The Comfort Option

So, here’s what I’ve learned traveling with my parents: 

When you travel in your 20s, you ask yourself, “How cheaply can I do this?”  With more time than money, you want to cram in as many adventures as possible and have to cut corners somewhere.  To pinch a few pennies, you put up with things you normally wouldn’t.  You eat unidentified street meat and you ignore the clump of someone else’s hair stuck to the wall in the communal shower at the $5 hostel and you willingly take the most uncomfortable bus available.  You learn creative budgeting, such as eating only bread and bananas for three days because you really want those surfing lessons.  Everything is great because let’s face it, you can’t really afford to be picky.

Well things change when you travel in your 50s.  The question becomes, “How comfortably can I do this?”  My parents don’t worry as much about a budget as they do about how soft the beds are and whether or not the complimentary soap is too heavily scented.  Every time we get to a new place Mom needs some time “to adjust,” and they both might comment that the whole town is too noisy.  Mom doesn’t make a move without first consulting Lonely Planet, and pre-books us into “the best hotel in town,” and then comforts herself by endlessly repeating the fact to me and my dad.  However, down here even the best hotel in town can make a misstep that will have Mom saying things like, “Danny, they don’t even have a bathmat here!”  (But seriously, it is nice staying at places with pools and wi-fi and free breakfast.)

Anytime we have a choice, my parents will always choose the “comfort option.”  As you can imagine, this usually has me rolling my eyes - I mean, why backpack around South America if you’re planning on being comfortable?  Isn’t being uncomfortable part of the experience?  Shouldn’t we take the overnight bus just to see what happens?  Who cares what water the vegetables were washed in!  Yes let’s hitchhike, it’s cheap!  Those are the kinds of adventures you can have when you’re backpacking in your 20s, with your friends.  Well, despite an increase in budget, it’s definitely not as fun or easy traveling with your parents as it is with your 20-something friends, especially when one is menopausal and the other one’s going deaf.  

Dad usually falls asleep around 9pm and likes to set the alarm 40 minutes earlier than the agreed-upon time so we’re all up at 7am for our bus at noon.  Plus he can’t always hear what anyone’s saying so Mom and I have to do that yelling-at-old-people thing, which you don’t usually have to do when you’re with your friends.  Mom is, you know, just a bit high maintenance and has lots of demands and questions and expectations which I have to voice for her because she can’t communicate in Spanish, not counting that diarrhea overshare I mentioned last time.  Just some of the joys of traveling as an adult with your even more adult parents.  But I’m not complaining, they’re my biggest fans and they think I’m completely fluent in Spanish!

Well...it's Bolivia!

Last time I was in Bolivia, my friend, Andreas, and I found ourselves needing an explanation for all the ridiculous things that happened here that just didn’t make sense.  That applied to almost everything, and it turns out there was just no other explanation besides, “Well...it’s Bolivia!”  Three years later, the same holds true.  Crossing overland into Bolivia is as easy as driving up to a wooden shack in the middle of the desert where everyone parks willy-nilly and chats with each other while you take pictures of the volcanoes and put on some warmer clothes and maybe dig a snack out of the back of your 4x4, after which you go into the shack where your driver jokes with the guards who briefly glance at your passport and give you a stamp.  No searching, no bag checks, no sniffer dogs, not even a proper line up.

Yes, this is the border.

Obligatory Bolivian flat tire

The first thing we did in Bolivia was spend 3 days driving around weird, alien landscapes in a 4x4 driven by Wilson, who’s musical taste ranged from Bette Davis Eyes and Roxette to Spanish covers of Whitney and Celine.  A-ma-zing.  We were doing the Salt Flats tour which takes you through the highest and driest desert on the planet, the Atacama, where we drove past fields of volcanic rock, red lakes, bubbling mud geysers and families of flamingos eating algae from borax infested waters.  We were driving through a desert surrounded by mountains, and climbing to 5000 metres above sea level in an afternoon had us all suffering from altitude sickness that no amount of coca tea or tears could cure.  We all had raging migraines, stiff necks, restless legs, we couldn’t sleep and were popping Ibuprofen and Gravol like nobody’s business.  Although the rock hotel we stay at the first night was nestled right on the edge of the desert at the foot of a mountain and as we drove up in the rain I felt a little like an intrepid scientist heading to a remote research station on another planet.  

4 days of this

Enjoying the view from some natural hot springs

The highlight is seeing the Salar de Uyuni, the biggest salt flat in the world, 12,000km2 of bright, white salt that meets bright, white sky.  It burns your eyes.  Because there is no horizon, this is the place where you take those crazy pictures of you stomping on your friends or standing on top of a bottle of water.  Really, the pictures are the most fun part of a visit to the salar, and in this respect, having my parents as travel buddies was unfortunate for me because between Dad’s bad eyesight and Mom’s general inability to take a picture in focus, I only got one decent shot.  Plus, our afternoon spent on the glaring white salt left me and Mom with puffed-up, sunburnt lips that rivaled Angelina Jolie’s.  Not to mention that my face is lobster red and peeling from ear to ear.

Dad for lunch!

What's new?

Lunch with Wilson on the salar

After the salt flats, I convinced my parents they needed to try public transportation in Bolivia, and so with great trepidation on their behalf we boarded the bus to Potosi.  I had been waiting for the moment my parents’ got to experience a crazy Bolivian bus ride - I hoped they would fear for their lives, and I wasn’t disappointed!  When rounding switchbacks on the unpaved, muddy road on the edge of a cliff it did sort of seem like the front of the bus was hovering in mid-air, and since Mom was in the front seat, she was, naturally, in tears and ready to fly back to Canada.

Just hangin' out in the market in Sucre

The next few days in Potosi, and then Sucre, the capital, were fairly uneventful.  Unless you count getting “Bolivia Belly” and having your mom tell the hotel staff and other guests that you’ve had diarrhea for the past two days as eventful.  Cause that’s what happened.  Things got more exciting in La Paz, where everyone was gearing up for Carnaval.  On a regular day, every street in La Paz is an unofficial market selling everything from raw meat to padlocks to frozen pizzas to teddy bears to erectile dysfunction herbs.  For Carnaval things get ramped up a notch and people flood the streets selling confetti, wigs, firecrackers, water balloons, homemade liquor and candy.  Driving into the city during Carnaval rivaled Hanoi or Bangkok for craziness.  Mom was traumatized enough to threaten to refuse to leave the hotel room.  Zoinks!

Crazy La Paz

Just one of the many interesting things for sale in La Paz

Anyway, we’ve since parted ways, Mom & Dad went off to hunt anacondas and brave shaman cleansing in the jungle in Peru while I’m on my way to a farm in Bolivia to get my hands dirty with some physical, volunteer labour!  Wish me luck.

My adventures begin!

After finally and officially deciding that neither teaching nor London are for me, the flood of relief I felt firmly assured me that leaving London was the best & right decision.  Also, closing my life in London was 100 times easier than starting my life there, which is another indication I am moving in the right direction.  Everything about my crash landing there was difficult and annoying - mostly annoying.  From sleeping on a friend’s floor for a month cause the flats in London are overpriced and shit, to supply teaching at equally shit inner-city schools (where on my second day a 5 year old shouted at me, “Suck my nuts!” while gyrating his hips in my direction), to crazy amounts of paperwork for everything, to not being eligible for a phone cause I don’t have British credit (hello?! I’m a foreigner!), to their also shitty recycling programs, to the annoying London accents of 30 5-year olds calling out daily, “Miss, Miss, where you from Miss?”  If life is a matter of perspective, then my perspective on things - negative - told me that perhaps I never really wanted to be in London, and had gone there for all the wrong reasons in the first place.  So... to London I say, “Cheerio, ol’ chap - my life awaits!”

On my way back to Canada to “figure things out” (apparently practice does not make perfect in this case cause I’ve been trying to figure things out for awhile now!), I was intercepted by my parents’ and their crisis of the “we’re too old to be backpacking through South America” variety.  Since they don’t speak any Spanish, and had endured a mugging and an earthquake all in the same day, their confidence and nerves were shot.  They asked me to come down here to help them out, which means a free trip to South America in exchange for being their translator/booking agent/travel guide.  Not a bad deal for the opportunity to return to possibly my second favorite place on earth (after Japan, of course) until I realized that backpacking with your middle-aged parents is not quite the same as backpacking with your 20-something friends.  

Yay, there they are!

I flew to Mendoza, wine capital of South America, to meet mis padres and commence the wine drinking.  I was dying to get on a bike and ride around the countryside visiting beautiful bodegas, but it turned out to be a little less like Napa Valley, and a little more like dirt biking around some farms with grapes.  And cows.  Plus, we got lost on the dirt roads, only made it to one vineyard and lunch, so didn’t even get complimentary drunk!  Maybe being surrounded by the Andes was supposed to make up for that.  We also visited a friend of mine from high school, Sam, who owns some land south of Mendoza in San Rafael.  He took us to Valle Grande, where Mom and I did “Cool River,” a sort of inner-tube white-water rafting experience which naturally had Mom panicking as we got pummeled in the face by water and her contacts fell out.

Doing what we do best!

Sam and his friends also invited us to an asado, or barbecue, which was amazing, even for a non-meat lover like myself.  After all, the evening consisted of all of my favorite things: friends, conversation, eating and drinking.  Only being in Argentina for a week, I didn’t get too much of a chance to mingle with the locals, but from what I can tell, Argentinians like the following: ice cream, fancy shoes, making out in public, barbecues and babies.  There was a lot of all of the above. 

There's the meat, including sweetbreads, yum.

The asado crew!

Our next stop: Santiago, Chile which is 183 kms, or a 5 hr bus ride, from Mendoza, not including the hour and half border crossing.  I pretty much ate my way through Santiago.  The first day I took a bike tour of the city, which included a stop at the market where I tried mote con huesillos (dried peach nectar with cooked wheat) and sopaipillas (fried pumpkin flatbread/tortilla things) with salsa.  Mom ordered the same dish everywhere we went, pastel de choclo, a blended corn dish baked with meat, chicken, olives, raisins and maybe even an egg!  My favorite was porotos, beans with pureed pumpkin, corn and basil, which you sometimes got with a big ol’ sausage  plopped on top, and at the fish market I ate chupe de mariscos, seafood stew.  Now Mom and I are both chomping at the bit to host some Chilean-themed dinner parties!

Amazing street art in Santiago

After Santiago, we set off for some R&R in the beach town of La Serena, which is apparently the place to be if you’re Chilean and on summer vacation.  Since we were in Chile, and it was summer vacation, we were surrounded by thousands of babies and ice cream cones and teenagers making out (Chileans are much like Argentinians in this respect).  Luckily, we operated on an “early bird schedule” and due to a combination of me traveling with people who fall asleep while reading at 9pm (Dad) and us being North American, we generally did everything about three hours earlier than anyone else in town, so avoided any kind of high-season rush.  By the time restaurants even opened at 8pm, we were usually waiting outside, starved, watching everyone stroll around with coffees and ice creams to tide them over until 11pm when it was actually time to eat.

The kids in La Serena are just getting started

Because we are on our way north, we made a little pit-stop in San Pedro de Atacama before heading into Bolivia.  Aaaah, now San Pedro is my kind of place!  Plenty of hippies sporting the legendary dreadlock mullet and busking on the street with homemade instruments for their dinner and probably lodging.  Luckily I made friends with a girl who knew some of these characters and I got to spend an evening swilling 40oz beers while watching an impromptu marionette show and attempting to follow along a conversation in Spanish with 8 South Americans.  It sounds like I’m joking, but I actually love these bracelet-seller types, with their abundance of free-spirit, if not jobs.

Anyway, next stop Bolivia!  I’ve tried to adequately prepare my parents for the craziness of it but I have to ask myself if anyone can actually be prepared for Bolivia?

♥ Thailand ♥

I was happy to be leaving Indonesia before the plane even took off, so perhaps nothing could have gone wrong in the land of smiles, but a month on the beaches in Thailand made my already awesome life even better! I flew into Phuket, but avoided Patong beach with its excessive drunks, aggressive ladyboys and live sex shows (although let's be honest, if I hadn't been alone I would have loved a live sex show!) and went instead to Nai Horn beach and fully luxuriated in the sparkling blue water, white sandy beach, lack of anyone bugging me, and Chang beer which is strong and cheap.  I did have a few moments at the beginning where I thought "I'm too old for this backpacking thing," like when I stayed in a co-ed dorm room in a hostel where I was the only girl and all the boys came in drunk at 4am and then slept the whole day (didn't they realize there was a wicked beach to go to!?) and when I walked into the common room to a bunch of 20 year olds sprawled out watching The Beach.

I started my island hopping adventures in Ko Phi Phi, a popular, beautiful, small party island.  Because I wanted the cheapest room possible (Thailand is way more expensive than Indonesia...I had to slightly adjust my daily budget, especially because I wasn't going to cut out the Changs), I ended up staying at the far end of the island, away from the town at the top of a giant hill with about 400 steps that I had to trek up, and it still cost me $12 a night!  I had my own little bamboo bungalow on a cliff overlooking the ocean so I really can't complain.  Luckily for me, in Thailand flip flops and a bikini is an entirely appropriate outfit for almost any place or situation which made the transition between bungalow, beach, restaurant, and bar much easier on me cause I never really had to go home to change.  Ko Phi Phi was a bit of a shock to me after traditional, quiet, no-drinking, no exposed-flesh Java.  Everyone is wild for buckets (Thai whiskey, Red Bull & coke) and all these rowdy Brits and Aussies and Swedes will jump into a Muay Thai ring and fight each other if you offer them a free one!  Classy.  Obviously I got a front row seat!  And a bucket!  The beaches in Ko Phi Phi were amazing, as were the men, apparently you have to have a tan and a six pack to go there.  I did some great dives, including my first wreck and getting up close and personal with a leopard shark that let us swim around with him.

My next stop was Ko Lanta, a relaxed island that I fell in love with.  My days there consisted of waking up in my swanky beach-side bamboo bungalow, having fresh fruit shakes and papaya salads for breakfast, laying on the powdery white sand beach, swimming in the ocean, reading my book and working on my tan.  The crowd in Ko Lanta was definitely more relaxed than in Ko Phi Phi, and how could they not be when the beaches are lined with super chill, hammock-filled reggae bars where the bartender's job description includes playing guitar, twirling fire and rolling joints (dreadlocks option, but encouraged).  I spent a lot of time swinging in hammocks along the beach, eating fresh seafood, watching the sun set and making new friends.  My intentions of taking a Thai cooking class, learning to ride a scooter and going diving with manta rays never really materialized because I just couldn't peel myself off the beach in Ko Lanta.  I did, however, manage to go ocean kayaking alongside giant limestone cliffs and feed bananas to macaques jumping into my boat.

The only thing really on my Thailand agenda was rock climbing in Ton Sai, which was the most amazing place ever.  I stayed in a mosquito infested, sweltering jungle bungalow where I was kept awake every night in fear of a rat, snake or monkey climbing into my hut between the walls and the roof which didn't actually touch, but it was cheap (obviously!).  Ton Sai is in Krabi province, home to the giant limestone cliffs and caves and hills and it is swarming with pro rock climbers from around the world.  If I thought the regular dudes in Ko Phi Phi had hot bodies, OMG, I obviously hadn't gotten to Ton Sai yet!  It was seriously a considerable perk and major reason I stayed there for 9 days.  I took a 3 day rock climbing course to learn the basics, I had an amazing teacher and even though I almost cried once because it was crazy to be scaling a sheer vertical wall by stuffing my toes and fingers into tiny cracks and crevices, I felt like a total ROCK STAR every time I hit the ring at the top of the route (and I always made it to the top!). 

I reluctantly left Ton Sai when I found a partner in crime to come with me to the Half Moon party in Ko Phangan.  I was in Thailand and a famous international party beckoned, so I could hardly resist, right?  To be honest, I didn't see much of Ko Phangan besides my bungalow, the beach, and the party.  I rolled into town and had my first case of Bali Belly (or whatever they call it in Thailand) after I had drank tap water at lunch thinking I was immune because I hadn't been sick yet.  Luckily I recovered for the party, made some crazy new friends at the resort, partied my pants off (not literally, but I may have lost my shirt), and watched the sun come up over beautiful Ko Phangan while the ocean lapped at my feet.  It was pretty awesome.  I made a quick stopover in Ko Tao to get in one last dive and beach day before heading back to Indonesia to meet friends.  It was also awesome, wish I could have stayed longer.

Indonesia the second time around (sort of) is totally different, I'm experiencing a whole new side of the country and have been go go going, haven't had time to sit down and process or think about all the adventures I've had and what I've learned.  At this point I'm also out of energy (not to mention money!) to write eloquently or humorously but some of the more immediately obvious things I learned in Thailand are: to trust my instincts, to make friends wherever I go, how to rock climb (fuck yeah!), enjoying a cold shower and appreciating toilets that have toilet paper and/or an actual toilet and/or a seat and/or running water and/or soap, that my hair looks awesome after not washing it for a week and swimming in the ocean every day, that our world is truly small and inspiring.  Maybe the biggest lesson has been that I think I finally understand that where I am is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Goodbye Indonesia

Yes, I've thrown in the towel on Indonesia, and now that I've left the country I finally appreciate it (a bit).  Traveling in Java was difficult, and annoying and frustrating and honestly, the payoffs weren't that great.  You know when you've endured a shitty, overnight, 12+ hour developing country bus ride but then you get to see an amazing landscape or take a death-defying bike ride, so it's all worth it?  Yeah, well the amazing part just never really happened in Indonesia.  Maybe it was because I was there in the off/rainy season, but every volcano I tried to see or wanted to climb was closed or clouded over, every temple I visited was fogged in, and I just didn't click with Indonesians.  I attracted a lot of (unwanted) attention.  In Malang, my tour guide, Helmy, thought it was great to have a private, full-day English lesson with a real teacher, and one with "sexy" tattoos!  I didn't think it was so great, as I was the one paying for the English lesson, and you know how much energy it takes to make small talk all day in ESL!  Another time, I had a lovely waiter at one restaurant that started the conversation as all Indonesians do, with "Where do you come from?  Where are you staying?"  Since this is normal in Indonesia, I told him which hotel I was at and he promptly asked if he could come to my room later!  Ah, just because I'm wearing a tank top and I'm white doesn't mean I'm a hooker, thank you very much.  Perhaps I really just needed a friend to laugh with about these misadventures.

While I did avoid the local bus for further legs of my trip, kicking it up a notch with my door-to-door shuttle service to Solo was not without it's particular Indonesian charms.  I had yet to be introduced to the phenomenon of back alleys coming alive during the day with the hustle & bustle of a local neighborhood.  Arriving in Solo at 4am, the driver pulled up to an ominously dark back alley, the entrance to which was gated and deadbolted and told me this was the address of my guesthouse.  Without a cell phone or any skills in Indonesian, I frantically looked up the word "afraid" in my phrasebook, and kept repeating in English, "You can't leave me here!" while the driver promptly unloaded my bags and tried to take off.  Luckily the girl with us understood and let me use her phone to call the guesthouse and someone came to meet me.  I must admit, the idea of spending the night outside in an Indonesian alley had me a little frazzled, but the next morning I realized all was right in the world, though, as life in the alley went on as usual, bikes zipping through, chickens running around, teenage boys fixing up their motorbikes, ladies selling food.   Solo turned out to be a much nicer city than Malang, the people were friendly and apparently more accustomed to seeing a foreigner or two, and there was more to see and do.  But still, nothing had really clicked.

Things got better in Yogyakarta, as I knew they would.  I made friends, I tried curious Indonesian food from restaurants set up on the backs of a motorbikes, and I finally saw some sites worth writing home about.  The kraton (palace) in Yogya is spectacular, and it is home to a walled-in village of all the families that historically worked for the sultan.  I spend an entire day wandering through the alleys, running into living room karaoke sessions, children bike racing, and rows and rows of chirping birds.  The Taman Sari is the private swimming pools of the sultan and his harem of mistresses and was beautiful.  I ran into a guy on the street who offered to take me to Mt Merapi for $5 - the tour companies were selling the same trip for $15, so of course I said yes.  Mt Merapi is the volcano that has recently erupted and the surrounding countryside is a desolate, barren ground of volcanic ash and dead trees.  I should have known for a full-day $5 tour something was too good to be true, and yes, I spent the last 3 hours of my afternoon sitting at a motorbike repairshop in the middle of nowhere because our 1970s motorbike had broken down.  I also visited Borobudur, the largest Buddhist monument in the world, and a UNESCO World Heritage site, but was more impressed with Prambanan, a Hindu temple also just outside the city.

I left Yogya with Carlos, a Colombian guy I'd made friends with, heading towards Jakarta with a stop at the Dieng Plateau, an area with Hindu temples, surrounded by volcanos and bubbling sulphur lakes.  Supposedly a beautiful place to visit.  Well, it was hell getting there on our own steam, one of the buses we rode in actually had a roof partially duct taped together and I watched the road whiz by underneath us through the rusted out holes in the floor.  Carlos said, and I quote "I've been more comfortable in toilets in India."  Furthermore, we ran into several different people who didn't want us to stay at their hotel, ride on their bus, eat in their restaurant... was it because we were bule, non-Muslim, not married?  We never figured it out, but it certainly wasn't pleasant to be blatantly discriminated against.  To top it all off, the Dieng Plateau was a big bust, the temples were small and crumbling, the volcanos clouded over, the bubbling sulfur lake surrounded by swarms of tourists.  Carlos and I had both had enough of Indonesia, but there was one last stop: Jakarta!

As the train rolled into Jakarta, we passed an extensive shanty town built up alongside the tracks.  Shacks built out of wood, metal, cardboard, tarps; fires burning between the tracks, chickens pecking around garbage piles, people cooking on open fires, naked babies running around, all against the backdrop of a bustling capital city.  Jakarta was actually the first place in Indonesia where I thought, "Wow. This is amazing."  Obviously for reasons other than natural beauty and endearing charm.  The smog hangs so thick in the air you can't get a clean breath and it's virtually impossible to find green space or any kind of quiet.  My first hotel was clean, at least, but as soon as I settled in for a snooze I realized there was a sewage trough running directly outside my window which, while slightly unpleasant, was not actually the straw that broke the camel's back on Indonesia. No, what took the cake was the 4am wake up call from the mosque next door (no matter where I stayed, there was a mosque next door), after which the streets wake up and erupt with the sounds of people yelling, ringing bells, honking car horns, screeching brakes, kids screaming, etc.  After a completely sleepless Jakarta night I told myself, "Screw it, I'm outta here!" (although I may have been thinking something more expletive)

Since I didn't run into a lot of other travellers in Java, I spent a lot of my time being introspective, and while reflection is lovely, I have enough time in my regular life to be introspective, and this trip was supposed to be a welcome distraction.  I've had so many ups and downs on this trip, sometimes within the same hour like when you arrive at a crowded bus station and you don't speak the language and everyone is yelling at you to get in their taxi, and you've got a 30lb backpack on, and the sweat is dripping off your nose, and the map you have doesn't make sense and besides no one in this country even knows how to read a map, but then you find a nice (or at least clean) guesthouse and wander down the streets and see a little kid, butt naked and fully soaped up running away from his mom who is trying to give him a cold-water, plastic bucket, side-of-the-road bath, and you just have to smile at this crazy world we live in.  Travelling alone, it can be scary thinking that you're the only one who's got your back, but it's also empowering.  I've learned that the down moments pass, always, and that's a relief.  But I've learned to really appreciate and savor the good moments because they too, can be just as fleeting.

Anyway, my only revenge was to go somewhere fun, so now I'm on the beaches in Thailand, drinking banana shakes, lounging in hammocks in raggae bars, scuba diving with sharks, working on my tan, and having way more fun!

Java Java

So it took me until my last few days in Bali to finally appreciate the lounging around.  After three days of constant rain, the sun finally and gloriously started shining, and I was able to get a pretty rockin' tan while reading and drinking beer by the pool.  It was a great way to spend the last few days with ol' Mom & Pops.  We said a tearful goodbye (well, Mom was the one crying) as I made my way to Java and they to the land down under.  I hopped onto a bemo, a minivan kind of thing that took me to the ferry terminal on the western tip of Bali.  Twenty minutes on the road and this cute little old shoeless, toothless guy got on, shook my hand and plopped into the seat behind me.  A few seconds later, I felt his hand reach around and pat me on the stomach.  I smiled and nodded, as I like to be a good sport about these little cultural idiosyncrasies, and who knows what kind of greeting a pat on the stomach could mean?  But when he then tried to lift up my shirt, I realized as I pushed his hand away that he was just a pervy old drunk and that, apparently, transcends cultural boundaries!

I got off the bemo and wandered over to the ferry terminal, stopping every 10 metres to ask for directions in my non-existant Indonesian, and waiting to see the tourist buses that were surely going from Bali to Java, but none arrived.  Looked like I was on my lonesome, but two girls who'd chartered their own car and driver did show up on the ferry so I hitched a ride into town with them, saving myself one headache but acquiring another one when they dropped me off in the middle of a town that I had no map for.  As you can perhaps imagine, streets in Indonesia are hardly labeled in any kind of coherent or recognizable way, so I wandered into the nearest store and used my miming and sign language skills to ask where to go (good thing I've played so many Charades!).  Some guys at the store offered me a ride, and as I threw my bags into their car the thought briefly crossed my mind that something could go really awry here, but then I realized I just had to trust.  So I did and here I am. 

My reason for stopping on the easternmost edge of Java, which hardly sees any tourists, was to hike Kawah Ijen, a crater lake in Ijen volcano.  Ijen is very aesthetically impressive, spectacular and otherwordly, but even more impressive are the men who climb up to the rim and down into the crater to gather sulphur.  It's a back-breaking job, and while one miner might carry out a 60-80kg load, it only pays 600Rp per kilo (about 6 cents).  I made friends with a Frenchie at my hotel, and while I paid $40 to hire a jeep to drive up to Ijen, she had her own motorbike so followed us on her own.  On the hike up we met many miners coming down with their loads who would let us take their pictures for a cigarette or two.  Because the Frenchie and I are both adventurous women, we gladly took up one miner's offer to lead us down to the very bottom of the crater, to the very site where sulphur spews out from the bowels of the volcano, and as it hardens they are there with pick-axes chopping it off.  Their safety gear includes dish towels wrapped around their faces and rubber boots.  It was kind of the craziest place I've ever been.  Not to mention that we had to climb back out on our own and the sulphur fumes made us dizzy and perhaps disoriented and we lost the trail.  Kind of scary, but really quite exciting!  I kept telling myself that if the volcano erupted at least I wouldn't feel a thing.

My next stop was Malang, and I found myself an economy bus, which, while offered at a very affordable price, I learned for the following reasons never to make the mistake of taking again:

1.  An economy bus will roll nearly to a stop in every single village while the driver's assistant leans out the front door yelling out the destinations so people can run along beside the bus and hop on.  Since Java appears to be basically a continuous stream of villages, we mostly operated on a rolling along speed.

2.  There's one rule of the road in Indonesia: if your vehicle is bigger, you have the right-of-way.  Since we were in a large bus, that meant not only did we have the right-of-way, but also that the driver could pass any number of vehicles and any oncoming traffic would have to swerve into the ditch to avoid being hit.

3.  As a courtesy to oncoming traffic, you know to let them know we were barreling down the wrong side of the road towards them, the driver steadily held down not only the regular bus horn but also blew the air-brakes at regular three minute intervals.

4.  I am fairly conspicuous as a woman traveling alone, and add to that the fact that even with my new tan I am really white and was wearing a tank top. I might as well have had flashing sirens on my head.  But economy buses are not air conditioned, or even well-ventilated, so as the beads of sweat literally dripped off my nose and between my boobs I actually put a t-shirt on, just to avoid being stared at.

5.  While stopped in each and every village, a steady stream of peanut and rice vendors and three-piece bands would jump on, do their thing and then shove a plastic bag in your face expecting money, like it was a pleasant experience to have a guy playing makeshift bongo drums in your ear.

6.  Right when you might get comfortable, when the bus is on the highway, driving at a normal speed, and you have just pulled out your really good book to read, the driver's assistant will think it an opportune time to throw on the ol' Indonesian karaoke discs at top volume. 

7.  You can still smoke anywhere in Indonesia, and that includes on economy buses. 

I'm sure I haven't even exhausted the list of reasons, but those were certainly the top contenders.  Needless to say, I've splurged on a door-to-door shuttle service to my next destination, Solo.  And by splurge I mean I spent $10 on an 8 hour journey.  My hopes for Malang were to hike Mt. Bromo, another volcano, but it is currently causing radars to blip so it's not possible to climb.  I've spend a quiet two days in town, and hired a motorbike & driver to take me around to some of the sights.  As it turns out, I am the most interesting sight in Malang, perhaps in all of East Java!  Everywhere I go children say hello and then giggle hysterically and run away when I reply, women turn their heads 180 degrees just to get a better look, groups of men shout out from their vehicles "I love you!"  It's really quite uncomfortable.  It doesn't feel threatening in any way, but I am looking forward to getting to the Javanese tourist mecca of Yogyakarta so I won't feel like I escaped from the circus sideshow.

Bali adventures

Life is slow here in Bali and craving some adventure, I convinced my parents to go white water rafting.  We went on the Telagawaja river, the one with "big water" and a 4 metre waterfall drop at the end (more like the log jam at the PNE, but still fun).  Something must have gotten lost in translation, as I think the locals confused "big water" with "big rocks" because we basically spent the afternoon playing bumper cars with giant boulders and/or being grounded on them, and our guide's role mostly involved wrestling awkwardly with our boat.  The saving grace was the spectacular scenery; untouched jungles, pristine waterfalls, little kids running around and of course naked, bathing men (naturally, Mom mostly gawked rather than paddled).


Our education in Balinese culture continues and we took a Balinese cooking class in Ubud - the food is awesome here, I thought I'd lose some weight from all the sweating, but I doubt it, especially since they cook everything in a lot of oil - coconut oil!  We started the day with a visit to the market in Ubud, always a favourite activity of mine.  As far as markets in developing countries goes, this one was pretty typical: spices, crafts, vegetables, fly-covered meat hanging out in the open, mangy dogs sniffing around and eating stuff, discarded fruit peels and other garbage, people shouting, handling money, bagging goods, and of course yelling at you to buy their stuff, but this time with the added bonus of a half-dead eel writhing around on the floor.  That was new. 

There are some walks around Ubud mapped out in the Lonely Planet that sounded lovely and Mom was dying to do.  One promised crossing rice fields, jungle trekking, an artisan village and vistas of the Ayung River.  So, faces firmly glued to the LP map in our book, Mom & I headed out.  After half an hour of walking past nothing pretty, or interesting, we found ourselves wondering where the hell these damn rice paddies were.  Toot toot!  Oh, here comes our new best friend, Made!  He told us, "You're looking too closely at your Lonely Planet.  Follow me."  True, and how convenient that he showed up right at the precise spot we needed to cross a (mostly hidden) bamboo pole bridge and climb a hill through the jungle in order to find our coveted rice fields.  We emerged onto a prairie of rice, 123 plots, through which we had to navigate along the 6-inch terraced walls of each individual plot.  We zig-zagged through the plots, careful not to fall into the murky, muddy, eel and frog-filled fields.  Made led us past laundry hanging on trees (no lines required!), waving above the irrigation ditch, "the back way" to the village of Sayan (a bit of a fixer-upper if you ask me).  We followed him across a busy street and down the near vertical stairs of a privately-owned estate that overlooked the Ayung River valley, and it did feel like a little slice of paradise.  We then had to billy goat our way uphill through dense jungle, which finally gave way to a huge pile of garbage, naturally (nowhere to put your refuse? throw it in the jungle!), and a family compound.  Surprise, surprise, it was Made's house!  We knew it was coming, that he would expect money but it was worth it.  There's no way any foreigner, no matter how closely they were following their LP, could have ever navigated their way through that trail!

We've made our way to Lovina, a sleepy town on the north coast, where we're doing more of that lounging around.  Mom & Dad are afraid to ride motorbikes so we rented some bicycles and tried to visit a waterfall, but abandoned ship when we were accosted by a dozen local guys trying to convince (or intimidate) us that we needed a guide to get to the top, when we could clearly see the staircase.  I did however, when offered, take a swig of their back-alley local homebrew "coconut sake," which got me yelled at by Mom and tasted bad anyway.  Our bike ride continued uphill (would've been way easier on those motorbikes!) to a hot spring filled with locals, most of whom were Muslim and wearing all of their clothes!  (I was happy to flounced around in my bikini.)

Lovina is close-ish to Menjangan Island, one of Indonesia's best dive sites, so off we went.  Mom freaked out when she saw the dive boat, somewhat comparable to a rescue raft.  The boats were no problem with me, we were floating weren't we?  I was paying more attention to the Slovenian guy that changed into his speedo in the boat and then sat across from me with his balls hanging out for the rest of the ride. They didn't advertise that!  I had wanted to see the Eel Garden and since I was the only certified diver, I got to go on my own with the guide and we swam right over to it.  We hovered in the middle of the eels and they popped back out of their holes, surrounding us in a field of eels.  I felt just like a camera in Planet Earth, it was totally awesome!  I also saw a turtle, my first one, and flailing along behind the turtle was Dad, attempting to get comfortable underwater on his intro dive!  So far, so good!