Luck be a lady......

One thing about backpacking is that you can be lucky or you can be unlucky when you decide that planning can take a backseat to Facebook and exciting, entertaining internet surfing. That was the gamble we took when we arrived back in Kuta,Bali to extend our visa. If we had done some proper planning and research we would have realized that we were suppose to head to the immigration office with at least 7 business days left on our visa...not 3. Unsure of what the outcome would be, we dressed in our finest (which is a t-shirt instead of a tank top) and headed to the immigration office. We were welcomed with the answer "You're are too late, I guess you will have to leave the country". That was the last thing we wanted to do. So with some desperation in our voices we pleaded our case to the officer who pointed us to a different immigration office 30 min away. Happy for us to become someone else's problem. While traveling in 2nd and 3rd world countries we've learned that you can never be too sure if what is happening is legit or not. When we entered the second office we put on our brave face, crossed our fingers and got ready to plead our case. To our surprise, we were told not to worry, we would just have to pay a little extra for a rush extension and everything would be fine. We filled out the paper work and handed it over with our passports. When it came time to pay, the lady in the government uniform gave us a receipt (which was a small piece of paper ripped out of a notebook) She told us to head outside and pay the guy standing near the corner of the building, who was not flaunting a flashy government outfit. As strange as it seemed, we figured our passports were already handed off, so we might as well part with $140 as well. Two days later, when we headed back to the office, we were greeted with a smile by the same immigration officer. She pulled her purse up onto the stool beside her, dug through it and voila, pulled out our freshly stamped passports?!?!? We are still not to sure what really happened but we assume there was some under the counter action going on, with a small commission kept on some ones part.

During our stopover in Kuta, Dean decided that he wanted to get a tattoo. He'd been thinking about it for awhile and was ready. We searched around for a good artist and a studio that looked clean and wasn't attached to a bar. We found one called Rumble Avenue. After a discussion with Addee, the artist, we left only to return a few days later to see if what he drew was similar to Dean's vision. It was! After 4 hours, Dean walked out with a tattoo on his right calf. It looks great and will serve as a great reminder of this trip.

After 6 days in Kuta, we took luck into our hands again and boarded a local bus for the 6 hour journey to the Island of Java. It wasn't until the bus drove off the ferry into the town of Banyuwangi that we thought "hmm, we should have planned this out a bit better. Where does the bus drop us off?" Well, as luck would have it, a local guy noticed that we were starting to panic as the bus was heading out of town. In his broken English and our none existent Indonesian, he figured out where we wanted to go and relayed to the driver that we needed to stop. Being the only white people seen in about 6 or 7 hours, all eyes were on us as we were dropped off outside of a convenience store. Now what??? Lucky again, another local guy (who may have been phoned) happened to show up and took us to a near by hotel. He was also a travel agent who could help us arrange our trip to Ijen Volcano. (Another thing that we failed to research) We couldn't believe it. We made a plan with Maman (the agent/guide)  that would have us hike up Ijen to see the 'blue flames' and the sun rise, then get a ride to Mt. Bromo afterwards. Perfect!

At the bottom of Ijen.

We left our hotel at 12:45am and drove for just over an hour to the base of Ijen Volcano. It was very dark and very cold!!! After a cup of hot coffee we all started our ascend to the top of the volcano. And up it was, straight up! This was the 2nd volcano we have climbed in Indonesia. (The last one was on our last trip, four years ago) We knew we could do it but it was a mind game to keep our legs taking one step after the other. More than one time Kelly could be heard mumbling under her breath, "this is crazy!!!" With Dean's reassurance and encouragement, we all pushed on and we made it to the rim of the crater at about 4am. Our goal was to see the mysterious blue flame that is caused by the miners lighting molten sulfur on fire. Apparently, the flames cannot be seen every day due to weather. Well, we did it! We saw the flames! They were truly a sight to see. We were disappointed that we could not get a good photo...google it!! It's worth it.

Around 4:45am we climbed to the upper rim of the crater to watch the sunrise. What a sight!! It was beautiful!!! We were above the clouds and the sky was filled with crimson reds, oranges and yellows!!! We were so proud of ourselves. The smiles never left our faces.

 

Dean holding on to Kelly so she doesn't fall off.

Burning sulfur in the daylight.

We took our time at the top taking lots of photos. Some with the sulphur miners who carry 70-80Kg's (154-176 LBS) of huge chunks of hardened sulfur up and out of the crater then down the mountain (multiple times a day in rubber boots. It's insane!!) They only make the equivalent of 8 cents/kg. Dean tried to lift the baskets but could not. These men put a new meaning to "working for a living". As hard as the ascend was for Kelly, the descend was equally as hard for Dean. His knees struggled with the steep slopes and this time it was with Kelly's reassurance and encouragement, that we were able to make it down. We arrived back at our jeep at around 7 am. Ijen is definitely at the top of our list of highlights on this trip so far. It was an amazing!!

Miner walking along the rim of the crater with the sulfur.

Miner who gave us a piece of sulfur to keep.

It took 5 hours to reach the town of Probolinggo, which is about an hour from Mt. Bromo. Maman had a friend who was able to arrange our hotel for the night, trip up to Mt. Bromo and a 10 hour ride to Yogyakarta (pronounced Joke-ja-karta) the next day. Lucky? We think so!! Knowing that another early morning and another steep climb might not be do-able for us, we opted to do what many other tourists do and chose to take a jeep up. We woke up at 3:15 am (a sleep in...Yay!) crammed into a jeep and headed for the view point to watch the sunrise. Unlike Ijen, this place was PACKED with tourists. The view was gorgeous but the amount of people kind of took away from the tranquility of the moment. Eventually, the number of people subsided and we were able to get some great photos.

Back in the jeep we headed to the base of Mt. Bromo. The ground was covered in thick ash and it made it very difficult to walk (last eruption was 2011). So we opted to ride horses nearly to the top and then climb the last few hundred meters by stairs. The smell of the sulfur was very strong making it hard to breathe. It didn't seem overly safe at the top. One slip and sayonara....into the smoke you would go, never to be seen again. We snapped some photos and took in the view...yet again, another spectacular moment. 2 volcano's in 2 days. Wow, we felt lucky and pretty proud of ourselves...even if we cheated a bit on the second one. :)

Not to impressed that he had to pose so close to the edge.

It took just over 10 hours to complete the journey from Mt. Bromo to Yogyakarta. That day we saw the sunrise and the sunset and when we arrived at 10pm, we were exhausted! The hotel had hot water. We hadn't had a hot shower for over a month!!!! We were so EXCITED!!! We spent 6 days in Yogyakarta. A few days recovering from the travel and hiking and a few exploring on a scooter. We navigated through the crazy roads with no street signs and a poor map and scooted our way 46km to Borobudur Temple. It is a Buddhist temple built over 1000 years ago. It has 7 levels and we walked every single one of them dressed in our traditional sarongs. It is really mind boggling trying to fathom how these old temples were built. Where did they get the supplies? How did the people end up there? How long did it take? What happened to the people that built it? One can spend a long time walking around pondering these questions.

 

The next day we went the other direction 17km, to see the Hindu temple Prambanan. It was also built in the 9th century but was completely different than what we had seen the day before. Composed of lots of temples instead of just 1 big one. The main temple towering much higher than the others still had a few Hindu god statues inside. Equally stunning, and completely different then Borobudur.

We decided to switch things up and take the train to Bandung. We had heard train travel through Java is good and this was true. We bought executive tickets which cost us $24 for both and settled in for the 8 hour ride. The seats were comfy, the air conditioner was a perfect temperature and the scenery was gorgeous. We kicked ourselves for not taking some photos along the way.

Getting off the train.

Starbucks employees think his name is "Dih"

Bandung is the 3rd largest city in Indonesia. We found our way around the city using the local angkot (minibus) but it was very confusing. We rented a car and driver to get to Tangkuban Perahu volcano just outside of the city. This volcano is one of the few in Indonesia that you can drive right up to the crater rim. Unfortunately for us, when we arrived at the top, the fog and clouds started rolling in. We had just enough time to snap a few photos before we could no longer see the crater.

Luckily, on the other side of the mountain you can climb down to Kawah Domas crater. We decided since we had saved the energy going up we would try climbing down. It was steep but we made it and it was so worth it. There were many spots that extremely hot steam was escaping through rocks and a few pools with bubbling water that you could soak your feet in. We decided to try, and yes it was hot, very hot!! Volcanic warmed water for a foot bath was just what the doctor ordered. We rubbed clay from the bottom of the pools on our feet and relaxed. It was really fun!

Poking out from behind the hot steam.

That water is HOT!

Bubbly volcanic mud pool.

That day we also visited an amusement park full of hot spring pools and then went to a floating market. It was a full day!

All these little boats sold food of all sorts...including cotton candy. 

The train ride to Bandung was so good that we decided to use that mode of transport again to get to Jakarta. We had heard from a few people that Jakarta was just a large, very busy city and that we didn't even need to spend a day there. The rumors were true. It is big. It does have lots of traffic. It is dirty. We did spend one full day there though. We stayed in "Old Town" and spent an afternoon at the sunday market, wandering around the square in between the old buildings. It was very busy and many young local people stopped us to practice their English. We had lots of conversations, answered lots of questions and had our picture taken multiple times. We also had some of the best chicken we have ever had from a street vendor. We may not have put enough energy into exploring this large capital city but we were happy and content with what we did see.

Us with a few of the locals after one of our many interviews.

Well used tuk-tuk.

In the end, luck can bring you a long way but not always as far as you had wished. We both agree that with a bit more planning we probably could have used our time in Indonesia more wisely. It's a good lesson to learn. So, when we arrived back in Bangkok to work on getting our Vietnam visa we planned ahead and got our Myanmar one as well. We had hoped to get our India one done to but little did we know, it takes 6-8 business days. We just didn't have enough time for that as we had to get on the road. On October 13th, Kelly's mom fly's in to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. It is so exciting that we get to share some of our adventure with family and can't wait until she gets here!!! We have a few days to spare before we need to be in Vietnam so we decided we would cross the border to Cambodia to see the sights of Angkor. Yes again!! Yes, they are just that amazing! We have 5 days to make our way north. Then the next chapter of our adventure begins...

Indonesian Currency.