Mad dogs and Englishmen....

Out in the midday sun!

Another day, another temple. Prambanan, another World Heritage site, is a magnificent Hindu Temple site, with temples dedicated to Vishnu, Bramha and Shiva.

Unfortunately it has been damaged by various earthquakes and volcanic explosions, the last in 2006, so is in need of repair and there are large piles of rubble everywhere. But it is still pretty impressive. Hard hats were compulsory to wear if you wanted to get up close, although I suspect they would have been of little help if the structures had collapsed!

We then had a tour around the Sultan's palace and the Sultan's bathing complex. He would throw a flower into the water and whichever of his 35 wives caught it would spend the day with him in his private pool! However to be honest it was 36c at this point and we were all a bit past caring!

A spot of snapper for lunch revived us but it was felt only right and proper to slow down for the afternoon, so a wallow in the pool and another massage was order of the day. It gets dark here at around 5:30pm so has cooled a little bit, but we generally feel the need for beer by about 6pm!

We have found a lovely cafe round the corner that does awesome food. Neil has just come back from there where he was chatted up by an 80 year old French lady. Turns out she is a world expert on Orang Utans and has even taught them to use a computer! The BBC are going to make a film about her!

Bad news of the day: one of the guys had bed bugs last night. I will be getting my microscope out before I go anywhere near my bed!

Time to shop....

So it has been an entire week and other than food and beer I have not bought a thing! Time to get my eye in on the bartering and start helping the local economy! First we headed to a batik factory and then a silver factory......I will definitely need to post things home!

After lunch we headed to Borobudur, one if my main reasons for taking this trip. It is a World Heritage site, a Buddhist temple built in about 800 AD, so older than Angkor Wat and Bagan ( both if which I have been lucky enough to see). It was left abandoned and overgrown with jungle for many centuries, survived earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and was rediscovered in the mid 1800's.

In accordance with Buddhist tho kings there are 10 levels to climb before you reach nirvana. Interestingly the reliefs at the bottom that show evil and greed are no longer on show. In a predominantly Muslim country it is not considered appropriate due to the carvings being somewhat pornographic!

It was amazing to see how well some of the quite deep carvings had survived, but ax it was a Sunday the place was mobbed by Indonesians, which kind of tainted any ethereal atmosphere. Also it was odd being at a Buddhist temple without any mold wandering around! The loud rabbit system that kept blaring out various messages didn't really help matters!

But we waited until the end of the day so that as many others had left as possible and we were able to grab the odd moment to ourselves. It is another tick on the list of Stevenson Objectives! And just to prove I really was there......

Not much to report....

A day of travel today. We left at 0500, walked to the boat that took us an hour to cross Lake Toba.....

Then a 5 hour coach journey back to Medan. We got stuck in traffic which provided us with an opportunity to watch one man plough his rice paddy followed by a whole flock of egrets, another man was wandering the waterlogged fields with two electrodes in an effort to zap eels, and we got stuck next to a school who decided to come and wave us all of in force! (They go to school 6 days a week!)

Then a two hour flight to Jakarta Airport. After all the rice and chicken it was bliss to have a Starbucks coffee and a Krispy Creme donut! Then another one hour flight to Jogjakarta, and thankfully no lost luggage! 

Group is getting on really well. We seem, with only a couple of exceptions, to have bonded over a number of Bintan beers!

On the lake....

Today has been more about culture and relaxing. Half of the group have food poisoning, and the rest of us are tired, so those of us able to took a boat along the lake shore to see 3 of the local villages. We are on the Batak area, with beautiful rectangular houses that only have one room for up to 8 families! And I have trouble coping with the odd visitor!!! We saw some local dancing but to be honest they looked bored stiff, so we lost interest. Even the buffalo they brought in as a stage prop looked like he would rather be working in the fields! 

We did hear a bit more about the historical cannabalism, and the guide took great pleasure in demonstrating in detail the torture measures that they used! Luckily for us the missionaries arrived in 1810 and they ceased killing people in 1815! 

This afternoon was spent watching the world go by from my balcony overlooking Lake Toba, and a massage, which cost the princely sum of $8.00.

(View from my balcony)

Early start tomorrow. Leaving at 05:15 for a day of travel. One ferry, one coach, two flights and another coach. Our time in Sumatra is done. Time to head to Java... 

Hopefully they will not have any B1 restaurants. As Sumatra is 80% Muslim they can only serve pork in special restaurants, which are classified as B2. B1 restaurants serve dog and cat.....😢

Another tick on the list....

Yesterday was mostly a travel day from the depths of the jungle up in to the mountains/volcano region. One of the volcanoes erupted 10 days ago and there is ash everywhere. They are waiting for the rain to come! 4 of us hit one if the local bars which was fun. They seriously love their soft rock!

An early morning start again today and then a 3 hour trek up an active volcano, Sibayak. It was a hard slog and when we got to the top of the caldera the clouds descended so we didn't get to see the views we had hoped for, and the smell of the sulphur was overwhelming! Watching the steam being emitted was quite mesmerising, there is some energy underneath!

Getting back down was almost worse than getting to the top but at least we were rewarded with a wallow in the hot springs!

Then it was an afternoon drive, with a couple of stops to Prapat, and a boat journey across the water filled caldera to Samosir island. It is the same size as Singapore so imagine how big the volcano was!! Although most of it is mountain. We will explore further tomorrow.

Just monkeying around....

Today has been an awesome day.

Up at 6am and a 3 hour trek through fairly dense jungle. The sounds of the insects, frogs and almost operatic gibbons rang out, and then all of a sudden we saw our first orang utan. Just minding his own business in the canopy. We stayed with him for about 15 minutes  before carrying on. It was bit long before we met a semi-wild mother and her 5 month baby. She came down to see us, although the baby was not so sure and shimmied back up the vines! She took food off us all, bananas, nuts and carrots.  Such an amazing experience to have a monkey take food, and fairly gently too, from your hand. To see them move around with such grace and dexterity was amazing. We then headed to a platform where some of the re-released orang utans head when they want food and found a giant male who was waiting for pineapple!! We didn't see anyone else all morning and all felt truly privileged to have come so close to those we had seen.

This afternoon four of us went tubing down the river, which was hilarious as we are at the end of the dry season, so there is not much water in the river. Then Neil and I suffered "catastrophe failure" when we hit a rock and our tyre exploded! The four of us found a rock each to sit on and waiting whilst "our man", Harry, went back up the river for a replacement! There are worse places to be stranded for half an hour! We then spent two happy hours floating down through jungle, mountains, villagers and children bathing, watching birds, damselflies and general life.

All in all an excellent day! Beer time!!

What a difference a few hours makes...

Flew into Medan, with its flashy new airport, only opened two months ago, (obviously without my suitcase) and it appears that they have forgotten to join the airport to town with anything resembling a road! Medan, the capital of Sumatra and a city of 2million is everything you would expect from a frenetic Asian city but to be honest as there was not really much of cultural interest I was very happy to leave this morning.

4 hours driving through palm oil and rubber plantations and we have arrived in Bukit Lawang, a village north west of Medan. Four of us hired a guide to take us to The Bat Cave. A trek through the jungle, climbing up rocks, down rocks and across gullies and we entered the cave. Thankfully they were small bats and fairly sparse, which at least meant there was limited bat poo!

Our adventurous spirit was rewarded with  two different troupes of monkeys (macaque and Thomas Leaf Monkeys) having a few Tarzan moments. Must be such fun to swing from tree to tree!

Also passed a few building covered in murals and surrounded by gardens full of colourful objects, including huge clogs! Turns out to be the local orphanage. There was a massive flash flood in 2003 and a lot of the villagers died.

I am typing this at the rivers edge, and have just met Eddy (about 8) who was following his Dad up the river. His Dad was trying to catch fish, but Eddy wanted to know who I was and what I was doing!

Oops....

Just realised my last 3 posts all have photos of food and drink! Am sensing a theme!!!!

Up, up and away.....

Well here I am. D Day. 

Nervous and excited. Nervous about who I will meet, what I will encounter and how I will feel about it all. But excited about the exact same things, those unknowns. I keeping being told that it will be a life changing experience, and to be honest my only fear us that I will come home and not feel any different! 

But I am in that pre-journey " over thinking" mode, so I will listen to my lovely friend, Simon, and switch to relaxing and concentrating on the "now". 

Which means I have 90 minutes before I board the plane to decide....... Chocolate or peanut M&M's????!

Here we go.....

So a few sausage rolls this morning as a token gesture to all those at work that I am leaving behind, out-of-office message on and that's it, no more work for 11 weeks!

Lots of goodbye messages and I have to admit to being a tad emotional. I know that it is only 11 weeks, and I am coming back but I will miss everyone. You are all under strict instructions not to undertake anything that is fun, exciting or new until I return. Living vicariously through my blogs is your only option! 

Let the celebrations commence.......

Only 7 sleeps.......(squeal)! I am having to work hard to contain my inner need to skip!!!! But it seems only right and fitting that "bubbles" are enjoyed at this very moment, with the knowledge that this time next week I will be at the airport (squeal, again!), and, ready or not, will be off around the world! 

Single digits......

The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to talk of many things: of shoes and ships - and sealing wax - of cabbages and kings.'

I appreciate that I am mixing my Lewis Carroll-isms, and I am not quite an "Alice", but only 9 big sleeps until I head out in search of my very own Wonderland….

13 sleeps......

A quick trip to M&S in Farnborough and I am hoping I now have enough beer vouchers to get me through at least the first few weeks in Indonesia, with enough left over for a few oriental souvenirs and some massages!