Lion City

So that's that. Indonesia: box ticked. I liked it. As predicted I barely scratched the surface.

Back in Singapore now and managed to get up close and personal with those robotrees - or Supertrees as it turns out they are actually called. They are pretty spectacular. Little tiny complaint: for an old door attraction in a humid city that prides itself on convenience (although the ridiculousness of passport control makes me question this) water was strangely hard to come by in the gardens. It was like a dehydration experience.

Here's a fact for you. One of the food stalls in China Town has a Michelin star, making it about the cheapest place to eat Michelin starred food in the world. How is this judged? It was not noticably better than any other streetfood that I've eaten in the last two weeks (and noticably less tasty than a fish I ate in Malang). I don't understand. Still another box ticked...

Batavia

I'm in one of the biggest cities in the world and Lonely Planet predicted that I would bump into a particular person. That's impressive, right? Made all the more impressive by how mediocre the information in Lonely Planet has been throughout the rest of Indonesia.

Anyway, I'm in Jakarta. A late switch from Bali in an attempt to reduce the risk of getting stuck in a Southeast Asian ash cloud.

Jakarta is so much more civilised than I thought it would be. Easily the friendliest of the megacities I've been to. The people are so nice. Truck drivers will stop motorbikes to allow you to cross the road - that doesn't happen anywhere. And the "Hello Mister" people that are shouting at you aren't trying to sell you anything, they are just saying hello.

The city itself is surprisingly pleasant, certainly more pleasant than we'd been led to believe ("Have you got any tips for Jakarta?" "Erm, go to Yogyakarta instead"). Kota, the old colonial centre with its brightly-coloured-bike art thing going on could be from any European city. Chinatown was adequately weird (live frog anyone?). And the newer "city centre" boasts the biggest mosque outside of Saudi (200,000 people in a mosque. Exclamation mark) opposite a cathedral with spires like I've never seen before (you'll have to Google it yourself, it was under scaffolding so my photo would be mediocre). As in right opposite, as a symbol of Indonesia (the world's most populous Muslim majority nation)'s tolerance between different faiths [insert your own Bill 62 comment here].

Jakarta is so pleasant I feel bad that the only pictures I have to illustrate this post are of the somewhat non-representative neighbourhood that we stumbled into whilst looking for (and not finding) the old harbour and a murky skyline through a dirty window. Still that's what you're getting.

Here Be Dragons

So when I last wrote to you I'd only been to one Indonesian island (Java - for those of you who weren't paying attention - the most populous island in the world, fact fans - if we're gonna geek about about populous island facts [and we are] Indonesia has ten in the Top 40; well I found that impressive anyway) and now I have (technically) been to five. In order of populousness here are the other four:

Padar
Gee whizz this island is pretty with its peaks and its three different coloured beaches and that photo that everybody takes. What noone seems to mention is that as you go behind it the sea goes nuts. I think it's where two currents meet: it's hard to explain, you'll have to go and see for yourself.

Komodo
With the benefit of hindsight my expectations for Komodo were ridiculous. I thought it would be a bit like looking for land iguanas in the Galapagos, where big lizards were out doing their lizard thing. It wasn't. Turns out komodo dragons don't like the sun so they spend their days in as shady a place as they can find, ie. where you can't see them.

Nearly all of the dragons we saw were semi-tame, living under the rangers houses which didn't seem all that natural, especially when the rangers started poking them for the tourist selfie. I've not been to Colchester Zoo recently but I suspect that you'll get a better komodo dragon experience there.

I managed to get my big Komodo animal kicks by swimming with manta rays and that was cool as. They are very big. And kinda floppy.

Flores
To say I've seen Flores is a bit like going to Pogradec and saying you've seen Albania (that was a self-indulgent reference even for me). I've been staying in Labuan Bajo for the last few days, a fishing village-cum-tourist centre on the western nose of the island. I've seen virtually nothing of one of the prettiest islands in the world. Which might just become a feature of this list...

Bali
And this is even more tenuous. I changed planes in Bali. Didn't leave the airport. Having barely seen any westerners for the first week being in Bali airport was a bit of a reality jolt. We were due to go back to Bali but this volcano thing still hasn't made up its mind...

Crocodile Vs Shark

After being a bit dismissive of Malang in the last post I ended up having a pretty good time. We found Jodipan, a run down, riverside district which had been turned into a tourist town by painting it bright colours. It had the affect of making it absurdly cheerful.

So, in celebration of that here's some bits of bonafide useful advice (and yes, I know I've warned you against listening to me for tourist advice but sometimes you've got to share the love, particularly when you've put in the legwork).

If you want a beer in the city centre your best bet is Bhaswara cafe on the northern side of Tugu Plaza. It's a garden cafe which may be a jazz club but only seemed to be playing metal.

The only other "bar" selling beer we found was The Library on Jl Guntur, two blocks east of the so called Millionaire's Row. The Library is primarily a coffee shop where the people in the big houses come for overpriced brunch. Which doesn't stop it from being about the coolest place we found.

I'm in Surabaya now. I only had a couple of hours to explore last night so don't think I saw all of the Second City's charms. Got to hope there's more than just a fish market and some rats. It was a good fish market though and the rats were kind of cute.

Weirdest thing consumed. Lawak coffee. Obviously it was only a matter of time. I'd been put off by the prospect of battery-farmed civets being force fed coffee beans, but found somewhere where they at least said that the civets were wild. So is coffee that has been pooped out by a cat noticably better than any other coffee? Not to my uncouth tastings.

Bananas for Bromo

"So we do a sunrise tour where we pick you up at midnight..."

Needless to say we didn't go to Mount Bromo for sunrise. With the benefit of hindsight I think we made a very wise decision. The whole Bromo experience was fairly inhospitable - a climb at altitude whilst the wind sticks sand to you, doing that in the dark after no sleep would have left me grumpy for days.

Bromo was pretty impressive. I've been to a few volcanos but don't remember any of them being that loud. It sounded as though someone was doing a helicopter tour inside.

Turns out Bromo is a holy site (unsurprising, given its power), so there are people with bananas and flowers as offerings. There were also people with pot noodles - I ate one and didn't share any with the volcano. Do volcanos even like pot noodles? Maybe I should have asked...

In Malang now. It's a student city in East Java and there doesn't appear to be a whole heap to do here. You can barely even buy beer. You can buy owls from the bird market, which I guess is a thing. Not sure what I'd do with an owl.

Djogdja

So how do some places brand themselves as a "thing to do for sunrise? I've been to a few around the world and they pretty much always disappoint. The latest was Borobudur. Don't get me wrong the temple was nice enough but there really wasn't a reason to see it at 5am. All that does is tinker with your jetlag. And jeepers creepers was it expensive. In a country where most things are super cheap the cost of this made me do a sick in my mouth. And I was done before 6.30am. That's bananas.

Whilst we're talking about overpriced temples let's not forget Prambanan. I mean, at least I'd heard of Borobudur. At least Borobudur is a thing. Prambanan is just a heap of pointy Indian temples set amidst a herd of children saying "can I practice my English with you?" And it costs more than twice as much as the Taj Mahal.

We tried to climb a volcano. We'd heard that Gunung Merapi was the most volcanic volcano in Indonesia so thought we should pay it a visit. What we hadn't heard is that the only reason anyone goes there is to go offroading, this meant our quiet walk was not quite as peaceful as imagined.

Anyway, back in Yogyakarta / Yogya / Jogja / Djogdja I've learned the very important lesson that my carefully honed Indian spice tolerance counts for nothing.  There every time I didn't opt for the spiciest option I regretted it. Here the spiciest option may kill you.

Weirdest thing eaten: gudeg. The "Can I practice English with you" brigade raved about Gudeg, saying "the colour is burnt and the taste is sweet" which more than summed it up. Rarely has a local speciality looked less appetising but cripes was it sweet. It was a bona fide egg but with the sweetness of a Creme Egg. It made me pull this face (you're gonna have to imagine it because I didn't take a picture. I'm not that guy).

Where to Start?

Seventeen thousand islands stretching basically the length of Russia. I've always been a bit intimidated by Indonesia and really haven't known where to start. I mean it's the fourth most populated country and they speak like 300 languages. That's a continent rather than a country. Where do you start?

Yogyakarta seemed as good a place as any. And so far I have found that:
1. Beer is not easy to come by.
2. The food here is spicy. The sambal with lunch was spicier than any streetfood I ate in India.

If we are being pedantic I actually started in Singapore. I wanted to see those robo tree things. I did but only from a distance. A smug sunrise-in-a-hot-tub distance, but a distance nonetheless.