a record or diary of my thoughts and experiences in this new phase of life. Join me on my physical and mental journey to see what is out there beyond the hamster wheel. I hope to navigate through, over and around the norm, away from the well trodden path, aside the tourist trap...........
we'll see
My cold has really kicked in - didn't sleep well, all bunged up and felt chilli last night......poor me
Decided I needed some fruit for vitamins so went to find a stall at the side of the road near Lembang, but didn't want to walk too far.
Took some pics along the way
notice they drive on the left......plus the road looks better than our local ones in Oxfordshire!!
A lot of the vehicles have this sign - 'Bismillah' which we all know from 'that' song - meaning 'In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate'
and some video from outside my hotel - it can be tricky crossing the road :
Unfortunately my watch got water logged yesterday in the torrential rain 😓
Some of my fruit haul & avocados
and the stone Parasan showed me how to use to clean up silver - which gets tarnished a bronze colour from the sulphur fumes of the volcano - I think its solidified ash but I'm not sure. It breaks down into a paste with water and you can use it to polish the silver........
Woke up this morning feeling a bit rough - I had a sore throat yesterday & started to convince myself that I had caught maleria from my mosquito bite in Jakarta - feeling full of cold which I probably caught from the many people coughing on the plane.
Looking out the window it seemed a bright fresh day. See the bread laid out on the balcony below.
I thought a walk would do me good and I could see on google maps there were hiking routes up to the volcano craters of Mount Tangkuban Parahu.
It's a 3 hour hike starting with walking along the busy road with bikes and cars wizzing past, then through a village called Lembang, which was slightly more rural
but still plenty of supermarkets and of course the obligatory Mc Donalds
Its a shame in a way that places like this are becoming more westernised, and the people appear to want that when some westerners, and certainly I've come to realise, the better and perhaps happier & more full-filling way is going back to more natural ways.......
This sign made me laugh
.....is there any other way to go but down!!?
So as I got to the other side of Lembang the noise dropped to quiet and I found the hiking route through the trees. It was a dense pine forest at first. There were cups on the trees collecting sap. It is used to make soap, adhesives and cosmetics & also for producing bio-briquettes for energy
It wasn't too tough a walk, and there were arrows in the trees to aid hikers but I did go a little wrong and was quite reliant on my location finder in google maps
I stumbled on a path where lots of young guys from the army were on exercise - streams of them filed past me with camping gear and rucksacks and they were saying, " Hello Maam!...how are you, where you from and smiling and laughing" ....they were probably wondering what I was doing there !
The camping area
I eventually came out through a gate to where the tourist car park was - I could see the coaches lined up and I had a little rest & a snack. Some more Indonesians wanted their pictures taken with me
I took their picture too
I continued up the path to the Crater - The smell of the sulphur was quite strong and the crater was amazing to see. The last eruption was in 2019. You can see it steaming and hear the mud bubbling - hopefully I caught this in the last of these videos slightly right of centre -
Bubbling mud:
I was approached by a guy who was doing guided trips down to another active crater so I went for it
That's my guide Parasan. He is 73 and lives in Lembang. We walked through the trees & he pointed out interesting flora & fauna. I suppose, as with most of these tourist things, they have it so they have various people lined up along the way to try to sell you things. I suppose its OK as they have to make a living somehow and I guess they see us tourists, particularly Europeans & Americans (& they have many tourists from other parts of Asia) like big money pots........if only! Though I suppose - to us - things seem really cheap, even on a small budget like mine. But Parasan was very sweet & the walk was very interesting.
He was telling me about the trees and how the bark becomes blackened from the sulphur and that the trees nearest the crater have died. He also showed me a video on his phone taken during the last eruption in 2019
At the crater, called Domas crater, there was a bubbling pool which was at 100 degrees - Parasan was keen for me to boil an egg but I didn't, and at the pool that was only 30 degrees I got beguiled into having a mud massage by two ladies with buckets of mud.....all part of the set up - but it was kind of fun and I haggled the price down 😁......it had started raining a bit as we were walking through the tress and at the crater the rain came down really hard and after the massage I was left sitting with my feet in the hot water holding an umbrella with the rain pouring...It was a funny site.......the lady said, "I go now" and everyone had fled to the hut. I too moved to the shelter where I got chatting to some lads from Singapore on holiday. They were conscripts from the army - medics as it turned out - and they gave me tips on travelling in Asia!
Domas crater HOT pool
I had told Parasan that I had hiked for three hours to the top and he laughed and said you are "Strong" ...
I think he relayed this to the ladies 😂
We left the hut and wondered back through the forest
Parasan pointed out the earthquake/eruption sensors that were buried down into the mountain - concrete blocks housing piezoelectric sensors that are monitored......
The rain didn't seem too bad under the cover of the tress but, at the roadside where the tour ended, it became apparent that it was raining pretty heavily
Parasan said goodbye as he was heading off on his motorbike back to Lembang and left me with his poncho - as mine (which I had bought earlier) had ripped - but I think he felt sorry for me as after he changed into his - more substantial - wet weather gear he offered me a lift back down the mountain.
I was reluctant at first, but he persisted and I'm glad I did.....as there was no way I could have walked back.
The rain had been a lot worse than I thought, and the ride was OK at first, but later, through the villages, the water was getting deeper and the rain heavier....it was torrential and I gave up trying to keep the hood of the poncho over my head while Parasan weaved through the floods and other traffic. I was a bit scared but I figured that at 73 he was probably quite an experienced driver and he didn't seem to be taking too many risks but I had no helmet of course and was just trying to relax and hoping that I wouldn't fall off!!
I obviously couldn't take any pics of this but here's one off the internet to describe the scene:
I'm not exagerating when I said to Parasan - "We could do with a boat!!"
He chuckled and said - you OK miss?....but I think even he found it bad as he said at one point, "This is not good"
The water was knee deep in some places and gushing through the streets. People were trying to wade through and sweep out the water from their huts at the sides of the road whilst Parasan 'juggled' the bike through the deep puddles whilst avoiding other traffic.
I must say I was glad when we stopped in Lembang and I managed to get a gojek taxi for the last bit of the journey back to my hotel......it was still a 40 minute walk and there was no way I was doing that in these weather conditions! Needless to say, I was very grateful to Parasan for my rescue lift and thanked him profusely!
I was slightly shell shocked and drenched through and back at the hotel later, I found the call to prayer quite poignant.......I'm not religious at all but I do find the sound of the call to prayer quite haunting.
I still remember it from my travels in Egypt more than 30 years ago ........
That was in KFC. I had breakfast there waiting for my bus....don't judge me....I needed coffee & it was right next to the bus station. I ordered a cheese quesadilla off the breakfast menu - which was the size of small folded pocket handkerchief - and an iced coffee.
BTW if you order an American coffee here it comes black with 18 spoons of sugar!
Travel is so much easier now....I just booked the bus (air conditioned coach) online & was sent a ticket & location.....I did wonder if it would all work out but it only cost £2 so I didn’t worry too much...all gone like clockwork so far - touch wood! - other than issues with the gojek app this morning but the Hotel receptionist came to me aid & booked it on her phone. So far everyone has been friendly and helpful.
It took 3 hours on the coach - which only had 12 people onboard
It's strange as in some ways the infrastructure is more advanced than ours for example the high speed trains, the efficiency, the bus system, everything does seem to run like clockwork, but there are other things that are behind. I noticed, when I was stuck in the city traffic, that the ambulances are just taxis - like back as far as the 80's at home.
They have plenty of little jobs like extra security guards on trains, cleaners on trains, petrol pump attendants. And there is plenty of poverty, although even the people without shoes still have a mobile phone in hand.
It was sad to see people selling snacks and stuff through the traffic jams. One man had a deformed foot and was on crutches - not the best place for him but I guess the woman he was with had him there for the sympathy vote. It made me cry.
Oh...and even Mini Mouse had to go begging
Not sure how she survived the heat in that tired faded looking suit 😓
Traffic into Bandung was mental but it had a cooler more mountainous feel being a bit fresher up in the foothills of Mount Tangkuban Parahu Volcano
At least my room has a window this time.
Not many places were open for food but I ate in a tiny hut at the side of the road where a lady cooked me some tofu that I had with rice and sauce with chillis & other stuff I wasn't quite sure what and more chilli sauce - it was dead tasty & she charged me 10,000 IDR which is about 45p.
Crossing the road here is a challenge in itself, there are so many bikes!
I was approached by a fourteen year old student who wanted to interview me for her school project - her mum videoed it - that was to be the first of quite a few interviews that day, including a bunch of 16 year old lads for their social media.
It was very hot & being Saturday the Jakarta History museum was full of students so I headed for the centre, where all the high rises are to see the monument
I heard jets on tube on the way and was confused to see the centre full of military - I actually thought it was a military camp at first. They were assembled there, preparing for a practise for the celebration on the 5th October to mark 80 years of the Indonesian military
I wandered what was going on at first as it looked like they were preparing for world war 3 with all the tanks lined up but a lady beckoned me through the gate and there were many families sitting around and touching the tanks and sitting in the vehicles taking photos. The soldiers were sitting around having their lunch. I sat for a while then headed back to the old town where I sampled some street food - pea-nutty & very spicy
Food & hungry cats having their lunch too
then I was interviewed a couple more times in the square and asked to have selfies with people but the last was a more lengthy and what turned into more meaningful chat with a smartly dressed 19 year old called Afif - accompanied by his four friends - I told him I had a daughter roughly his age so the video turned into a bit of a message to Eve.......
He was a really lovely young man who spoke extremely good English and wanted to chat for experience and to aid his project for his studies in communication. He was, indeed a very good communicator! I think he'll go far and it was nice that we had a few things in common, one being that he had started journaling and writing and had written a book which I think he hopes to publish.
I told him I too had started trying to write and I gave him the link to this blog so - Hi Afif 👋😀 & Hi to your very nice and patient friends, especially Melissa who tried to teach me some Indonesian!......I will try to remember "Nama Saya Lisa" but can't now forget - " sama-sama!!" which is 'you're Welcome!' -
" Terima kasih atas airnya!!"
There was some entertainment going on in the square of the old town and there was a bit of a party atmosphere with many families gathered to watch groups of Indonesian dancers etc.
