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| Not a very good photo I know (and its the wrong way round) but Jackie being served her starter in our business class seats on our Turkish Air flight from Jakarta to Istanbul |
It was a long journey, the whole day at the hotel, to the airport at 18.00 flight at 21.00 for 11 hours. Two hours in Istanbul, Four hour flight arriving at 09.10. Bus at 11.00-14.50 train at 15.15 and quick trip to Sainsbury's!
The house is fine, the car had a pond in it, we appear to have a leak somewhere round the windscreen on the driver's side. Hmmm.
Wednesday we tried Christmas shopping and did a proper food shop and visited the dentist.
Thursday we went climbing and popped into the Birmingham German market which has been there for years, but seemed smaller than I remember. Nice day out though.
Friday a trip to Go Outdoors. His outdoor shoes are exactly the same as his old ones, so he's happy, but I'm sitting here wearing new rock shoes trying to convince myself they are going to be ok. They might have to go back! The afternoon has been spent decorating our first Christmas tree for 13 years. A new slender tree with old decorations of ours and mum's. Lovely. The only thing I couldn't find was tree top teddy who I think must have been tied to the top of the old tree that we've taken to the charity shop. I hope his new family look after him. I have however found tree top teddy that mum and dad bought before I even existed so that's OK.
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| Back in dear old England and a band plays carols in Birmingham City Centre |
So, what did I think of Indonesia?
The people were lovely, though perhaps their English wasn't as good as they thought it was. The food was good, very spicy, and I'm a bit fed up with white rice. A meal without rice isn't a meal apparently. There was a lot of fried food too, from rice, to chicken, to fish which is great but not particularly healthy. As I mentioned before all meals are the same, breakfast, lunch and dinner which was a bit wearing after a while too.
There is a lot of litter, everywhere which is horrible, from our beach at Krakatau to snorkelling through it at Raja Ampat. The scenery could be beautiful as could The snorkelling, though I think we were unlucky with the tropical storm near to Australia that affected us and reduced the underwater visibility. The temperature was a bit much for me and the humidity was high which makes it worse. We were lucky I suppose though in that we didn't get too much rain, only getting really wet once.
Our actual trip started off a bit 'rough' but Brian signed up for that, it did get more civilised, though even that wasn't quite right as they had done what Brian asked and booked good hotels, but they were nearly all big, corporate, impersonal hotels that have all blurred into one.
The 11 internal flights actually went better than expected. Five of them were changed before we left the UK but after that there were no more changes. It was however much less stressful having only cabin baggage. We had been meticulous in our weight and dimensions and could easily have pushed it a bit more as we were still carrying smaller than most and were never even looked at. This is definitely something to try again. Particularly as the most delayed flight was a connecting one which we had to run for.
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| Two Christmas puddings walk by! |
Brian's thoughts on Indonesia:
Going on a pre booked, fully organised trip has its advantages, but with the disadvantage that no last minute tweaks can be made to account for such things as bad weather, unexpected encounters or recommendations on the way.
The big advantage was the lack of worry and ease. At every airport arrival we were met by someone carrying a piece of paper with our name on it, to be whisked away to our next destination in a private car or taxi, and dropped off at the next airport for onward travel. Quite often we found ourselves waiting at arrivals as, only carrying hand luggage, we were always out not long after the plane landed, not having to wait at the baggage conveyors, but these were soon sorted. English speaking guides were always on hand to give us lots of useful information and help us along the way. We felt very cosseted!
We had a varied trip from camping in a small two man tent on the beach at Krakatau, fairly basic homestays on Borneo, a lovely ex colonial house converted to a hotel on Banda Neira, some quite luxury hotels and bland airport business hotels. Our trips too were varied and we've seen rural, quite poor Indonesia, historical cities, the spice islands, shaping world history, several volcanoes, excellent snorkelling sites, Komodo dragons and bustling cities. We packed a lot into our 37 days and that's the advantage of booking everything in advance, but we were certainly on the go.
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| The German Market in Birmingham City Centre, a regular annual feature here for many years. Its the largest authentic German market outside Germany or Austria |
The approximately 17500 islands that comprise Indonesia have a very important place in history, originally being the only place in the world where the nutmeg tree grew. The location of the centre of this trade was Banda Neira, a remote group of islands and it was kept a closely guarded secret as, in those days, nutmeg value was greater than gold. Today Indonesia is home to over 280 million people and is the fourth most populated country. 85% of its population are Muslims and there are mosques seemingly on every corner. The call to prayer occurs 5 times every day, the first being about 4:30am. Loudspeakers on every mosque chant out the prayers for all to hear, which can be quite melodic and pleasant, but once other nearby mosques join in the sounds meld together in a cacophony of competing voices. It forms the backdrop of the country wherever you go and reminds you you are on an adventure and in a different, exciting place. A bit like church bells ringing on a Sunday morning in the UK must be to foreigners here I should think.
Traffic in the cities can be very heavy, particularly in morning and evening rush hours. Jakarta is particularly bad as the old city of Batavia from Dutch colonial times sits in the centre and cannot easily be changed for modern traffic flows. The gridlocked or slow moving cars are overtaken by the many motorbikes that weave in and out in an almost reckless fashion. We didn't see any accidents but we were told they are frequent with many injuries and deaths, often from motorcyclists not wearing crash helmets.
As with many Eastern countries, crossing busy roads as a pedestrian is a challenge. There are pedestrian crossings, but we don't really know the advantage of using one as vehicles pay no regard to them and don't stop, even if you're walking across one. We asked several locals the advantage of using one as opposed to crossing just anywhere and they weren't able to answer. The way to do it is wait until there is a small gap in traffic then slowly but deliberately walk across the road, looking at oncoming cars and holding your hand up signalling them to stop. They don't stop but will alter their position to pass either in front or behind. The worst thing to do is to hesitate and stop as this will confuse motorists and could cause an accident. No one gets upset, no one hoots their horn in anger, it all just happens and, hopefully, you end up on the other side of the road. Attempting to cross at a traffic light controlled junction when the signal is on red is no easier, it seems the red light is for guidance only and often drivers ignore it. I never quite worked out the rules for driving on a dual carriageway. They drive on the left, as we do in the UK and we would expect vehicles to stay in the left lane except when overtaking, but not so. Vehicles seem to deliberately move to the outside lane, even when there's nothing in the inside lane and, when encountering a slower vehicle, pass it on the inside lane, with a toot of the horn, then move back out again, quite odd.
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| We decided on a Bratwurst (hot dog) for lunch. They serve an improbable 0.5m long version. We had one between us which was ample but many people had a whole one |
We found all people very friendly and helpful and were asked on a number of occasions if they could pose with us for a photo. We didn't encounter people sleeping rough, except on rare occasions and were rarely approched by someone with an outstretched hand asking for money. We felt people were generally trustworthy and didn't feel vulnerable or threatened, even when on our own but, then again we were on an organised trip so perhaps we weren't taken to those sort of places.
We understand there is a large amount of corruption in government and elections seem far from free, several people remarked how they were coerced into voting for a particular candidate. There is a new capital city being built in East Kalimantan on Borneo and is called Nusantara. It apparently has wide avenues and huge government buildings and, although its operating on some level, housing isn't yet built so its not functioning as a capital yet, that remains in Jakarta. It apparently was built by cutting down a vast area of virgin jungle and no-one knows who made the money from the sale of the trees within. The general public are not allowed to visit Nustantara, its sealed off, so we couldn't visit, despite being nearby when in Balikpapan.
As Jackie has said, rubbish is a problem and they seem to be where we were in the UK in the 1970's, people just don't think about littering, it needs a cultural shift. Several of the hotels we stayed in had water containers on each floor of a hotel for filling your own water bottle, but most provided bottled water in small plastic bottles which just adds to landfil. We saw vast quantities of packs of small water bottles being offloaded from a ship on remote Banda Neira for supply to the hotels there. How many empty plastic bottles leave the islands is anyones guess, not very many!
So overall, Indonesia has its fair share of problems as many countries, but it seemed relatively safe, we didn't encounter any problems, its relativelty cheap, except for alcohol which is priced at least the same as in the UK up to a maximum of £8 a pint, which is expensive. Stay off the alcohol and its a fairly cheap country. You can get a good hotel room for about £45 for two people, £90 will get you a top class hotel room.
Even in 37 days we barely scratched the surface of what Indonesia has to offer, its very varied and offers excellent hiking, great nature spotting, plenty of historical sights, plenty of volcanoes, some amazing scenery, some of the best diving and snorkelling in the world and, of course, the only place in the world you can have a very good chance to see a real live dragon on Komodo island. It's definitely worth putting Indonesia on your travel list, but it's vast, covering two time zones and requiring many internal flights or ferries. The flights are fairly cheap, a little over £100 for two people, similar to the ferry prices, which are much longer. It's well served by a number of airlines offering several flights a day and you can choose from the national carrier, Garuda, offering an inflight meal, down to the budget, no frills Lion Air. Just be prepared for flight changes and be flexible!
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| There's ours. Can you imagine that whole? |
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| We washed it down with two little tankards of hot wine - very nice! |
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| Well, that's the end of another trip and we're well and truly back into life back in the UK. Happy Christmas! |
