcano Mt. Merapi, I was so
curious what kind of volcano is that to destroy such a beautiful Buddhist Temple. So I decided to take a look of this
volcano, Mt. Merapi. We were told if were lucky, we could see
the red lava too.
Mt
Merapi is still an active volcano with the height of 2,911 meters above sea level. The last eruption was October 1998 and
forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes. Before that was November, 1994 and 69 people
were killed. The eruption frequency
of this volcano is not steady.
However, I think the chance of erupting tomorrow is minimal and we
should be safe to climb up.
We
(with a German, Bjoern and a Canadian, Ryan) took a mini van to the bottom of
the mountain at about 1,500 meters above sea
level. We start to climb at about
00:45 in the morning. It was very dark and we had to use our
flash light.
The
first part was the easiest, it was all soil road but steep. The weather was nice, we could see the moon
and stars. We could even see the
city and small tiny spot of street lights.
We all felt happy and thought that we could see the sunrise in the
morning.
However,
the weather changed so rapidly in the mountainous area. At about half way, clouds moving in and
started to rain. Very windy.
The temperature dropped and it was so cold. We looked up to the mountain top and
couldn’t see anything. We decided
to wait until the weather cleared up a bit. Each of us had to find a large rock as
wind shelter as it was very windy.
It was not very comfortable.
After
waiting for about 20 minutes, the sky cleared up a bit and we started to move
up again. But this time, no more
soil road, all volcanic rocks of different size and some were small and very
loose. I did not have good hiking shoes and slipped many times because no grip on the shoe. The slope was very steep and I had to stop every 15
minutes. However, I couldn’t rest too long as we had to reach to the
top to see the sunrise before dawn.
I was so tired and my leg muscle was so sore.
It
took us 4.5 hours to reach the top.
There, it was so cloudy and foggy.
We could not see anything.
We waited and waited until the sunrise cleared up the cloud and
fog. In front of us we saw the
crater. We walked down to the
crater and smelled of strong sulphur. We looked around but did not see the red
lava. However we found a seismic
senor that was buried on the ground.
After
the sunrise, we started to walk down.
We could see the mountain and the path we hiked. It was quite scary as we were hiking at
the ridge in some area. And some of
the spots were straight down.
Scare to death.
Because
of rain, the rock were very slippery, we all slipped down a few times, we all
got bruises on the hip and scratches on the palm. Ryan was even worse, as he wore a short
pants, he got many scratches on his leg.
It really hurt.
Walking
down the slope really hurt the knees and ankle. After about 2.5 hours, we reached the
bottom of the mountain. I almost
could not walk. The journey to the
volcano Merapi was an unforgettable experience. It was the hardest hike I have ever had
and I never had thought of hiking of a volcano mountain was such a hard work. No wonder no one was climbing this
mountain except us last night. I am not sure if I want to do it
again.
2004 12 25 (Sat) Merry Christmas
Bali (峇里島)
I went to visit Kraton (Sulton’s
Palace) and the museum in the morning.
At noon, I took a flight to Bali. I stayed at Kuta.
It is the place where the fine-sand beach is only 10 to 20 minutes walk
with many cheap guest house, motels and restaurants. Will stay here for a few days, doing
some scuba diving and surfing.
Also went to see the monument of Bali explosion. The terrorist explosion was happened on
October 12, 2002 where more than a hundred of people were killed and most of them were
Australians and Indonesians. The
terrorist warning really hurt the tourism business in Bali. Many restaurants have only 1 or 2 tables
occupied.
My tentative schedule is stay here
for a few days. Then to go Surabaya, then to Medan, Sumatra. From
there, I will take the ferry to Penang,
Malaysia.
2004 12 26 (Sun) Surfing in the Indian Ocean
While
I was walking down the street of Kuta, I saw a slogan which says, “Life’s to
Short Not to Surf!” I decided to
take the course and learn to surf.
The
coach is an Australian named Palu.
He has been surfing for 29 years and he looks alike George Cooley. Together with me, there are two
Scottish, Chris and Karen in the same class. They are doing the around the world
trip. Their next stop is Australia where they will work a while and save
some money before heading to the United States.
The
surf board is large and heavy, about 7 to 10 kg. We did some practice on the
beach. Learned what are the dos and
don’ts because surfing is one of the dangerous sports. If you are hit by a surf board, you
could get concussion. We also learn
how to balance and stand up. Once
you can stand up, you know how to surf.
First
you paddle towards the ocean and turn back facing the beach. Wait for the wave to come. When the wave is about 5 m from you, you start to paddle. When the wave is almost there, you just
stand up and balance yourself. Very
simple. Just a piece of cake. However, learning to surf is hard work,
because after each ride, you have to paddle again to the 2nd
wave. After about two hours course,
I was able to stand up and surf, but only in the beginner’s level. It will take me many years of practice
before I could do the 50-ft wave surf, like you saw on the TV.
Received
an email from my mom telling me that there was a 8.9 magnitude earthquake
happened in the India Ocean near north of Sumatra, causing a tsunami in Malaysia and Thailand that killed some people.
2004 12 27 (Mon) Fishing Trip
Cancelled
Planed
for a fishing trip at noon.
Unfortunately, the weather changed suddenly with heavy rain and the
fishing trip has to cancel. Just
stayed at my bungalow to do some reading in the afternoon. Finished Larry King’s ‘How to Talk to Anyone,
Anytime, Anywhere’. Yes, I still
need to learn how to talk to people.
Checked
the news on the web. The earthquake
and tsunami had caused more than 20,000 people killed.
It is the 4th largest since the last century and strongest in
40 years. The earthquake happened
at 06:58 and the tsunami formed 2.5 hours later. The epicenter is at west of Banda Aceh,
Sumatra, 6 miles from the Indian Ocean
seabed. After the quake, there were
more than half-dozen aftershocks with 6 to 7.3 magnitudes. It had killed more than 4,448 people in Indonesia.
Since
it will be more aftershocks and earthquakes, I decided not go to Sumatra this time.
I am thinking to go to Sarawak of Eastern Malaysia through Kalimantan
and then go Western Malaysia, visiting Johor, Kula Lumper and Penang. Hopefully I won’t encounter any of the
quakes and tsunamis.
While
I was surfing on the web checking the news, an Australian guy was sitting right
next to me. He told me that he left
Phuket to Bali last Friday, just two days before
the Tsunami hit Phuket. However,
his camera, hand phone and some cash were stolen while he was drinking last
night. He still thinks he is lucky,
as there is nothing more important than life. He still had friends staying in Phuket
which might got killed by the Tsunami.
But he could not contact them as he lost his hand phone.
2004 12 28 (Tue) Diving at the Lombok Strait,
Wreck Dive
Left
my bungalow at 7:30 and headed to Tulamben. Together we have two more divers from Australia: Brad and Janus. Brad had dived for more than 100 times and Janus just got her open
water diving certificate.
On
our way to Tulamben, the driver, Michael really thought he
was Michael Schumarker and overtook every car and motor bike
he encountered. All of a sudden, a
car stop in front of us and we almost hit it. See, the chances of hitting or getting
hit by a car is a lot higher than earthquake and tsunami.
About
3 hours drive, we arrived the diving site.
The ship was a US
cargo ship built in 1915 about 120 m
long, named U.S.A.T. Liberty. It
was armed with two guns for the World War II. It was loaded with rubber and timber
while it was hit by a Japanese submarine with
torpedoes on January 11, 1942 at 15 km
South West of Lombok. The US Navy
tried to tow to the dock and repaired it but it had got too much water in it
and they left it at Tulamben, about 30 meters to the beach shore. In 1963, Mt. Agung
erupted and broke the hull into at least two places. Since 1978, it has been a good diving
site and each day it is about 50 to 70 divers come to visit here.
Although
the weather was cloudy, the visibility was still very good. The ship has all covered with coral with
many coral fish swimming around it.
You can still recognize the shape of the ship but really can’t tell which
is which. The only thing I
can recognize it the steeling wheel which is still in good shape and not
covered too much by the coral. We also saw many fish: clown fish (nemo), frog fish, titan
trigger, angel fish, solgen fish, small squid, a small sting ray, etc.
We
had two dives here. Before our second dive, our dive master gave each of us a
banana to feed the fish. Within two seconds, there were hundreds of
fish (Solgen) came to share a
bit. At that moment, I was
surrounded with fish and I can pet them.
Some of them even bit my finger, not very hard though. I thought only monkey and elephant likes
banana, now even the Solgen fish.
Interesting
People:
Janus
and Brad both work for Quantas.
Quantas is well known for its safety record. This airline never had an accident. Janus and Brad are very proud of
that. Because Janus works at the
procurement department (buy the new parts) while Brad is a mechanic (who install
the parts). They work together
well.
Others:
Read
an email from my friend, Kim Hock (Singaporean, my
badminton buddy in Suzhou). He was on vacation with his family at
Phuket and he was so lucky that they left on Thursday. If they stayed a few days more, it would
be hit by the Tsunami.
2004 12 29 (Wed) Heading to Ubud
It
was raining all morning and there wasn’t anything to do here in Kuta. So I decided to go to Ubud. At the bus stop, I met a Chinese
American, Eric Tang
who is currently teaching English in Japan. He had gone to Chinese
University of Hong
Kong to study for one year.
He looks alike one of my primary and high school classmate, Chan Chiu
Kong.
The
weather in Ubud was very nice.
Checked in at Intra Homestay.
The owner, Madi is a very nice guy.
He asked me to see one of the Bali
dance performances at night. He said
he would also be one of the performers if I would come to see tomorrow.
Ubud
is a very small and cultured town in the middle of Bali Island
up in the hilly area. Although it
is only a small town, it has a lot of art galleries and temples. There is Bali
traditional dance performance very night.
We chose one of the Bali dance to
watch. However, it was not that
impressive as I had seen the Ramayana Dance in Yogyakarta.
2004 12 30 (Thu) Touring Art
Galleries and Museums
Went
to the monkey sanctuary in the morning.
The monkeys in this sanctuary are called Balinese Macaques. It is a kind of long-tail monkey. The monkeys are not kept in the
cage. They are just wondering
around inside the park. I guess it
is the mating season, they are having sex everywhere.
There
is a rumor saying that the Balinese used to eat the monkeys so the government
had to build this sanctuary to prevent the monkeys from extinct.
After
seeing the monkeys, we toured around the art galleries. There are many art galleries, almost
every other shop there is an art gallery.
I wonder how they could survive with such a little tourists and it is
the peak season already. Most of
the displays are modern art, traditional Bali
art is seldom seen in the art galleries.
The nice thing about the art galleries is they are free.
We
also went to Ubud
Palace, Museum Puri
Lukisan and Agung Rai Museum of Art (ARMA). In the art museums, traditional Balli
art and modern art can be found here.
ARMA has a temporary exhibition of a modern art, and the topic is about
heart. The painter had had his work exhibited in Hong Kong.
At
night, we watched another Bali traditional
dance performance again at ARMA.
And this time it was free.
It was better than last night’s performance. They did this for a professor, and
turned out we got a free entry.
Other
than the art galleries, Hindu temples are the most you can find In Ubud, almost
every steps there is a small one and every ten steps there is a large one.
2004 12 31 (Thu) Touring Wood
Carvings and Elephant
Cave
Went to Neka museum this
morning. It was a long walk. But the display was stunning. There were a lot of worth seeing paintings. There was also some old pictures
exhibition. From the pictures and
paintings, the Balinese girls used to naked their breast, even in the rice
field and market. Too bad, this
tradition had gone.
Also
went to Archeological
Museum. Very disappointed. There were only a few broken stones for
exhibition. The explanation was
less than one page. No one was there
except me. The officer did not sell
the ticket, just asked me for donation.
Would he keep that in his pocket?
Walked
to Elephant Cave. Here, you can neither find an elephant
or a cave is large enough for an elephant.
It was a Buddhist hermitage.
On
the way to elephant cave from Archaeological Museums, there were many Wood
carving shops. I think most of them
should be export, otherwise how can they survive?
2005 01 01 (Sat) Traveling on New
Year’s Day to Mt.
Bromo
In
the morning, Eric asked what my plan was, I said I didn’t know. But I would be at the bottom of Mt. Bromo
by the end of the day. And tomorrow
I would climb the Mt. Bromo.”
From
the map and by chatting with people, I need to take a bus to Sanur, from Sanur
take a bemo (note1) to Ubung terminal of Denpasar; then take a bus
to Gilimanuk. From there, take a
ferry to Ketapang of Java Island and then take a bus to Probolinggo, the
closest town to Mt.
Bromo.
Sounds
complicated? In fact, It wasn’t that bad.
When I arrived the Ubung terminal, there was a direct bus to
Probolinggo. Lucky me. That would save a lot of trouble. However it was not a comfortable
ride. Although the bus had air
condition, it was not cold enough.
Besides, the bus company oversold the tickets and some of passengers had
to squeeze to my sit. In addition
to that, when we arrived the ferry terminal at Gilimanuk, the driver opened the
bus door and suddenly tens of the hawkers coming into the bus trying to sell
you drinks, food, sunglasses, almost everything. There were also people coming into the
bus, sang, asking for money.
And because the bus door was open, many flies flew into the bus. That was very annoying.
By
the time I arrived Probolinggo, it was 20:30, almost 10 hours on the bus,
including on the ferry time and it was dark already. The bus driver dropped me in the middle
of nowhere. I found a bicycle
rickshaw and he showed me to a information counter. The guy told me there was no public
transportation to the Mt.
Bromo, so I had to
charter a small van to go up there.
Well, if money can solve, it is not a problem, plus it was not that
expensive.
It
was another hour to get to Mt.
Bromo. Checked in at Lava Hostel. It was already very late. I hate to arrive a new place late.
Note1
A
bemo is a mini-van about 3/5 size of a Hong Kong
van but it can take more than 8 passengers.
Interesting
People:
A
guy who is sitting next to me is a junior high school English teacher. He is fond of Balinese art. He looks like one of the movie actors in
Stephen Chow’s
“Flirting Scholar”.
I
talked to another guy who looks alike one of the actors in the movie
“Predator”. He is a diving
instructor who teaches mostly the European to dive in Bali. He has been diving for more than 3,000
times. The most frequent was about
5 to 6 dives per day. I said to him
that it was very dangerous. He said
every 6 months he had to sleep in the pressure chamber for a couple of hours to
de-pressure himself. He told me
there were two pressure chambers around here, one in Bali and another one in Surabaya. The one in Surabaya is run by the navy and is more
advanced.
2005 01 02 (Sun) Climbing the
Active Volcano Mt. Bromo
Although
I had said that I would never climb a volcano again, why I am doing this
again? This is because Mt. Bromo
(2,393m) is the best viewing
volcano in the world. Mt. Bromo
is still active.
Although
people always call Mt.
Bromo, it is one of the
volcanoes, sitting inside the Tengger crater which is more than 12 km in diameter. Can you image a volcano crater that has
more than 12 km in diameter?
Woke up at 2:45 and hiked
to Mt. Penanjakan
(2,770m) where it had
got the best view of seeing the sunrise and Mt. Bromo. It was a very dark night, but stars and
moon could be clearly seen. I was
the only one to hike. The rest of
them were taking the jeep to there.
The road was well paved, so it was better than the climb of Mt. Merapi,
except some places were also very steep.
From
the top of Mt. Penanjakan
(2,770m), Tengger
crater can be clearly seen and in the
middle sits Mr. Bromo and Mt.
Batok (2,470m). Further away, there is another active
volcano named Mt.
Semeru (3,676m). This morning, we saw its eruption. Yes, a volcanic eruption.
It was not the
catastrophic with melting lava, it has volcanic ash and gas coming out every 15
to 30 minutes. It was such a
magnificent view. It was like the
coughing of the volcano.
After
viewing from far, I went down to the Tengger crater and climbed the Mt. Bromo.
At the top of the crater,
I could see the steams coming out from the bottom of the crater with very
strong sulphur smell.
I
was going to stay one more day at Mt. Bromo but the weather started to change and tomorrow
may not have the same luck to see the same pretty view so I decided to leave
and go to Surabaya.
Interesting
People:
A
Chinese Indonesian reporter and photographer who is 68 years old, still
working, taking pictures for a Chinese newspaper. He speaks very good Chinese. He has a daughter working in Taipei and a son working
in US. He looks alike my
paleontology teacher in my university. He told me he had been in Mt. Bromo
taking pictures for more than 20 times, and this time had the best
weather. He told me that he knew a
National Geographic photographer who had been taking volcano pictures for his
life said that Mt.
Bromo had the best view
among all the volcanoes.
A
Chinese Indonesian woman speaks very good Chinese, traveling with her family to
Mt. Bromo. Although her family only lives about 3
to 4 hours drive from here, this is her first time to come here. She has two pretty daughters and she
invited me to her home. Maybe some
other time, I will have to continue my journey.
A
woman from London
speaks very fluent Indonesian. She
had worked for VSO of England and they sent her to Indonesia. She had worked in Indonesia for 7
years.
2005 01 03 (Mon) Visiting the
Komodo Dragon in Surabaya (泗水)
My
original plan for tomorrow was to take a plane or ferry boat to Pontianak, Kalimantan. From there change plane or bus (10-hour
ride) to Kuching of East Malaysia.
Turns out all the tickets to Pontianak
has sold out in the coming days. So
I went to the ferry company (Pelni) and checked the ferry schedule. They said the earliest ferry to Pontianak is January 14
and it will take two days to get there.
Gee I am stuck in Surabaya.
I
made a quick decision and decided to go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The travel agency told me that I could
get a cheap ticket via Air Asia if I go to the airport and buy direct
there. So I just followed her
instruction to do that.
After
getting the ticket, I went to the Surabaya
zoo to see the Komodo Dragon. It is
the only reason why I stopped at Surabaya. This Komodo Dragon is a giant lizard
which can grow up to 3m in
length and 150 kg
in weight. There are quite a few
numbers in the zoo. They are very
lazy animals. Too lazy to eat too. They only eat two times a month. They are fed on every 5th and
20th of the month at 12:30.
If interested, you can come to see eating.
The
other way to see this creature is at the Komodo Island
but it will take you another 3 to 4 days on the travel. First you have to fly to Bima from
Denpasar, Bali and from there you take a ferry to Komodo Island. From the ferry port, you will have to walk
about 1.5 miles to get to the protection park to see this creature. Since it is still in the park, it is
much easier and cheaper to see at the Surabaya
zoo. Going to Komodo Island
will cost you another US300 to 400.
Surabaya is the 2nd largest city in
Indonesia. The traffic is a lot better than Jakarta and the city
seems to be a little more organized.
2005 01 04 (Tue) Leaving
Indonesia, flying to Malaysia
I
flew to Kuala Lumpur (KL) of Malaysia
via Air Asia. This is the first
time I fly with this Airline. The
only reason is because the fare is cheap.
Turns out I experienced something new.
First,
they don’t do computer check in. When I asked for an aisle seat next to the
emergency exit, the woman said I could sit anywhere I liked because it was free
seating. Free seating in an
airplane? That is new to me. And my name on the boarding pass was
hand written.
The
plane leaves at 11:30 and I thought I would have a nice meal. Turns out they served nothing. Even you have to buy your own drink. I asked for a cup of tea and they
charged me for 6 RM (about HK12). I
thought tea and water are supposed to be complimentary.
Before
landing, they supposed to announce the weather and the time difference (KL is
one hour faster than Surabaya),
and they did not. I bought a bus
ticket after the customs and began to wonder around the airport because I had
more than 1.5 hour to kill. Later,
I lost my patience and decided to refund the ticket and took the express train
instead. The woman in the ticket
office told me the bus leaves in 5 minutes. Then I realized there is a time
difference between Surabaya
and KL. I had to rush down to the
bus terminal. Almost miss the bus.
The
moral of taking this flight is there is nothing supposed to be.
The
airport bus stopped at the Chan Sow Lin station and then changed a light rail
to China Town. At the LRT station, I saw the
advertisement of Stephen
Chow’s new movie “Kung Fu Hustle”. I am a big fan of Stephen Chow. I must see this one tonight.
The
movie was one of his best, filled with laughs and tears. I was very satisfy with his
performance. And the price is low
(about HK22). Surprisingly, there
is not a phone ring during the movie.
It never happened in Hong Kong and China.