Surviving Yogyakarta & Bali

We flew to Yogyakarta on 12th of December. We arrived late in the evening and all I saw from the taxi's window was empty streets, darkness and graffitis so I of course thought that this place would be dangerous. The taxi driver left us in some dark alley and said "walk that way" pointing in even darker and narrower alley. Well... ok cool I guess. We started walking and very soon we saw 'Pondok Ijo', our guest house's name on the wall. We checked in and I discovered quickly that our room and particularly our bathroom was open. I mean open like when you sit on the toilet you can see palmtrees (bananatrees), spiders and the sky. Someone might say it's romantic, cool and like a healing environment (because there is access to nature. And for the locals it's normal..). Not me. No no no. I hid under the duvet and wanted so badly to change rooms. I do not like mosquitoes and all the other creepy-crawlies there are. I thought to myself "Sini.. please, next time remember that if the place's name has "Pondok" in it.. maybe it's better not to go there?!". The staff member was a cool and understanding dude and we upgraded to a better room which still had an open toilet and shower but the bedroom was more covered. Ok, I guess I can live with this.

Our guesthouse in Jogja

Enjoy the nature while taking a shower

The first night we just visited nearby restaurant Warung Bu Ageng and ate the local speciality Nasi Campur ("mixed rice" with little bit of everything). After that it was mandatory to have a beer in our Pondok's restaurant. It was kinda nice there and we played with cards at least for an hour or so. There was soothing reggae playing in the background and all of a sudden I hear Finnish reggae playing! Whaaat.. :D it was Raappana's Kauas Pois and I was feeling all types of feelings then. I missed my family a lot but still it felt so cool to be there.

At night though I heard some weird noises which spooked me a little...

I had never heard such noise before but after a Google search and asking the hotel employee, we now know that it was just a big gecko! :) It was kinda creepy because we never saw it and didn't know what in the world was it but luckily geckos eat mosquitos so I was cool with that.

The next day we went walking and started our search for a post office.
It quickly started to hit me that Yogyakarta is actually a huge city! I wasn't expecting that at all after checking the place from Google Maps and from some YouTube videos.

But yeah the post office was important because I have a godson so I wanted to send something small back home ❤️. Before finding the post office it started to rain and a becak (local rickshaw)  driver appeared from a distance. He was calling us, offering shelter and telling that he would drive us around for one hour and it will only cost us 20000 rupiahs (1.3€).. Mad cheap. Our censors were on but the rain made us hop on and the first stop was the post office. The rickshaw driver mentioned some places we needed to visit but he talked so fast that we didn't quite get it (or cared so much at first). While we were in the post office Matias did some Google research (local prepaids are handy) that this cheap of a ride will end us up in a batik clothing store where we are almost oblicated to buy something. The rickshaw driver would get his share (commission) on the overpriced products. Then Matias paid the driver the 20000 rupiahs and said that we would continue by foot. The driver still tried that "No no no, don't you want to see the batik store..".. no we would not, thank you.

Riding the becak

We continued our way by foot (despite the heavy rain) and ended up in some shopping district. After some walking around we got hungry and looked up this legendary pempek restaurant nearby. (Pempek is a savoury fishcake from Palembang, South Sumatera.)
This particular restaurant was called 'Pempek Ny. Kamto' and we would definitely recommend it.
We selected three dishes and two bottles of water and the total price was 64000 rupiahs so around 4€.

Tasty Pempek

Later, after lots more walking we wanted to head back to Pondok and we happened to see a Grab pick up stand outside of a mall. "hmm should we finally try it..?".. "yes!" So that's what we did and it was so nice that we were able to see immediately what the about 20 minutes trip was gonna cost us. It was 25000 which is less than 2€. Cool! And just like that we were hooked on Grab :D (we had never tried Uber or anything similar before because it's not a consept that works well with the Finnish laws and regulations.. bummer).

Now how does this work..? 

Superstar treatment at Borobudur

For the next day we scheduled a trip to Borobudur which is a famous place and actually the biggest Buddhist temple in the world and rightfully a UNESCO world heritage site.

Usually sunrise at Borobudur would be the way to go but now, when it was the monsoon season it was better to go later (Or so our guide said and that was ok for us as we weren't too excited of the thought of waking up at 03 am..).
We left at 8.30 from Pondok Ijo with our drivers (on motorbikes) and the trip took maybe like an hour. (We were actually waiting for a van and more people to join us but the bike ride was a nice alternative)

The entrance to Borobudur was 600000 for us two and the bike trip 190000/person so in total it was something like 30€/person. Quite expensive in my opinion, but I guess this was a once in a lifetime type of a thing so going over our daily budget was justified.
When we entered in we noticed that people were staring at us and it looked like people were trying to catch us in their selfies. And then it didn't take long for a group of kids to surround us wanting to take pictures with us! I was overwhelmed by the situation. I'm guessing that this was something that could happen to a celebrity, but I didn't comprehend at first why it was happening to us :D

We learned soon that it was a school holiday and there were a lot of people visiting also from remote places where people looking like us don't often visit. So we were something new. I also later read that to some extent "Western" is considered to be something cool and a pale skin is something to be admired. Some might also believe that Western people bring good luck.. well hopefully we succeeded in that :)

There were at least 5 different groups of student that wanted to ask questions (practise their English with us) and to have pics with us. Of course we wanted to help them out! It was fun for us too :)
But it took our time a bit so it was little hard to concentrate on the actual location of Borobudur.
There were quite a few adults also grabbing us gently, wanting to take pictures with us. Some said few words and some only wanted to shake our hands.
But yeah, it was all good. The kids in particular were so wonderful! So polite and cute and they were smiling a lot! Now based on our travels I could vote Indonesia for the new Land of Smiles :) (Koh Mook could still hold the title for the Island of Smiles).
After Borobudur we just chilled and the next day ended up changing Pondok to an Ibis hotel closer to the airport. 

First of many groups who interviewed us

Borobudur views

The Earth is shaking

On the 15th of December I was having a chill video chat with my mum and granny when we felt the floor moving. It was bizarre. It felt like a cruise ship in Finland  approaching the harbour.. but now there was no harbour to approach.
It was an earthquake. I put my clothes on and said to my spooked mum that "everything is alright.. we are just gonna check what's going on and I'll call again soon..". I mean I definitely wasn't sure what was going on and how dangerous the situation actually was. This was our first ever earthquake but I just hoped that mum and granny wouldn't worry too much.
After some confusion I learned that the situation was ok and we were safe. There were hotel employees on the corridor with Walkie Talkies for some while but there was no panic after some screams from the initial tremble. It had been an 6,7 magnitude earthquake in Java (the same island) but it was 250km away from us so it was ok to breathe and go to sleep. But I read that there might be some aftershocks also.. Yikes.
I called my mum again and made sure all was cool. I got a little spooked and I slept with my clothes on and my small backpack packed that night being ready to escape if that was needed. Luckily we got to sleep peacefully.

Bali

The next day did not offer aftershocks for us luckily but we fled and flew to Bali. Yeahh.. that place with the infamous volcano. I must say I wasn't feeling too good about this. We stayed at Kuta beach, near the airport for a couple of nights. Unfortunately it was raining A LOT so we weren't able to explore the place as much as I would have liked. We did some walking around, shopping mall exploring and checking out the beach (so dirty that day!) but it didn't feel right to stay there longer as we had originally planned.
We debated for awhile what to do next. It would have been only 200€ to fly to Brisbane the next day but the living in Australia is pretty expensive so we started to look for flights back to Thailand.. We realized that we would have to spend 500€ more (each) if we just went back to Thailand but it also felt something that had to be done and that is what we did.

I feel like I missed out on many nice places in Bali, but now I have reasons to return. Though I have to add that I hate that the taxi scene is so effed up there. I felt that there are too many scamming drivers and that the price system should be clarified. Grab would be good there also, because you get to know the final (good) price immediately with no surprises so it's nicer to give a tip and it gives a good feeling also.. like I can trust the system and the people.
But they are trying to ban Grab in Bali and Matias read somewhere that some Grab drivers get their asses kicked there by taxi drivers so.. no feeling of trust there :(

All in all.. Indonesia is huge and it's so diverse. There are a lot of wonderful, polite and very hospital people in Indonesia so the good outs the scumbags and I will definitely recommend visiting Indonesia. But please look beyond crazy Jakarta and the touristy places in Bali, there are tons of places to explore, all different (try Lake Toba or Bukit Lawang for example -editor's note)

Selamat Jalan! (Goodbye in Malay/Indonesian language)

-Sini

Rainy Bali

P.S it was fun to learn that 'di sini" means 'here' :D I also saw signs at bus stops which said 'turun di sini' :) I understood that it means "jää pois tässä", "get out of the bus here".
Cool language.. I wish I could understand it more.



Our route so far

Kuala Lumpur and Melaka adventures

It took around 3-4 hours to get to Kuala Lumpur from Cameron Highlands. The serpentine road made me feel uncomfortable and nauseous but luckily i survived without puking 👍 The less pleasurable trip was not too pricey, 35 ringgits/person if I remember correctly.

The driver dropped us at KL Sentral where we took LRT (or was it MRT..) to Masjid Jamek station. We stayed in Cosmo Hotel which was a gem. It looked like an upscale hotel but our first three nights where 20€/night and the two after that 30€/night. We didn't have a window or breakfast but that wasn't a problem at all*. The location was a huge bonus! At Masjid Jamek there is a lot of big fast food restaurants like KFC, McDonald's and Burger King which is nice especially when some of them are open 24h. But also closeby is for instance a historical beef ball place where people visiting KL should definitely go and eat. Place is called Soong Kee's Beef Ball Noodles and we went to eat there on our first day in KL. The place has a long history, it's been open since 1945. They have other branches also nowadays but this is the original one. And the prices are great! My soup of balls was 7 ringgits so little over 1€ and the soothing broth was so nice, warm and tasty. Thumbs up!

Beef balls

The next day it was time to see the Petronas Towers. I was surprised how much I wanted to see them. I guess because It's such a landmark and I never thought I'd see them or could be able to travel this far, but there I was! And I was excited because I knew beforehand where to take nice pictures in a less crowded area.. ;) Thanks for the tip Psychotraveller! (the photo below was taken later that night at the same spot)

Hello KL! 

After the photoshoot we entered the mall inside and ended up to Wendy's for a quick bite to eat. Then we measured with our eyes that the KL tower could be a walking distance away so there we went. Or well..actually we went inside the tower after a nice hike to the top of the hill but then after looking at the prices and the weather and comparing the pros and cons and our daily budget we decided to pass. Later that evening we went to Jalan Alor which is a famous street with street food stalls and restaurants. Matias had done his homework again and knew exactly what he wanted to eat. It was a bowl of glorious Bak Kut Teh. I say glorious because it was shiny and reflected light because it was so fatty 😂 Bak Kut Teh is meaty pork rib tea soup and this version had lots of the nasty (awesome) white stuff. I am not such a big fan of lard so I had Mee Goreng instead.
After the meal Matias had some space in his stomach still so it was time for us to taste the durian fruit for the first time (I've spend over a year of my life in SE Asia and I feel that I should have done this ages ago, but oh well.. - Matias) . There were many durian stalls in Jalan Alor and we chose a place with some locals eating there. The guy selling there was first trying to sell the whole fruit to us! Luckily when we said that's it's our first time, he went to get a smaller portion from the fridge.
He still stated that this durian that he is selling is 'the best'.
"Wow.." we thought.. I mean how lucky are we that from 200 different durian fruit variations we found 'the best one' immediately.. 😂🙈💩 Anyway.. Matias took a deep breath and gave it a go. It looked nasty! :) He described the durian to taste like rotten bananas, garlic and some old cheese. I have to say I wasn't excited to try the fruit, not after that analysis.. I was going to pass the taste test, but I figured I might as well to have a try. I took a tiny hint of it and can now cross it from my check list.

Fatty deliciousness (in editor's opinion ;D)  of Bak Kut Teh

Movember man with some durian

The next day we had a slow start and just walked around. We did go to wait for the train to Batu Caves, but it was quite late already and the train wasn't going so often so we figured we'd go the day after instead.
Well.. The next day we ended up at the same location but unfortunately my stomach was hurting and I had a feeling I wasn't ready for the stairs, monkeys and a potential runny tummy in the public.. So I decided to head back to the hotel for some rest and Matias continued to the caves.
The place was great I heard and you could climb the 272 stairs and see the huge statue (world's tallest Murugan statue) and the big Cathedral Cave for free. The Dark Cave tour cost a bit but Matias didn't go take it. But all in all, the place is definitely worth a visit if you're in KL.
Later that day I was feeling a bit better so we went to get some soothing beef ball noodles again and to get Matias a cheap haircut.
This one indian salon was just a block away from Cosmo and the haircut cost 12 ringgits (about 2€). Not bad! It even included little head massage and popping neck and ears.

Batu Caves entrance

Precision job

Horror House and the Monsoon 360 

Hmm the headline could be referring to Pondok and geckos or bad weather but not this time :)
Matias wanted to go to a water park last time when we were in Thailand two years ago but we missed it that time. He'd mentioned that it would be nice to visit one this time and there happended to be one in KL with some good reviews. So we took the LRT to KL central and worked our way to the taxi counter. We paid the taxi there and then we went outside the building to wait for the taxi to arrive. The trip cost 29 ringgits which was reasonable considering the distance to Sunway Lagoon.
First, two hints for you if you plan to go there.. Check their website for discounts. For example right now until the end of the year you can get tickets for one third of the normal cost on Tuesdays when booked online. Also before going to the park, buy the ticket online and PRINT it, you'll save 20 ringgits (4€). The ticket cost something like 70€ for two of us which felt crazy because for example the flight from Langkawi to Penang was cheaper!
The park consists of amusement park, zoo (with tiger, lions and so much more), extreme park and water park. So you get a lot with that one ticket.
The amusement park was maybe a hint more directed at the kids, but we did enjoy the rollercoaster and the river adventure. You should btw always believe the signs there.. If you think that "You will get wet on this ride" might mean just a few springles of aqua, well... 😅

You will get wet on this ride 

We also noticed a Ghostbusters building at the amusement park and lots of people were lining up there. I wanted to see what it was because I've seen the movies and they are fun and wicked (except John Malkovich.. He gives me the jitters). So yeah, I was expecting something funny in this house. It didn't even ring a bell that there was a sign that said 'horror house' in that building..  (hmm reading signs might not be my strongest side). We entered in and the staff member there said "do not touch or hit the ghosts. They are there just to scare you but won't touch you". "Wait, what?"😱 Omg where am I putting myself in to!? I mean I have played with the thought that it would be cool to visit this kind of a place were the wookiemans (and wookieladys) are real people but I could never ever actually go in one of those places! 😱 Wooopsie-effin-huupsie me 😂 I could not back down anymore so I just clinged on to Matias with my arms and legs and closed my eyes 😂
It took maybe 20 minutes and we walked in different spooky rooms and narrow alleys and got spooked. Many times. I also notice that I have a high pitch in my screams.. 😅 After making out alive from the horrorhouse we headed to the water park. The park was huge with  lots of fun and also very scary slides! Especially the Monsoon 360 was horrible in a cool way! It's a very kamikaze kinda slide. You step on to this ladder or plastic floor if you will and then you hear "three, two, one" and the floor under you just disappears and you go down! Fast. Very fast. 😂 Haha it was scary but also the feeling and adrenaline after you made it out alive was amazing!
But a Muslim country combined with water park aka less clothes.. it got interesting. There were a lot of people wearing swimsuits that cover their whole body... and not too many fellow caucasian people wearing less so you can just imagine that I felt kind of naked in my bikini.. I had a scarf with me so when walking longer distances I could cover up, but not everywhere.. There were signs that had pictures of outfits that are considered ok and luckily this was a sign I kinda understood. Bikini is ok at Sunway lagoon but maybe next time I would consider wearing something more covering like a sporty t-shirt.

The rides worth mentioning:

Monsoon 360 - you wear a sliding thingy on your back and go to a tube standing on a trap door almost a vertical drop under your feet. Then there's a countdown and off you drop. Adrenaline rising one!

Jungle Fury - riding down a slide with a big water tube. It accelerates greatly towards the end and does 180 turn. A fast ride but also a nice one.

Vuvuzela - Malaysia's largest water slide with a giant funnel. It was actually a quite violent ride so don't go if you have any back problems or similar conditions.

Monsoon 360. © 2017 Sunway Lagoon Malaysia

Melaka/Malacca

After KL we were heading towards Singapore by bus and we figured that the 6 hours journey was not for us. I had seen this place Melaka (also spelled Malacca) in Psychotravellers videos maybe a year before and the name kinda stuck in my head. The city is a UNESCO world heritage site and its 2 hours south from KL and the trip only costs 20 ringgits for two people (4€). Not too shabby. But after arriving to the bus station it occured to us that the taxi scene was crazy there! 5km trip cost 20 ringgits even though they were fixed prices and we felt that 10 would have been a sufficient price. The taxi people just laughed at us and said that they need to cover their way back to the station also.. "what!?!" :D We were accompanied by a Belgian guy and it dawned on us that Grab would be the way to go. But for us to use Grab (Ubers Asian cousin), it would be handy to have a local number and an access to the internet. We didn't have it at that time so 20 ringgit it was.

We stayed in SGI vacation club which was 30€/night. A nice hotel, excellent staff and ok location if you want to visit big malls and have some famous chicken rice balls (which you should do). But this area is a bit further from the famous Jonker street, the river and from the famous attractions like Christ Church, Stadthuys (oldest Dutch building there) and museums.. and Hard Rock Cafe. And the rickshaws with lights, Hello Kitty's and their 110 decibel music..
Melaka is a beautiful city and it has some homelike feeling also because the river runs through it just like in a even more beautiful city called Turku ❤️ (ok, I might be a little bit biased on this one).

Here is a link for the psychotravellers video that got me interested on this place.
Definitely worth the visit, but please.. get the local number (cheap) and use Grab.
And when you fancy something to eat, keep these places in mind:

Ee Ji Ban Chicken Rice Ball
Jeta Groves (have some Laksa and skyfruit coffee there)
Wild Coriander
The Geographer (for the beer and good times)

* KL - We didn't have breakfast at Cosmo but closeby there are some good cafes like LOKL and Lucy in the Sky 👍Nearby LOKL there is also a great 2hour express laundry service 👍

- Sini

P.S We want to say Merry Christmas to all of you! Hopefully it's a good one and there is enough snow in Finland so Santa and the reindeers have easier time this year ;) Ho ho ho!

Terkkuja tuulisesta Thaimaasta ja
Hyvää joulua! Lämpimiä halauksia perhe ja ystävät ❤️



Our route so far

Penang

I've lived in Penang for six months or so when I did my student exchange in USM (Universiti Sains Malaysia) back in 2008. So if getting to Bangkok felt little like coming home, getting to Penang definitely felt like it too. There is a taxi counter in the airport arrivals hall and they have list of destinations with fixed prices. It's recommended to use the stand instead of hailing a cab outside the airport, because some drivers easily "forget" to use the meter and you can get ripped off. So we got our taxi tickets for 44 ringgits and got to our hotel in George Town. After checking in and chilling a bit we headed out to find some food. After 5-10 minutes walking we hit the jackpot as we found a little street filled with different stalls selling all the local specialties. Penang is a melting pot of cultures and it also means a diverse and delicious food culture. I ended up ordering some Hokkien Hae Mee from an old Chinese lady who didn't speak English almost at all. The dish consisted of some noodles, chicken, prawns, fish cakes and some other not-so-easily-recognizable ingredients in a savory broth. I had some Dragon fruit juice to go with that which actually cost more than the food but 14 ringgits (2.9€) for the whole set was not bad at all!

Some of the food stalls

Slurping it

After the meal we continued our walk, the next stop being KOMTAR. It is easily seen and recognized from all around George Town, but as far as shopping goes there is very limited options and many of the shops have shut down. We spent some time there wandering around in few interesting shops we found and then continued our way along Jalan Penang towards George Town nightlife. It had been two hours since the food stall stop and we were getting pretty hungry so we went to Red Garden, a hawker center with dozens of food stalls to choose from. I went with roasted duck and Sini had some Nasi Goreng Pattaya, both dishes tasting delicious. Our stomachs full we walked to the nearby bar area to enjoy some liquid bread before taking a taxi back to our hotel.

The following day we went to Gurney Plaza, a nine stories shopping mall with 380 stores. Beats KOMTAR. Other than that we just took it easy and stayed at the hotel and later went to Red Garden again. 

There's a ton of street art scattered around George Town and we went on a hunt to find some on the third day. Chinatown was a good place to start so there we went. Sini had saved a screenshot of a art map which we used to find some of the paintings. Locals were very interested about the art pieces also and there were many groups doing some spotting around the city's tiny streets. We also spotted Chew Jetty across the street and went there for a walk. There are Chinese clans living in villages built on stilts above the water and Chew Jetty is one of the most visited ones. The jetties were formed in 19th century when Chinese immigrants came to Penang and worked near the port and nowadays they have UNESCO world heritage status.

After spending some time in the jetty we slowly made our way to a scooter rental place I had spotted earlier online. This time they actually asked if we had international driving licenses and after presenting them we got our scooter pretty quickly. It was a reputable company with plenty of good reviews but it's still always a good precaution to take pictures of the scratches and other damage the bike might have so they don't blame you later for those and ask for money. We made our way towards my old hoods in Gelugor. During my studies we lived in Sunny Ville and although I've visited Penang after that I've not been to our old place since.  Luckily they didn't ask us anything at the gate and we got to the premises for a short visit. The cafe had changed a bit but otherwise the place looked pretty much the same as in 2008. From Sunny Ville we rode to Bayan Lepas, Balik Pulau and took the curvy hill road back to George Town. After returning the scooter we had dinner in Red Garden. Yes. Again. Hey don't look at me like that, if Anthony Bourdain has eaten there they must have some pretty darn good food!

We still had one stop before going to sleep. We went to KOMTAR's bus station and got our tickets to Cameron Highlands for the next day. Across the station I spotted a place selling Cendol and that was on my list for dishes to try so I got a bowl of it. As weird as it looks it's actually very good even though I'm not usually a fan of sweet things. There's coconut milk, grass jelly, shaved ice and tons of palm sugar. Malaysian version also contained some red beans, yummy.

This might take a while..

Sunny Ville :)

@ Red Garden

Cendol

A short stop to Cameron Highlands

We were supposed to be in front of the bus ticket booking office 10.30 am, but being too optimistic about how long would it take to get there we were running late. Our Grab (similar to Uber) was there around 10.45 am and then we run with the guy we booked tickets from to the minivan and it actually took maybe another 15 minutes before we left the station. The minivan took us to the other bus station and it took over an hour before our bus got there. On top of that the bus ride took over four hours so it was getting dark already when we got to Tanah Rata in Cameron Highlands. We had only rough conception of where our hotel (Heritage Hotel) was located so it took some time to find it. We asked around and after a few missteps we found the place. It was getting late so we looked for a place to eat dinner nearby and called it a night.

The next day we had some daylight to explore the city. It definitely has some Europe vibe to it as the buildings look like they're taken from some village in the Alps. The climate is also cooler and it was a nice change after the hot and humid weather we'd had so far. We looked for a taxi and asked how much would it be to visit the nearby tea plantation. The driver said 20 ringgits for the return ride and a hour of waiting there. That sounded good so off we went to the Cameron Bharat Tea Estate. The views were nice and we took a walk down also. After coming back up we had some tea at the restaurant there. When we got back and paid the driver insisted that the price was 20 ringgits one way. The guy seemed nice and it might be that he wasn't trying to rip us off but nonetheless it was a good reminder to make sure you agree on the price beforehand. All in all Cameron Highlands was a nice place to visit but maybe not worth it if you're just visiting for a one day because of the long bus ride. Luckily we have time :)

- Matias 

Tanah Rata

Life is like a box of chocolates

Our route so far