Bandung & Yogyakarta

Let’s take up our story again. Continue our journey through the Island of Java. A place where humans rule over the land in a density you can scarcely find on another place on this planet.

Us two adventurers awoke at the breaking of dawn to find a way to leave the chaotic cluster of houses that calls itself Jakarta. As I have stated in our last retelling, we did not find a single soul, who’s been to that place and did not tell us to “avoid it at all cost”. No other place on our adventure had such a bad reputation as this town. Usually you can find at least one or two people who recognized the faults in a place, but tell you it is worth going there for whatever reason. That happened everywhere except for Jakarta, known to us as the cursed city. Therefore we entered the place only because we had no other option and did not even stay for 12 h. The only downside on our quick departure of the city was that we had to get up early.

That day we took the wheeled worm for the first time in Indonesia. Speeding over the countryside in the cooled interior of a wheeled worm is one of our favourite way of travelling. We left our shabby inn in Jakarta accordingly excited and with 1.5 h to spare. We treated ourselves to a Grab, as less than 5 h of sleep did not seem sufficient to embark on the adventure of the public transport in a cursed city, especially in the company of our animal companions. We were told that the traffic in the cursed city is even worse than in Bangkok (We watched two episodes of Outlander on the public bus there on our way from the bus station to the city centre), so we left with enough time to spare. Coffee and tea in hand (buying cups in Tashkent has still been the best investment of 40 cents I’ve ever made) we watched two huge trash eaters rolling over the street, clearing way the mountainous piles of stuffed plastic bags that just chilled in middle of the street. A big surprise was that at 7 am the cursed city seemed to still be asleep. Apart from the trash eaters, we encountered only several speeders and a couple of other private transportation logs. So, we arrived at the wheeled worm meeting point with time to spare. Our time in the wheeled worm meeting spot was delightful, we secured tickets within 2 min and sat in some free seats and enjoyed the connection to the invisible library of all information. The only downside was that the musical loop they blasted non stop from the speakers seemed to be only 40 sec long.

Our wheeled worm rolled into the meeting point 30 min before he was destined to leave and we could sit in our comfortable seats and wait. Speeding past rice terraces, banana plantations and jungle covered mountains we arrived in the city of Bandung shortly past noon. There we ventured the 500 m to our sleeping spot and left immediately in search of food. The afternoon we spend wandering through the twisted labyrinth of streets, twisting our way past the street vendors. Bandung is an interesting city, but whoever named it “Paris of Java” has only ever heard a very vague description of Paris. Too be fair there are several similarities to Paris and Bandung: 1. The streetlamps are very nicely decorated. 2. There is something that can be called a river. 3. There are streets and finally 4. Both city have houses in which people live. Yes, the description could fit on a several cities. But apparently it was enough to earn Bandung the title or potentially Bandung just has an exceptional advertisement department. Nevertheless I did not find our time strolling through Bandung too exciting.

To make sure our dinner was decent and as we might have been a bit sleep deprived we ordered dinner to our inn and ate there.

9.3.

The day started for once at a reasonable hour. Not at the crack of dawn. Our Plan: get out of the city! Leaving behind the hustle and bustle of a place similar to the chaos of Ketterdam, just with fewer gangs and see fields and forests. So, we let ourselves be transported to the station of buses looking for a small mode of transportation to take us to Ciwidey. And friends, we found a small van that worked in the same magical way our friends the Mashrutkas worked. The difference is that the average homo sapiens in Indonesia is smaller that the average one in Kazakhstan. So, we found ourselves cramed into row four of five in a tiny van with 15 other humans and struggled to organize our limbs, as Artey’s were already too long. After one hour of sitting and driving we arrived in Ciwidey, a small village on the outskirts of Bandung. As usual our first quest was to find food. We ended up in a restaurant with as many other people as Sam & Frodo met on their way through the marshes, but the lady working there prepared decent food for us, so we can’t complain.

Instead of spending another hour in a crammed bus just to see a toxic, sulphuric lake we decided that we don’t care what people think it is the best tourist destination and just ventured through the surrounding countryside and let me tell you it was marvellous. We ventured past rice terraces and wine fields, up hills and through small villages. We also were the attraction in the area, as almost everybody we passed stared at us. Some went on their scooter just to pass us several times or sprint after us to ask for a picture.

After several hours of aimless wanderings, we found our way back to the station of buses, as it is common knowledge, that not all those who wander are lost. At the station of buses we took a less crowded vessel of transportation back to the city as we took to leave it. Arriving in Paris of Java we walked back to our Inn. On the way we stopped at a night market for dinner, where we dined on a small street food stand on fried noodles.

10.3

Sunday, in some places the first day of the week, the day where the sun has to shine, otherwise you can forget all hope of a Sams finding a way to you. As a matter of fact I am not really sure whether or not the sun shone that day, for it was another travel day, not a terribly long one, not a short one, but a nice one for we got to travel on a wheeled worm again! After breaking our fast we left for the wheeled worm meeting point, with the intention of getting food on the way. Masters at the craft of getting food we entered the meeting hall with stocked provisions and a heart set on the next destination: the city with too many Ys in my German opinion. The wheeled worm rolled into the meeting point on time and we sat back in our comfortable chairs and let the wheeled worm wheel us on. On for 390 min. 390 min of feeling the cool breath of the magical frost dragons hiding in the ceiling. 390 min of music and books and incredible landscapes sweeping past, like an never ending art gallery. 390 min that could have been worse. Have I mentioned that I am a fan of the Indonesian wheeled worm network in Java? I feel like I haven’t put enough focus on that. They are truly outstanding and exceeded my expectation in every way.

Well the 390 min did pass and we entered the wheeled worm meeting point in Yogyakarta. At this point in time the sun had finished a majority of her path over the blue tapestry of the sky, so we quickly wandered to our hotel, a surprisingly ant free place! And ventured on to find new sustenance. To our delight we found a street food stall that sold juices of all colours and ended our wandering on the side of the street on a carpet. For the first time we sat on the ground/ carpet and our food was placed on a plastic stool in front of us. The food was very good. The rest of the evening passed uneventful and we dissented into the beautiful realm of stars and adventures that play before the inner eye.

11.3

We have had a lot of special days on this trip, days that have never happened to us before. This day did not feel like one of them, this one felt like a day in my childhood, like a day on summer holiday with our family. Someone very special arrived that day: Our mother. She has decided to make her way around half of the planet to explore the other part of Indonesia with us. We were to meet her in the hotel, where we would stay the next two nights.

After breaking our fast we packed our bags, walked past our trusted juice stand and made our way to the hotel. The hotel was a fancy one, our mom booked it. I just want to conjure an image in your head: We walked into the marble entrance hall wearing the cheap, travel stained pants we bought in Vietnam, our large backpacks with lumpy winter jackets strapped to the side, both dusty, our foldable small backpacks and each carrying a plastic cup with juice. I might have felt slightly out of place, but that did not stop us from settling in the lobby and wait until our mom arrived. The first thing the three of us did was catching up over a cup of coffee (for once a real good cappuccino and not a semi hot instant coffee). We spend the afternoon strolling through the artistic street of Yogyakarta finding hidden palaces and beautiful wall murals. After a semi good dinner of Jackfruit curry (had high hopes for that one) we went back to our hotel and to sleep.

12.3

This day was a special day due to several reasons: First of all it was the first day of the holy month of Ramadan and we are currently travelling through a country where 88% of the population are Muslims. Secondly it was our moms birthday. Thirdly we would spend the day exploring the ancient temples of Borobudur and Prambanan.

The first real highlight of the day was a breakfast. A buffet that could satisfy the hungriest hobbit. Naturally we spend 50 min eating our way through all it could offer to the astonishment of the people working there. With a filled stomachs and a light heart, we departed for Borobudur. An over 1000 years old colossal monument of stones and statues representing the Buddhists way of reaching Nirvana. It is truly astonishing to look at, crowning a hilltop overlooking rice fields and palm forests. Before we reached the next temple we stopped for lunch.

Prambanan is a temple complex made out of four Hindu temples. The temples were magnificent and could have all been part of Angor Wat. We strolled past piles of stones over well kept lawns and paused on a raised picknick platform. There we ate a few of our fruits and the food we scavengered from the breakfast buffet. Not that we were really hungry, but Hobbits need their minimum amount of meals per day! And the food does not transport well in our small backpacks (their physics are defined by the anti-crow principle: everything is always at the bottom).

In the afternoon we made our way back to our hotel, having filled our thirst for temples. Eager to cool down we happily paddled through the cool wet calling itself pool. The day ended with a nice dinner on the floor of a restaurant eating typical Indonesian noodles.