I’m so comically far behind on posting that I almost contemplated skipping the rest of Indonesia, and telling you about our recent antics in Thailand. However, I swiftly realised that I hadn’t written about my birthday yet! Nor about getting lost in the desert. Or, for that matter, about the crazy city we visited where nobody spoke any English (and we were forced to speak Indonesian!). With this much adventure, a mammoth post seems unavoidable!

The Gili Islands

We were on the Gili Islands, just off the coast of Lombok, Indonesia, for a whole week. Disappointingly, I spent most of that time in bed. I’m pretty sure I was cursed in Indonesia. From start to finish I was increasingly sickly. After 3 weeks of a ‘bad cold’ interspersed with nausea and a strange dizzy feeling, I swallowed my fears about Indonesian witch doctors, bit the proverbial bullet and rocked up to the only surgery on the Gilis.

After maybe a second of peering into my ear, the doctor very definitely pronounced that I had an ear infection. And probably had done for the last month. Oh yes, and I also had a chest infection. Impressive! I entirely blame the filthy waters where we dived in Borneo.

A totally illegal dosage of antibiotics later, I felt much renewed and proceeded to eat every restaurant on the island out of house and home. I’d really missed having an appetite! The food on the Gilis was great, too – barbecued baked potatoes, fresh baguettes and tomato salad with pesto were the order of the day. In another eerie case of ’small world’, we ran into an old Nottingham friend in a bar on the beach one night. Liam had lived opposite me in first year, and studied the same specialist subject as Sam in third year. Nothing compares to the shock of being on a gorgeous desert island and running into a good friend we were never expecting to see. It’s happened to us twice now! How many more strange chance meetings will we have out here?

Next, we proceeded to Mount Bromo for some volcano-climbing fun.

Mount Bromo (aka. Getting Lost in the Desert)

They said it would be an easy 45-minute walk for fit young things like us. Five hours later, we were in the middle of the desert, out of water, without a single bloody clue how to get back. It was one of those rare, ‘wow, I might actually DIE here’ sensations.

Let me back-track. The night before, we’d arrived in one of the hill villages next to Mount Bromo. It’s one of the great natural wonders of the world: a small mountain with an active volcano in the middle, which spews sulphuric acid-smoke-stuff (not a scientist) in a fairly dramatic, photogenic way (see Sam’s photos, below). Everyone assured us that the best time to make the easy walk to the summit was just before sunrise. So after stumbling out of bed at 3AM (oops – we meant to get up at 4 but hadn’t factored in a time change!), we walked, in the pitch black and fog, towards where we loosely estimated the mountain to be. On the way we picked up Tim, another Brit who was planning to travel the world for THREE YEARS. Jealous? Us? Anyway, we asked every single 4X4 driving past us (admittedly, not many) which way it was to Mount Bromo. They all pointed in different directions. Hopelessly confused, we meandered onwards.

Eventually, we realised that we were really quite hopelessly lost, and that our best bet would be to wait until sunrise. Sam was fairly calm; I less so. I have a completely morbid habit of writing my own obituary in my head whenever I’m in a tense situation (rather like I write blog posts in my head more or less continually). On the rare occasions when I’d walk home alone in Nottingham late at night, this tendency would be at its worst. Well, it got considerably worse in the middle of nowhere in the mist!

Thankfully, when the sun rose we (well, Sam and Tim) were able to work out which direction we should be walking in, and so we despondently trooped all the way back. And how we laughed; we must have been twenty metres away from Bromo at one point, but thanks to the total lack of visibility, utterly hopeless signs (in fact, make that counterproductive signs – they were more hindrance than help!), and useless passers-by, we had managed to miss it. Super-frustrating, but at least we a) weren’t dead and b) were able to climb the volcano at long last! After Bromo, we spent a night in…

Surabaya

Surabaya really was so different to what we were expecting. Sam was in a foul mood (and I wasn’t much better) as we’d been travelling for days and really hadn’t wanted to spend a night there – it was just to break up the journey on to the more touristy city of Yogyakarta, on the island of Java. Surabaya’s universally maligned for being industrial, polluted, and much too busy. There’s nothing for tourists, it’s more of a business area. But just in case anyone Googles ‘Surabaya’ and comes across this post: do not be disheartened! The people of Surabaya we met were THRILLED to see a pair of backpackers. It was one of those places where every man, woman and child wants to say ‘hello!’ just to see you smile and return the greeting. They could not have been more lovely.

Another reason we both enjoyed our evening in Surabaya so much is because in tourist cities, particularly in Indonesia (I find), people are inclined to try to rip you off. ‘Westerners = rich’ is the overwhelming mantra, and to some extent, I can see their point. We are very privileged in the world, and I try not to deny that by saying ‘no, poor!’ or similar (despite being a humble not-even-student-any-more). In Surabaya, people were not out to try to rip you off. It wouldn’t even have crossed their minds. After the rest of Indonesia, it was incredibly refreshing. In fact, we took two bicycle taxis in Surabaya (where they pedal behind you while you sit in a carriage), and I knowingly overpaid the driver both times. For me, the difference was totally negligible (about 50p). I would pay that over and over just to watch their eyes light up in dawning comprehension as they realise how much you’ve given them. One of them didn’t even understand and tried to give me change! And in fairness, these drivers work hard: they work long, physically demanding hours cycling people around the city. We both felt guilty even using them, really. I was only paying them what I thought was an absolutely fair price for such a labour-intensive job.

It’s at times like that when the poverty you see here does become quite painful. But I feel a lot better for having given them a generous tip. Just making that little difference to their day, I hope.

Jogjakarta

So we eventually arrived in Jogjakarta, exhausted after three days on the road and a serious lack of sleep. My birthday was approaching. So it was the best type of bliss to learn that Sam had booked us into a seriously decadent little hotel called the Ministry of Coffee for a few nights. The staff were almost comically deferent when they greeted us - I was a little embarrassed, looking a mess with my backpack hanging off me. We were ushered up to the top floor (‘the penthouse suite!’, I declared) and into our glorious room, which was painted in serene shades of blue. There was air conditioning which did not sound like an aeroplane taking off. There was a bed with beautiful crisp cotton linen (how I have missed thee!) and comfy, perfectly plumped pillows. There was a balcony. There was Sky, with countless trashy channels. And oh lord, when I saw the immaculate bathroom I almost burst into tears!

It wasn’t one of those vile chains, either. Just absolutely perfect in its neat compactness. Plus, they had a LIBRARY. And the menu boasted about five different types of (uniformly divine) chocolate cake. I could possibly write a sonnet about scrambled eggs and cornflakes in the morning. After almost four months of backpacker hotels (some of which, in fairness to them, were lovely and full of character!), this place was Mecca. Neither of us wanted to leave. In fact, we didn’t manage to see much of Yogyakarta, because most of our time disappeared in the library, eating cake.

My birthday itself was wonderful. Although he didn’t need to (the hotel was present enough), Sam had found me lots of other wonderful gifts. Quite a challenge when we’re on the go together all the time! I have some beautiful new silver and turquoise earrings from a market in Yogyakarta (Yogyakarta’s a silver haven). Plus another pretty pair of earrings in a metallic silver, and a blue day bag for travelling which was much more appropriate than the embroidered black one I’d been lugging around, and a few other bits and pieces. I treated myself to a halloumi (HALLOUMI! We all know how I feel about halloumi!) salad at our hotel for lunch. In the afternoon I had a lovely massage, which was Sam’s brother’s birthday present to me. Thanks Joe! We watched a lot of trashy TV. And in the evening we ate at Via Via, an international travellers’ cafe which served absolutely wonderful food and accompanying ambience. It just so happened to be hosting a live jazz band that night. As live jazz is up there with halloumi, libraries and chocolate cake for me, the timing could not have been any better.

Thus, we left Indonesia and flew back to Bangkok on a high. And now we are back in Thailand! As this post is as epic as I promised, I shall leave writing about Thailand for a few days. We’re off to Laos next and, after all the good things Sam and I have heard, neither of us can wait.