Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73132
To paraphrase MIB, he makes this look good!!
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Survived the thieving monkeys in Ulawatu Temple, pics to follow. For others sights. Next stop Ubud, and the Monkey Sanctuary!!
24th Apr 2024 10:20 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73132
And greetings from Ubud, bit N of Denpasar. It’s about 43km Gojek ride (car not bike) that took about 2 hours!! It was solid traffic all the way, and not a sighting of countryside!
In S Bali it was a day of planning/flopping/catching up on stuff and a day to the Uluwatu Temple and the Cultural Park with the giant Garuda that you see from the a/c on the way in, looking like a volcanic eruption!!
The temple was a cliff top one with nice vistas over the sea and cliffs but the temple itself was a bit meh.
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And had to wear a natty waist scarf. No sarong needed as neither of us were wearing shorts.
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And, as above pic of monkey trying on his new shades, there were monkeys everywhere!! And these monkeys were especially naughty, having a taste for nicking sunglasses, phones, hats, not to mention any type of food! The cheeky chappie above had just nicked a pair of sunnies from a group in front of us, another one had relieved another person in the same group if his/her ball cap. And they were pretty aggressive, one having a bit of a hiss and snarl at an Aussie chap that happened to get a bit close!!
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Then to the giant Garuda in the Cultural Park. Pretty impressive statutes that dominate the skyline around here.
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Statues here have 2 themes, being scary or showing off abs! They have muscles in places I don’t even have places!!
It’s our first time in Bali, and Indonesia, and the area S of Denpasar is a bit grim. Fair bit of tourist traffic but glad we weren’t staying there. Lots of very scared looking tourists on the front and back of motos, most without helmets. Glad we were using 4 wheeled transport, with nice AC!! We were in a nice resort just S of Denpasar airport, and we think it’s one of the best hotels we’ve stayed in over several years of travelling. Because of our IHG status we get free lounge access and it’s deffo the best lounge we’ve stayed at, ever! And Indonesian VC is suuuuuuuuperb.
Bye bye IC Bali resort. And bye to the fishies. Unfortunately we didn’t have any fish food.
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Now having travelled up to Ubud we were a bit concerned re where we were going to stay, a homestay room at £17 a night! Shouldn’t have worried, room is superb, clean and AC is good. OK, TV doesn’t play anything but now streaming a LOTR fest from my ipad through their HDMI cable.
It’s a world away from the previous areas up here, much nicer, loads of eateries and they even have pavement! They also have the world famous monkey forest. We took a walk down there this afternoon but didn’t pay to go in. We’ve seen so many monkeys for free, why pay to get stressed out about the thieving primates! And didn’t need to pay to see these chappies!
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Note speed limit for monkeys!! Must be for monkeys, if anything is going that slow it’s classed as parked!
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Remember this from the papers last week?
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Sadly not today, monkeys are selfied out!
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And to food. It’s pretty cheap here even in nice restaurants aimed at tourists. This was dinner tonight, really nice and the food here was about £5 for both of us. Beers and juice was more! All enjoyed looking out over the rooftops through a tropical downpour! That’s another reason to not have gone into the monkey forest, had we done so we’d have been soaked in spite of brollies!
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Not forgetting pud, deep fried bananas, and it was still raining!
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Off tomorrow on a temples tour. Fingers crossed for a nice day.
Ubud is deffo a good place to be.
25th Apr 2024 10:52 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73132
And bye bye Bali, off to Java today. Loved Bali, once away from the grimness S of Denpasar, Ubud is really nice and it’s easy to get out into the countryside. Well easy-ish! The traffic is like Vietnam just with a lot more cars and trucks, many roads only 1.5 lanes wide with a solid like of cars and motos weaving in and out in all directions. Plus you have cars and motos trying to drive fast, or crawl along. No way would we be driving, looks difficult enough for local drivers!!
Bali is a place meant for panos.
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And the world, we’ll instagram, famous Heavens Gate. It was about a two hour wait to get a slot for one minute of posing, preening, yoga-ing (though banned) and general stuff-strutting in front of Mt Agung, Balis biggest mountain and active volcano.
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Needless to say we didn’t bother waiting that long, I just strutted my stuff at the other side of the temple in my natty compulsory sarong!
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It’s at the top of a bit of a hill, motos are available for 50p to go to the site, we hoofed it unlike our guide!!
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Lots of other temples in Bali, here’s a few.
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Plus the famous rice terraces, which were looking good cf the same things we saw in Vietnam when it was the wrong season.
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Talking of volcanos, Jeep tour up to a bit if Mt Batur, the 2nd active volcano. Deffo getting too old for bouncing around in the back of Jimny. I know not a Jeep but here everything is called a Jeep. When in Bali etc.
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Wasn’t sure driver was old enough!!
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Oh, and got some bad sunburn as was hanging on to roll bar so much upper arm got zapped!
We’ve got a few weeks in Java ahead. A lot less touristy area but there are trains so won’t be totally reliant on cars. Also leaving the Hindu island of Bali to go to the Muslim island of Java so bye bye pork & hello beef, plus no beers sitting outside!!
If our driver gets through traffic!
And going to miss the wolf whistling minor bird that greets you with “hello boss” and laughs when you walk past him. I tried to teach him other phrases but no joy. He can also caugh and sneeze!
29th Apr 2024 3:49 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73132
PS Made it to Ketapang in Java!! 3.5 hours to do 120km, with much spirited and over optimistic overtaking! If we’d been driving I’m not sure we’d have gotten out of Ubud!!
Bye bye Bali
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In this boats twin brother
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And hello Java!
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Bit of a walk (few hundred m) though to get out of the harbour’s “no Gojek zone”. We were originally planning to go up Mt Ijen tomorrow, the honking big active volcano around here. Luckily it’s closed for a few days, incl tomorrow. Bit relieved as we’d decided not to go there. Any site that require the use of gas masks (really just filters) and a medical check before going is a bit of a risk too far. Plus going down into an active crater that is full of sulphur gas is a bit too dodgy for us. At least with it closed I can stop feeling guilty.
29th Apr 2024 10:59 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73132
And greetings from Ketapang Station, on way to Probolinggo, on way to Mt Bromo. Our first Indonesian train, gives our nerves a rest from being on the roads!!
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That may, or may not be our train.
Oh, and fleeces are at the ready as it’s a 4 hour jaunt and SE Asian trains have a habit of having AC at full tilt!
PS Not the above train, it’s this one!!!!!
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Very natty blue interior as well! Plus we are at the volcano side (by better luck than judgement) so hopefully good views.
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1st May 2024 3:35 am
PROFSR G
Member Since: 06 Mar 2017
Location: Lost
Posts: 5069
Is that puke bags I see behind the seats Del? Are the rails as bad as the roads or did someone tell them you were coming?
Luvin the travelogue. yµ (idµ - eAµ) ψ=mψ
1st May 2024 12:03 pm
Rescue01
Member Since: 14 Jan 2008
Location: Aberdeen
Posts: 2528
The train stations and train look immaculate compared to our grotty ones.
Temperatures are starting to creep up so hopefully your log pile will last me till your back
Have a great time Derek. Its not the height of the fall but the sudden stop at the bottom that hurts!!
1st May 2024 5:00 pm
PROFSR G
Member Since: 06 Mar 2017
Location: Lost
Posts: 5069
Nige is diligently guarding it like mice at a crossroads! yµ (idµ - eAµ) ψ=mψ
1st May 2024 5:39 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73132
Rubbish bags, for the obligatory snacking that is required to keep warm.
And yes, their stations are immaculate and the peeps working their have a pride in what they do, a very strange concept for a railway.
Off up Mt Bromo this merry blue sky morning, doing the day-time tour as one sunrise looks much like another, plus not sure my nerves could stand being driven up mountain roads in the dark!!
Oh, and Mt Bromo is still active so no praying to the volcano gods for a bit of an eruption!
Have a few pics to bung up in the way of catch-up, will get that done tonight. Just a gratuitous pano of the savanna area of Baluran NP.
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PS And view of Mt Bromo from our guesthouse, it’s going to be a booooooootiful day up there.
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It looks idyllic but it doesn’t convey the fact that we are between 2 building sites and the tools of choice seems to be chainsaws!
2nd May 2024 12:49 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73132
PROFSR G wrote:
Nige is diligently guarding it like mice at a crossroads!
Not sure Nige’s cats would approve!!
2nd May 2024 1:01 am
PROFSR G
Member Since: 06 Mar 2017
Location: Lost
Posts: 5069
Who do you think trained him? yµ (idµ - eAµ) ψ=mψ
2nd May 2024 1:14 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73132
True!
2nd May 2024 1:22 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73132
Back from seeing the big honking great volcano, Mt Bromo. Around here you have to hire an old LC or Daihatsu, collectively known as jeeps.
Our ride for the morning. Brought back memories of bouncing around in old Series LRs, even the smell of hot oil was the same.
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Not a sign you see everyday in UK, keep right unless volcano is erupting.
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Most peeps go up to Mt Bromo for sunrise viewpoint, then peeps climb up the crater. We asked our driver how many jeeps would do that in the the morning and he thought 950!! That’s prob 4 - 5 thousand peeps getting up at 2am then joining a massive snake of jeeps up to the sunrise spot, then the same number down (assuming no breakdowns) down the very narrow and very steep road to caldera parking area. The 2am malarkey was enough to persuade us to leave 9am, though we did see hundreds of jeeps heading down the hill as we went up.
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Views of Mt Bromo from inside the caldera.
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And where we were heading next.
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From the parking area it was a nice pleasant walk to the bottom of the hill. The route up is just behind the shoulder of RHS person posing and preening on top of the LC.
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You can get horses up to the base of the steps but as neither of us had ever ridden one, this wouldn’t be the best time to start. Besides, not sure any of the horses were big enough pour moi.
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View from way up, which in reality was a rest as it was very steep and we were bit over 7k ft up.
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Up below the steps a bunfight of front and back end of horses, some a bit skittish, all of which we had to weave through, though it was sweet when one gave Mrs DSL a little nuzzle on the shoulder as it went to walk past, SWMBO thought it was me!!
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Steps looking up.
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Steps looking down.
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And the main event. Boy was it busy up there, but this was a quiet time. Imagine if a few thousand peeps charging up at the same time!
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And it was noisy. And once wind turned it was pretty smelly, good old H2S smell.
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And not that anyone was taking any notice of this.
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Then up to the sunrise viewpoint, sun having risen for a good few hours by that time.
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Up to 8,400ft and a fair bit of climbing so glad of a rest/photo opportunity.
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As seen on the way down from the viewpoint. Good plan.
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Plus on way down good to know we were going the right way.
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And finally, honest, a nice pano from our last stop.
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Good morning, great views of the volcano from u,c & p to from the sunrise area. Only downside is we have no pics of “Tellietubbies Hills”, one of the other scenic attractions that we were meant to go to, as our driver decided we’d had the required 4 stops and we were going back to hotel. It didn’t seem to matter where the stops were. Well tip (which is unusual for Indonesia and makes a difference) didn’t materialise, plus we’re waiting for the review link.
Well that’s the 2nd active volcano this week, off tomorrow again by train heading W, I think that’s all of them for this jolly.
2nd May 2024 7:23 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73132
And from Baluran NP’s visit on Tuesday afternoon. Baluran is the NE corner of Java and just a bit N of the ferry we got over from Bali.
As below lots of water buffalo and deer but also peacocks and cheeky chappie long tailed macaques. Luckily the latter weren’t interested in peeps at all.
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Our guide was convinced this cloud looked like an elephant!!
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The drive back to our hotel was in full darkness, it was pos one of the scariest drives we’ve had in the last several years of travelling. Lots of slow trucks, fast buses, motos left, right & centre, in both directions, some stuff with no lights, motos and cars trying to carve their way through the chaos, not sure our driver/guide wasn’t a bit over-stimmed on RedBull type stuff.
Note to selves, no more tours that don’t end in daylight!!
2nd May 2024 8:09 am
Gareth Site Moderator
Member Since: 07 Dec 2004
Location: Bramhall
Posts: 26779
Great pics and experience Del. I do have a soft spot for those old Land Cruisers. Wouldn’t have a new one though. Soulless.
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