It was with a sense of dread that I got on the plane back to Bali. I seriously considered not getting off the train at Sydney airport and the flight back was so uncomfortable because of my ribs – when I breathed in I could hear a sort of scrunching noise in my chest. But once I got back on the horse it was surprisingly good and I felt so much more comfortable than I had expected.

Crikey, well I jumped straight back in the deep end when I arrived back in Indonesia: Flores is not quite set up for tourists, and a western woman on her own is an oddity and a plaything for the locals, but it didn’t bother me quite so much as before. Started out in Labuan Bajo, the biggest town on Flores… I walked around the whole town in 30 mins (and was kicked in the bum by a horrid little boy for no reason other than for a laugh), so after a visit to the lizards – which are pretty weird animals, like geckos on steroids – I went off to a tiny desert island called Seraya, activities are limited to reading, snorkling, watching the deer on the beach and lying in the sun (ouch, my ribs!).

From there I headed east across th island. The only way to travel to drive; its 160km as the crow flies, but took 21 hours over 5 days on a very twisty, turny road, in cars crammed with people and livestock (typically 12 people and a few chickens in a people carrier). The locals are not used to travelling, so on such a windy road they get car sick as soon as they look at the car; there are shouts for “plasteeek!” every few minutes, and panic ensues when the sick bags run out.

First night was in Ruteng. Not much to do there but I somehow found myself with the Indonesian Special Police Force over dinner. Their opening line was “How old are you and why don’t you pray before you eat and where is your husband?” An unusual conversation starter, but that’s more or less where it stopped making any sense – only one of them spoke stilted English, and there was much confusion when they worked out I was from South Africa (I had to draw a map to show where it was): why am I not black? Good question.

Next day I got back on the twisty road and arrived in Bajawa around midday. I hired a guide to take me to the villages in the area, starting with Bena, a very traditional village with sacred spikey rocks in the middle and children with lots of green snot: my worst nightmare. It had a bit of a hopeless air about it and sadly a few of the women had black eyes; I had a strong sense that the people who lived here know that the world now lives in a different way to them, but they aren’t quite sure how to deal with the changes. Next was Wogo which was quite different: 5 girls in the village were having confirmation parties (inland Flores is predominantly Catholic), and because I was a “tooris”, therefore quite a novelty, I was invited to 2 of the huts to drink arak and eat… dog! (Hooray, I found it! But really not all that great: very chewy and full of bones). I was put in the place of honour next to the headman and sat with the men. Complete language barrier, so the main form of communication was lots of nodding, smiling and “mmm!” on my part; staring and whispering on their part. After a bit of dancing I took my leave which upset the children – 3 grabbed my arms and started crying.

Another rollercoaster journey later and I landed in Moni; a tiny village surrounded by breathtaking scenery. In the afternoon I went for a walk to check out the area; not a clever plan: 2 guys found me on my own and followed me on their motorbike shouting “Sex!” at me. Very, very frightening, so when one of them grabbed my boob I instinctively hit him and tried to push him off the bike, admittedly a stupid thing to do, but it was instinctive. They started to get very angry and suddenly another 2 appeared and followed me, staring at me. Thank god a bemo (minivan) came past, full of women and children and I jumped in immediately, zooming off back to the hotel.

The next morning was a 4am-er to watch the sun rise over Kelimutu. Very cloudy, so no sunrise, but we did see the 3 different coloured crater lakes: black, blue and green. From Moni, I caught the public bus (less puking, more livestock) to Maumere, a horrid port town with more boob-grabbers (but of a less threatening nature).

And so it was with mixed emotions when I got on the plane and said goodbye to Indonesia.

Hello Kuala Lumpur!

Kiddies in Wogo

Our last day in Lombok was another moocher; dawdling along the beach and reading. The flight to Bali was in the afternoon so we dosed Felie up on as much sleep as he could handle… which came back to bite us in the evening: the Wriggler didn’t like the long boring taxi ride to the hotel, so the wheels on the bus went round and round and round and round, Mary had several lambs and Nix and I were very curious about state of the little twinkly star. But we got there in the end and Felix was probably so horrified with our singing that he pretended to go to sleep immediately, if only to keep us from squawking at him again.

Going back to Bali was like going home: when I walked back in to the homestay there were shouts of “Alexandra! Alexandra!”. Nicky and I spent a couple of days wandering around Ubud, Nix had a foot massage with sticks (of course) and visited the Monkey Forest with Felix, while I caught up on admin and reading.

Nicky has a friend, Florence, who lives in Bali, so we popped in to visit her, her boyfriend and little daughter for lunch at their gorgeous house close to the beach and ended the day with a visit to the beach to watch the sun go down over the sea and a bite to eat. Back in Ubud that evening Nix and I shared a few beers to mourn the end of her holiday and our time together. Boo… She and Felie caught the plane back to London the next morning and I hopped on a motor bike (not pink, although the owner had stuffed some flowers behind the licence plate which I didn’t like to tamper with as they looked like they had been placed there for sacred, protective purposes. So still not a hard-core biker-chick).

An hour and a half north of Ubud are a cluster of volcano crater lakes where all the pariwisata lokal (local tourists) go on weekends and public holidays. Being Independence Day, the little town on Candi Kuning, where I stayed for 2 days, was chocka full of Balinese jetskiing on the lake (some in their full muslim dress), haggling over mielies for lunch and generally wandering in the roads, causing impressive traffic jams. It was in Candi Kuning that I had my 2 top Balinese experiences: sate kelenci (rabbit satay), babi guling (suckling pig) and deep fried leaves of some variety; and the Bali Botancial Gardens. Ok, so I know the latter sounds rather twee for a notable experience, but it was more a tidy, manicured forest than a botanical garden, and each time I visited I had the place to myself which made it feel quite  magical. Another sublime experience was rowing through the mist over one of the lakes to watch the sun rise over a Hindu-Buddist temple and as it was so insanely early, I had the whole lake and temple to myself, except for a few quiet fishermen.

But after 2 days up north, my time in Bali had come to and end, and it felt appropriate when, on my last day, I was actually able to have a stilted conversation with someone in very broken Indonesian Bahasa for about 3 minutes. With any luck I’ll be able to remember it for when I come back next month.

Morning temples

The week that Nicky and I spent in Senggigi was a proper holiday, which wasn’t exactly as we had planned: the idea was to spend a few days exploring Senggigi and the Gili islands, then pop over to Flores. But even though I exercised some pretty impressive teeth gnashing and growling at slow computers and defenceless travel agents, fate conspired against us, which actually turned out quite well.

We stayed in a gorgeous little bungalow and ate our evening meals communally with a strange assortment of people: the French couple who noisily launched into each other (‘s mouths) at the table; the virtuous German woman who told anyone with ears how many Indonesian children she had adopted and how she loved eating with her hands (she said this while holding a fork); and the woman who had been in a Vietnamese prison for 2 weeks.

We went off to Gili Trawangan twice. The Gili islands are completely free of motorised vehicles – you can walk around each of them in an hour – and so the atmosphere is really laid-back and relaxed: jangly horse-drawn carts and feet are the only way to get around. Trawangan has a reputation of being The Party Island, although it must be schizophrenic as the only evidence of hard-core revelry was the adverts for “Mushroom Shakes Garanteed To Send You 2 Moon (Delivry or Take Away)”. We braved the boat trip with Felie for one of the days, his first proper trip to the beach, and he loved it – a proper Cape Town boy! Nicky met her first mad Indonesian that day too (perhaps he was on his way to the moon?) who asked Nix about 10 times in quick succession what her name was and interrupted her a few times to ask if it was alright if he could go to sleep.

Getting used to the idea of a proper holiday, I treated myself to another massage one evening. The setting was lovely and I settled down in anticipation onto the semi-inflated lilo, but the pretty lady who I thought was going to ease my aching muscles vanished and from behind a tree popped a knarled old woman with creatively arranged teeth and calloused hands, who promptly poured old cooking oil all over me and tried her best to squash me into the sand, with a poke every now and again for authenticity’s sake. When I got back to the bungalow I smelt like a delicious panini or pizza, so it was a good job it was dinner time.

All in all it was a relaxing week, away from deadlines and dodgy transport (apart from the boat to Gili Air: 57 people plus sundries in a 20-seater boat). Flores and the Komodo dragons will have to wait till after I’ve broken both my legs snowboarding in Australia.

Felie's first day at the beach

The day after my “date” with Gun I woke early and jumped on a bike to go exploring before Nix and Felix arrived. First on the list was a waterfall. I got to the park entrance and was told by a horde of men that I needed a guide (obviously). When they told me how much they wanted I laughed and said I was happy to go on my own, to which one of them grabbed his crotch and said, “Ok, maybe you lucky and I see you in 5 minutes in the jungle.” So when someone else named a lower price I went with him but didn’t feel any better when we passed 2 heavy-lidded, panting Indonesians rearranging their clothes. I stayed at the waterfall for long enough to take 2 photos and then scurried back, with my guide trailing after me.

In the afternoon Gun took me to the airport to pick up Nix and Felix. It was SO lovely to see Nicky, and we both dissolved into tears (admitted me more than her). She looked completely shattered after 30-odd hours in the air with Felie, a 9 month old with tummy issues. Felie wasn’t too impressed with Indonesia initially, but once we got him back to Tetebatu, he fell asleep instantly.

The next day we had a quiet day at the homestay. The locals instantly fell in love with Felix and they ALL wanted to hold him. One of the guys in the homestay, Idi, was particularly good with Felix and they would vanish for hours on end, both of them gurgling and giggling when they reappeared. That afternoon we went to watch stick fighting on the east side of Lombok, which was absolutely fascinating, but we should have charged tickets to watch and touch Felie – Nix would have made a fortune!

Gun drove us to Senggigi on the west coast of Lombok the following day and I was quite pleased to leave Tetebatu and my future Indonesian husband (who had offered to come to London and be a taxi driver so we could be together).

This is what becomes of forgetting my beloved fiance.

the stick fighting champion

My last day in Bali was slow and relaxing, although the morning started a little more eventfully than the rest of the day: I wandered down to the Monkey Forest Sanctuary early in the morning and sat down to watch the morning sunlight peek through the trees and the monkeys catching each other’s tails. All quite soothing… until I tried to get up and realised I had 4 monkeys attached to me. One actually climbed onto the top of my head. I asked them nervously to “please get off”, but it was only when a “monkey minder” came to the rescue that I became monkey-free. I was a little itchy for the rest of the day.

Early the following morning I said goodbye to Ketut, one of the staff at the homestay, and started the journey to Tetebatu in Lombok (bus, bus, boat, bus, bemo, ojek). The boat bit took up most of the day which was unfortunate  and I was a little green when I wobbled ashore. Of all the “orang asing” that were going to Lombok from Bali, I was the only one going to Tetebatu, a tiny village on the slopes of Gunung Rinjani. I was shooed into a bemo (minivan), next to an old lady, who was the town comedian / drunk (possibly both). She took me under her wing, even though she didn’t speak a word of English, and took it upon herself to teach me Indonesian. The two of us had the whole bemo entertained for the hour-long journey, and my teacher cried with laughter every time she taught me a new word. When it was time to go, all 21 passengers (in a 12-seater) hung out of the windows shouting goodbye (well they were shouting something…). I found a gorgeous place to stay just outside of Tetebatu, with lovely staff who play the guitar at dinner time. Very calm and peaceful. One of the staff, Gun, has the same birthday as me, which is rather clever of him as 14th December is the best day in the year for a birthday.

The next day Gun offered to take me into Mataram so I could book a flight for Nicky and Felix (very, VERY excited that they were coming!). The journey was a little tiring with Gun getting carried away with our future life together: “When we have children they will only have to remember one birthday”; “When we get married I will take you to Bali every year on honeymoon” etc etc. While these were all very good reasons for a relationship, I was not convinced and was quite pleased to get back to Tetebatu. In the afternoon I went for a little stroll around the village, though the tobacco fields and rice paddies, and have now inched closer to using up my lifetime’s quota of the words “Hello” and “South Africa”.

I had agreed earlier in the day (before I knew I was going marry Gun), to go out for dinner in a nearby village for goat satay. However it turned into something resembling a date as he took me to watch the sun go down before the satay (on the pretence of looking at some deer) and after dinner he took me to some kind of shebeen in a tomato farmer’s house, although the proprietors quickly went to sleep when we arrived. On the way home on the motorbike, after some dodgy home-made rice wine, and Gun describing how dogs, cats, chickens, goats and elephants “have sek”, he kept telling me to hug him because he was cold.

This is what comes of forgetting my beloved fiance.

Offerings in the street in Ubud

Its been over a month since my last motorbike accident, the memory of which had faded sufficiently for me to brave 2 wheels again. (But why do I always get a pink motorbike?! Why don’t I get “Dangerous Red & Black” or “Thunderbolt Silver”?)

I had the pink-toilet-paper-coloured bike for 3 days. Please find below my observations on driving in Bali:

1. Hooting: A versatile form of communication that can mean “Hello”; “I’m going to overtake/undertake”; “Hang on, I want to say hello”; “Look, we have the same pink bike”; “Don’t you love the sound of my hooter?”
2. Police: What friendly chaps, waving and blowing their whistles. I hope they didn’t mind that I waved back and drove on.
3. Traffic circles: Why should everyone go the same way round? How boring! Complete chaos is much more fun.
4. Directions: If you happen to ask directions from someone who has no immediate physical contact with any sort of motorised vehicle, go in the opposite direction.
5. Signposts: Who needs signposts? If absolutely necessary, make sure they are completely hidden by foliage.
6. Town names: The more towns with the same name in one district the better.
7. Town names: An even better idea is to give the same town 2 different names.

All in all I had great fun. For the first 2 days I whizzed around the countryside, visiting temples, rice paddies, and chatting to people on the side of the road (I must have answered “I’m from South Africa” literally about 65 times; everyone wants to know, and I did stop to ask directions A LOT). Lunch times were fun: The first day I had 2 teenage girls laugh and point at my toes (what’s wrong with them?!)… and then weirdly tell me I was sexy, which I put down to a poor translation. The following day I stopped in a village and caused quite a stir: people came from about 5 houses away just to watch me eat. Quite unnerving, especially since I wasn’t entirely sure what was on my plate.

The back roads in Bali are so quaint and smell gorgeous from the frangipani trees. My highlight in the first 2 days was definitely the rice paddies at Tirta Gangga – 4 hours away from Ubud (well 4 hours there, only 2 hours back), and so peaceful. I plonked myself under an old frangipani tree, next to a shrine and sat watching the rice farmers walk by for a few hours.

The 3^rd day was a little different. I decided to brave Kuta and take a surfing lesson. I had high expectations of being exceedingly brilliant, and I’m sure I would have been if there weren’t so many other people trying to learn who were not as clearly talented as I in the way. Well. After 2.5 hours I came to the conclusion that surfing is for losers – what’s the point of standing up on a board in the sea anyway? After the lesson I scuttled back to my Grandma-mobile and survived rush-hour traffic through Kuta and Denpasar, which restored my pride somewhat.

One evening I went to see a Kecak Fire Dance. Same strange story as the dance I saw in Jogja, but far more beautiful: the dancers’ movements were so precise and elegant, and as a bonus afterwards there was a man dressed up as a horse frolicking around on burning coconut shells. Marvellous!

Rice fields at Tirta Gangga

My first morning in Bali started off very well: a reunion with my beloved bank card. Hooray! (thank you Emma). Even better and more surprising was that the homestay in Ubud had kept my reservation, so after an hour on the back of a motorbike (a journey made more enjoyable by keeping my eyes firmly shut), I plonked my bags down and had a wander around Ubud, a little village known for its arts and culture that tenaciously clings onto its identity. The people here are so gentle and warm; shopkeepers put out little offerings to the gods outside their shops and everyone wants to say hello and ask where you are from, which is no different to Java, but somehow much less invasive.

Having scouted out the territory, I went back for a shower and was invited to a wedding (nephew of homestay’s owner)! As I put on my sarong, I cynically wondered how many other guests had been invited, but when I arrived I saw that I was clearly the only white person there. They were all so accepting of me and chastised me for not taking enough photos or eating enough food, laughing that I was eating with my right hand like them (well there was no cutlery, so I had little choice).

That evening I sampled my first Balinese massage, and after, covered in oil, I slithered back to the homestay, where I collapsed after a (cold – eeek!) shower.

The following day I joined a cycle tour of Bali. Hmmm, initially not so much cycling, more like driving in a van from one shop to another, which is rather taxing, but in a less physical way than I had expected. Eventually we were shown our bikes at the top of a big hill to free-wheel down for 3 hours. On the way we passed a funeral ceremony, a great big event: the person who had died was of the 2nd highest karst and was being cremated inside a big cardboard bull. The whole village had turned out (including the fire brigade), and no one seemed very sad – I chatted to the deceased’s niece; she was again so welcoming and pleased that we had happened to cycle past.

At the end of the day I took a little stroll off the beaten track and found myself in the middle of another funeral ceremony. This one was for someone of a lower karst, so the person was buried, to wait for a mass cremation in a few months or years.  The thing that really strikes me about the Balinese is how they hang onto their traditions and even though the western world seems to be doing its best to wear them down, they are really digging their heels in.

Which, considering I had pizza for dinner, is probably an ironic observation.

The bride next door

Saturday was a lazy day of eating too much and reading at a little Belgium restaurant (yes, I know I’m in Indonesia, but I am also on holiday and it is possible to eat too many noodles & rice!); catching up on admin; and getting languidly lost in the Kraton. In the evening I wandered to a theatre to watch a Ramayana performance – the story of the capture of the beautiful Sita by the evil Ravana, and her subsequent rescue by the heroic Rama (only to throw Sita into a fire as he doubted her chastity, of course). The story has all the normal ingredients for a true romance: large fake teeth, bulging eyes, bouncing golden deer, self-castration, human sacrifices…

The next morning I started a journey that was to be the most madeningly boring 2 days of my trip so far. I had decided to get a bus to Bali, so I could see the sun rise from Bromo, a volcano at the eastern end of Java. The first 12 hours in the bus passed very uneventfully (apart from my giving a waitress a stern - but fruitless - lecture on the ethics of charging white people double). After a very short sleep I lugged myself up another mountain to watch the sun rise. Needless to say it was beautiful, but also terribly smelly: the volcano is still active and although you don’t see any lava, you definitely see (and SMELL) the sulphur.

From Bromo, I got on another bus to Bali, and with not even any lectures to dole out, the journey was less eventful than the day before. Arrived in Denpasar, Bali late-late-late and flopped to sleep immediately.

sunrise from smelly Gunung Bromo

Very early start: I had arranged to be picked up at 4am by a man called Bambang to watch the sunrise from a hill above Borobudur, a 1,200 year old Buddist temple 50kms from Jogja. Bambang looked a little worse for wear: he admitted to too much arak (rice wine) the night before and 2 hours sleep, but I bravely hopped on the back of his motorbike and we were off.

After only a few stops on the way (Bambang had a “rock & roll stomach” due to the previous night’s festivities), we arrived at a gathering of huts and traipsed up a little-used path to watch the sun rise. Which I’m sure it did at some point, just behind a lot of cloud.  When I had convinced Bambang that the sun was not going to make an appearance, we went off to Borobudur: absolutely incredible, a surprisingly magic and peaceful place (if one ignored the swarms of schoolchildren wanting to practice their English).

From Borobudur the plan was to go to Prambanan, a Hindu temple a little closer to Jogja. Bambang offered to take me via the back roads, rather than the highway to get there, partly as the scenery was more beautiful (rice paddies and sala palms) and partly because he was concerned for my breathing in bus exhaust fumes (although his rock & roll stomach had already done enough damage to my lungs when I was sitting behind him on his bike). But the true reason was soon revealed and he took me to his brother’s house who he had not seen for 5 years. (Bambang’s had a rough ride over the past few years and hasn’t been in touch with his family). It was really lovely to see this reunion: his brother and sister-in-law were so delighted to see him they didn’t stop smiling once and proudly showed him photos of his niece’s wedding as well as the sala palm orchard that they were cultivating.

A lot of cake later, we whizzed off to Prambanan, also amazing, but admittedly a little bit of an anticlimax after Borobudur (I’m a bit of a sucker for bling when it comes to temples).

Bambang then wanted to take me to a beach to watch the sunset which I wasn’t so keen on as it was now wet and cold, and I was having to drop hints about my “wonderful boyfriend in London who was coming over to visit me in Bali next week” (actually I got a little carried away with all the charms of my fiance – we are to be married next year - and my next boyfriend will have a tough time living up to him). Anyway, I allowed myself to be driven to the beach, which was rather less romantic than I suspect Bambang had hoped for, as the sun was as elusive going down as it was coming up that morning.

We eventually went back to the area where I was staying and shared a few beers, but I soon had to plead near death by tiredness when a “healing foot massage” was offered (I was reminded of a dialogue in Pulp Ficton). I made my way to my hotel, using a short-cut through a hotel I had stayed in the night before, where La Bamba was being murdered by a little old Indonesian lady just outside the room where I had stayed – lucky escape on all accounts!

the top of borobudur

After spending a pretty uneventful day lurking around KK and KL airports I landed rather bumpily in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. I had a slightly panicked arrival (mislaid passport by visa office; uncertainty re obtaining said visa; and being shooed to another hotel from the one I had booked), but all in all, Jogja has a good feeling about it: rather more civilized than Bornean Malaysia, but confidently hanging onto its cultural past.

Indonesians are however like friendly cats to allergy sufferers: drawn mysteriously to people who quite like being on their own. The first person to attach himself to me sat down at my table at supper and insisted on following me everywhere for that evening, and my remaining days in Jogja. While he was very generous, he was also a bit odd: he kept washing his hands, arranging his hair and looked completely bewildered when I told him that I hadn’t had a shower since that morning (information I reluctantly shared). Anyhow, with my new shadow in tow I spent my first evening at a Wayang Kulit (traditional puppet) show: lots of crashing, clanging “music” and leather puppets with hunchbacks, pointy noses and goggly eyes.

The next morning I guiltily avoided 11 calls from my new best friend and had a wander around the town to visit the kraton (old town where the sultan still lives), the water castle (unremarkable crumbly walls) and the bird market: a few alleys crowded with wooden cages, flapping bird of all shapes and colours, as well as all the dust which comes from so many birds. Eeeugh. Needless to say I encountered a few more best friends who couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to practice English with them, and who looked terribly hurt when I gently told them that I liked very much being on my own.

From the north of the town, where I had wandered to in the course of the morning, I hopped in a becak - a rickshaw that puts the safety of the cyclist first and uses the passenger as a sort of air bag should there be an accident. After again being shooed away from my second hotel (misunderstanding due to my lack of Inonesian… or perhaps I should have had that shower after all…?), I found another hotel with a lovely view of the rooftops, offering a unique shower experience of a bucket and cold water which I thought was a fair trade for peace and quiet – I think I am the only person there.

I spent the evening after my shower visiting a few travel agents to organise a few trips, teaching one of them important topographical information vital to their career, and eating a very unjavanese dinner of chocolate torte. Mmmm!

Pointy nose and wirey hair... and that's one of the goodies in the shadow puppet play