Indonesia: East Java

After landing in Jakarta, we spent an hour or so trying to figure out how to get the train from the airport to the hostel, but eventually failed and had to get a taxi. We were both still pretty tired so we went for a quick walk to get food then had an early night. After the open, quiet spaces of Singapore, Jakarta felt really busy and dirty so we decided to move on the next day.

Singapore departure lounge was very fancy! We took a 9 hour train to Yogyakarta, arriving at the hostel at 11pm after walking through the town. This felt like a much nicer area so we spent the next day exploring on foot. All the main sights to see were about 30km out of town and we were still too tired to want to drive, so we spent a day in the town and saw the local park with the famous two trees - legend has it that if a person is blindfolded and can walk between the trees, they will have good luck and prosperity in the future. Failure is said to be due to an impure heart. We didn't give it a go ourselves, but we spent a while watching people rent blindfolds and give it a try - some very funny entertainment! After this, we walked past the water castle and the Sultan's palace. We briefly explored the more 'touristy' area for restaurants but there wasn't too much there, and the couple we did like the sound of were closed until the evening.

The next morning we took another 8 hour train to our next stop of Probolinggo, a base town for a trip to Mount Bromo. We arrived here late again, about 8pm, but luckily the guesthouse were able to book us a trip for the next morning to hike Bromo for the sunrise. Ten minutes later, we were told that unfortunately Bromo was closed due to a local holiday (Nyepi - Balinese New Year; although we didn't know this at the time!). From what we could understand, the roads around Bromo would be closed from 6am - 6am, the next day, and as sunrise is at 5.45 this would mean not being able to hike Bromo for two more days. As we didn't want to waste time doing nothing (Probolinggo and the surrounding areas aren't very touristy) we decided to skip Bromo and head to Bali in the morning instead. This was a shorter train journey - 4 hours to Banywangi - followed by a ferry to Gilimanuk on Bali then a bus down to Canggu. We left Probolinggo at 10am and arrived at Balywangi Bari station where we walked across the road to the ferry port... to find that ferries to Bali were also cancelled today (surprise)! Luckily we had a guesthouse saved for the area so we headed there for the night. It turned out to be a really lovely homestay where the woman only served vegetarian food! She was kind enough to give us food in the evening and breakfast the next morning for free too. After a slow morning, we finally got the 45 minute ferry across to Bali for about 30p each!

​ Accommodation: Jakarta: Old Batavia Capsule Hostel, 1 night, IR for a private double room. Yogyakarta: Snooze House, 2 nights, IR for a double room and IR for a dorm bed. Probolinggo: Pink House, 1 night, 250,000 IR for a private double room. Balywangi: Pura Amalia, 1 night, 200,000 IR for a private double room.

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