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

Crossing the border to Langkawi

It was a beautiful, hot Tuesday when we packed our bags and headed to the beach.. though today was not the day to just lay there. No, it was time to go to the immigration so we could say our goodbyes to Thailand and hello to Malaysia.

We had booked our ferry tickets the day before from the company called Bu-ngha and paid 750 tbh each. We had read that bookings should happen at least the day before and before 6 pm. So with the tickets we went to check in, handed our passports and sat by the immigration to wait for them to call us by our names. After some time the moment came and we went to get our stamps and noticed that we didn't get our passports back just yet.. scary, but we figured (hoped) that we'll get them back on the ferry. Then after some more waiting we got to hop on a longtail boat and got a lift to the ferry. Koh Lipe does not have a pier so wear a pair of flip-flops and shorter pants so you won't get too wet when entering or leaving the island ☺️.

The trip to Langkawi took about 1,5 hours and the Malay immigration was quick and easy. Before we noticed we were sitting in a taxi, the local driver was speaking some Finnish to us and again we saw some monkeys on the street :) We stayed in Pondok Keladi Guest House. The lovely and funny host Dee lives also on the property with his partner and they were always ready to help. I was expecting some formal check in but no! Dee was so laidback and was immediately ready to show us around the property and also the nearby areas with his car. And there were even complimentary water and beer waiting for us in the fridge.. what a wonderful welcome :) The place is located approximately 1-1,5km from the beachfront and from the shops and restaurants. Dee had also rental scooters available (30 MYR per day) so it was easy to walk or drive to the busier area. After settling in we headed to search for the ATM and food. We found this small chain restaurant, I don't think you've heard of them.. umm it's called McDonald's 😁 Our food was mad cheap! I took a triple cheeseburger meal and it was 3€ (15.5 MYR). Whoa! I also learned quickly that Langkawi is like Åland for the Finn's.. tax free. So cheap beer, tobacco and parfume are available. The chocolate is also tax free and we did find this magical place which advertised to have chocolate from all over the world! Omg I got emotional just from the thought of chocolate and even more so when I thought that I might find some Finnish Fazerin sinistä (Fazer Blue (?)) from the shop.. I know myself and I am sure that I would have started weeping if I have found the best chocolate there is from there.. But this time I was out of luck unfortunately :( But! I do have one bar of Fazer Blue with me but I am saving it for 6th of December because it's a big day for Finland, celebrating 100 years of independence ❤️

Pondok Keladi

Fear factor

We were chilling in the common area of the guesthouse on our first day at Langkawi when we noticed monkeys like 10 meters from us.. they were climbing on trees and getting closer to us.. luckily Dee's dogs scare them away. Then when I went back in to our room, noticed some droppings on the bedside table.. quick Google search taught me that it could be gecko feces and it could get us ill. Gecko droppings contains salmonella and when inhaled.. well you get salmonella also. I was horrified. Then, just when we were heading out to eat, the thunder started booming.. and like that wasn't enough the toilet stopped flushing! "Omg!!!"

I guess it's good to clarify that I  am scared of monkeys, bugs, getting ill, bacteria and for example.. thunder. I like safety and cleanliness.. This night it felt like many of my fears were coming true and I was way out of my comfort zone, again! I was panicking. Luckily I am fortunate enough to have an amazing boyfriend who understands me and Matias said we could have dinner at the guesthouse (guesthouse has a shared kitchen and offers toast, eggs, noodles and coffee for free) and just chill at our room (our gecko poo room 😂). I got the immidiate fear out of my system and started soon to make jokes already about the dirty monkeys and the evening went nicely. We ended up to stay in this place for three nights because,  i dont know, it still felt like a good and safe place to stay.

Cruising around Langkawi

The second day we rented a scooter and went to the cable car which was around 17km away from Pondok Kelodi and Cenang beach. When we got to the cable car park, we saw that this was actually a big touristic place with different kinds of tax-free shops and fun things to do. We bought  the basic package which included the cable car ride and entrance to SkyDome, SkyRex and 3D arts museum. It cost us 55 MYR (11€) per person. The cable car ride was actually scary! Scarier than the one in Barcelona! If I understood correctly, the Langkawi one is the steepest in the world and it sure felt like it! :) A good experience! After getting back to the ground level we headed to the SkyDome where we watched some short films. It was ok but nothing spectacular. After that we went to the SkyRex which had a cart that fits around 30 passengers. We got 3D glasses and sat down with some scared Malay girls :D The cart rolled to an area with 180 degrees screens and some kind of platform that allowed the cart to move and all of a suddent we were a part of Jurassic Park type of a ride where the Tyrannosaurus tried to eat us! Fun ride and it definitely exceeded my expectations :) The 3D arts museum was cool too. A big place filled with 3D art that you could photograph yourself with. Here's some examples:

Later that night we ended up in a Korean restaurant called Haroo. It was top rated on TripAdvisor. The atmosphere was nice and the lady who was waitering us was absolutely wonderful! We ordered kimchi and she was in awe like "how do YOU Europeans know kimchi and how do you dare to order it?" It was out of ordinary I guess! She was happy that we knew their traditional dish and that we ordered and ate it :) We highly recommend this restaurant :) (I must add that it was thundering again but I found some courage somewhere and hopped on the scooter still.. a personal win for me :))

Our purpose was to stay in Langkawi for two nights and take a ferry to Penang but Dee said that we should think about the flying possibility also. So we checked the prices and found a very cheap Air Asia flight so that's what we booked. We paid 266 MYR with the value package (including 20kg luggage and a meal). We could have gotten it a little cheaper without the package and with 15kg luggage allowance but we hadn't tested how much our backpacks weight before buying the tickets.

On the third day on the island we hopped on the scooter again and went to Kuah to see the famous eagle statue and then back to Cenang beach to walk and wander around. We were surprised how many jellyfish we saw there! We didn't see any in Thailand so that was strange. After some wandering around we were heading back to the main street from the beach. I tried so hard to watch my step but then.. it happened. I stepped on to something sharp and started bleeding a lot from my heel. An old Malay man came to say that I have to push the blood out first rather than stop the bleeding. He was sure it was a rusty nail that I had stepped on to.. I figured it was a rock or a piece of sharp plastic.. either way I was not happy. Shit! (Ja paljon muita kirosanoja..) The man also said that I needed "a shot" and he wasn't taking about tequila alright.. but I had my latest tetanus shot on September so I was confused should I go see a doc or not. We went back to the guesthouse and I started my Google search.. Dee called his medical friend and he said that because my tetanus is ok, I don't need to worry.. well.. I worried. Again thanks to Whatsapp, I asked help from home and got the "ok" from there also and was able to breathe again. Just some Dettol cleaning liquid there and some bandaid and I was good to go. On Friday I felt that it really was time to get out of this island and see what else Malaysia has to offer. Off to Penang we went! Hopefully we (I)  have less scarier times ahead..

- Sini

Langkawi riders

The eagle 

Our route so far