(Written on Monday, 26 July. The blog below describes the events of Sunday, 25 July.)
Now I will continue with the my question from the previous post "where do I even begin?" I guess the fun started on Saturday morning. I was awake early, yet again so I went on Skype and for the first time in a few days my video was working. Got to see my mom's beautiful face, but it crashed out when I tried to see my sister. In any case, it was nice to hear their voices. After the hotel's simple breakfast, I got my stuff, checked our and waited for the air conditioned mini-bus which would take me, and others, to Bromo. Bromo is actually the name of the volcano, not a town. The towns near Bromo are Cemoro Lawang and Ngadisari (where I'd be staying).
The car didn't arrive until 8:15am and when I got in, I was a bit disappointed with what I saw. The couple transports I'd had previously had been quite nice, this one seemed a bit run down. There were two seats in the front and three rows in the back and only two people in the van. I wanted to sit in the front of the three rows, but there was a step in the floor and it was uncomfortable for my legs. Thinking I wanted to be as comfortable as possible for the 11 hour ride, I moved to the second row at the right window. The couple in the car were Dutch (surprise, surprise) and were traveling for six months. We proceeded to pick up the eight other passengers.
Everyone was chatting about their travel plans, where they are from, etc. Eventually I said we needed to introduce ourselves properly since we had a long day together and we played a silly name game. There was the Dutch couple (Charlotte and Harry), French couple (Stephanie and Paul), Swiss couple (Leah and Andreas) and two Dutch girls (Marica and Liz). The two in the front were Russian and appeared to be father and son, but they never really joined our conversation. It was fun, but we were only 30 minutes into the journey and were joking about how we'd be feeling when we arrived.
An hour into the ride, the car felt hot and we asked the driver to turn up the air conditioning. He turned it to max. Unfortunately, our air con wasn't real air con. The vents were blowing air which was slightly cool but nothing like we expected. I couldn't believe it was going to be like that for the next ten hours. Oh gosh.
Our first stop, at a gas station, was two hours into the journey. The road on this part of the ride had been more populated than I thought - basically the entire road was built up. I wasn't expecting much of the facilities and I was correct; it was my first squat toilet. After rolling up my pant legs, I ventured in. They aren't so bad as long as you bring your own toilet paper (which I had) but to flush you take a bucket from a basin of water and throw the water down the hole. Not sure how that works if you don't just pee, but apparently you just keep putting in water. Then its antibacterial hand gel to wash away the germs. Fun times.
By the way, I might as well be typing this by candlelight right now as the light in the room is so weak.
Back in the warm minibus, I looked out the window when I wasn't dozing off. As I said, the area right around the road was surprisingly built up and there were limited green fields. Around 1pm we pulled off the road for lunch. A couple of other minibuses pulled up behind us, but this place was not very ice. I wasn't sure what I could order that would be ok for my stomach, so I went with Nasi Goreng (fried rice with a fried egg on top). Didn't seem to have any problems from it, so yay for that.
Sometime during our drive, we all saw our first accident. A motor bike had gone down and one guy's leg was stuck in the bike while the other was lying on the ground. It was really sad, but not exactly shocking since the drivers are somewhat crazy; almost hard to believe I haven't seen more accidents.
Another squat toilet around 4pm and we were on the road again. We stopped one more time for gas before arriving in Probolinggo at 7pm. A guy stuck his head into the bus and said "you need to get out and we'll explain what happens tomorrow and then you change drivers and its another hour to Bromo". It was pitch black out and we were all tired and cranky that we still had an hour left. The place was really sketchy. There were lots of guys hanging around; a couple took our tickets and copied them to new ones. We got new drivers and some people switched buses. Then other buses showed up and we got delayed. The stop ended up taking 45 minutes and a couple minutes after being on the road, we stopped at a mini-mart to pick up some food. I grabbed a bottle of water, pack of biscuits and pack of Oreos (good thing too as the Oreos ended up being dinner).
We arrived at Hotel Sion at 9pm; another interesting scene with people taking tickets and randomly getting room keys. I wish I could describe the chaos. Most of us were sleeping in the front part of the hotel. The rooms were really run down and gross. The light in my room wasn't working, so instead of replacing it, they moved me to another room. It had its own toilet and shower attached, but I took one look at the shower and decided to pass. Of course, the light wasn't working in the bathroom and trying to communicate this fact was a struggle. Oh, and did I mention that I was planning on staying a second night? Some girl told me to laugh about the situation but when I told her I had two nights she changed her tune. Finally the guy came to my room, saw the problem and got me a new bulb. Good thing I have a sleeping bag liner, because there was no way I would have slept on those sheets with those blankets touching me.
At 9:30pm I was at a loss of what to do because I didn't want to shower, there was no sink, no electrical outlet and I hadn't eaten anything but a couple of cookies since lunch. There was nothing else to eat, so it was two Oreos for dinner. Very healthy. I didn't feel like changing into pjs because it was cold outside, so I took out my sleeping sheet and climbed in. I tried to call my parents to see if they could book me another night at the hotel I'm staying at in Surabaya on Tuesday night, but apparently I can't place calls and that idea was out. I went to sleep unsure what I was going to do about tonight. I slept pretty well because I was so exhausted.
(On my next blog post I will continue this story. Remember that I wrote this on Monday, even though I'm posting it on Tuesday. The events above took place on Sunday.)
Now I will continue with the my question from the previous post "where do I even begin?" I guess the fun started on Saturday morning. I was awake early, yet again so I went on Skype and for the first time in a few days my video was working. Got to see my mom's beautiful face, but it crashed out when I tried to see my sister. In any case, it was nice to hear their voices. After the hotel's simple breakfast, I got my stuff, checked our and waited for the air conditioned mini-bus which would take me, and others, to Bromo. Bromo is actually the name of the volcano, not a town. The towns near Bromo are Cemoro Lawang and Ngadisari (where I'd be staying).
The car didn't arrive until 8:15am and when I got in, I was a bit disappointed with what I saw. The couple transports I'd had previously had been quite nice, this one seemed a bit run down. There were two seats in the front and three rows in the back and only two people in the van. I wanted to sit in the front of the three rows, but there was a step in the floor and it was uncomfortable for my legs. Thinking I wanted to be as comfortable as possible for the 11 hour ride, I moved to the second row at the right window. The couple in the car were Dutch (surprise, surprise) and were traveling for six months. We proceeded to pick up the eight other passengers.
Everyone was chatting about their travel plans, where they are from, etc. Eventually I said we needed to introduce ourselves properly since we had a long day together and we played a silly name game. There was the Dutch couple (Charlotte and Harry), French couple (Stephanie and Paul), Swiss couple (Leah and Andreas) and two Dutch girls (Marica and Liz). The two in the front were Russian and appeared to be father and son, but they never really joined our conversation. It was fun, but we were only 30 minutes into the journey and were joking about how we'd be feeling when we arrived.
An hour into the ride, the car felt hot and we asked the driver to turn up the air conditioning. He turned it to max. Unfortunately, our air con wasn't real air con. The vents were blowing air which was slightly cool but nothing like we expected. I couldn't believe it was going to be like that for the next ten hours. Oh gosh.
Our first stop, at a gas station, was two hours into the journey. The road on this part of the ride had been more populated than I thought - basically the entire road was built up. I wasn't expecting much of the facilities and I was correct; it was my first squat toilet. After rolling up my pant legs, I ventured in. They aren't so bad as long as you bring your own toilet paper (which I had) but to flush you take a bucket from a basin of water and throw the water down the hole. Not sure how that works if you don't just pee, but apparently you just keep putting in water. Then its antibacterial hand gel to wash away the germs. Fun times.
By the way, I might as well be typing this by candlelight right now as the light in the room is so weak.
Back in the warm minibus, I looked out the window when I wasn't dozing off. As I said, the area right around the road was surprisingly built up and there were limited green fields. Around 1pm we pulled off the road for lunch. A couple of other minibuses pulled up behind us, but this place was not very ice. I wasn't sure what I could order that would be ok for my stomach, so I went with Nasi Goreng (fried rice with a fried egg on top). Didn't seem to have any problems from it, so yay for that.
Sometime during our drive, we all saw our first accident. A motor bike had gone down and one guy's leg was stuck in the bike while the other was lying on the ground. It was really sad, but not exactly shocking since the drivers are somewhat crazy; almost hard to believe I haven't seen more accidents.
Another squat toilet around 4pm and we were on the road again. We stopped one more time for gas before arriving in Probolinggo at 7pm. A guy stuck his head into the bus and said "you need to get out and we'll explain what happens tomorrow and then you change drivers and its another hour to Bromo". It was pitch black out and we were all tired and cranky that we still had an hour left. The place was really sketchy. There were lots of guys hanging around; a couple took our tickets and copied them to new ones. We got new drivers and some people switched buses. Then other buses showed up and we got delayed. The stop ended up taking 45 minutes and a couple minutes after being on the road, we stopped at a mini-mart to pick up some food. I grabbed a bottle of water, pack of biscuits and pack of Oreos (good thing too as the Oreos ended up being dinner).
We arrived at Hotel Sion at 9pm; another interesting scene with people taking tickets and randomly getting room keys. I wish I could describe the chaos. Most of us were sleeping in the front part of the hotel. The rooms were really run down and gross. The light in my room wasn't working, so instead of replacing it, they moved me to another room. It had its own toilet and shower attached, but I took one look at the shower and decided to pass. Of course, the light wasn't working in the bathroom and trying to communicate this fact was a struggle. Oh, and did I mention that I was planning on staying a second night? Some girl told me to laugh about the situation but when I told her I had two nights she changed her tune. Finally the guy came to my room, saw the problem and got me a new bulb. Good thing I have a sleeping bag liner, because there was no way I would have slept on those sheets with those blankets touching me.
At 9:30pm I was at a loss of what to do because I didn't want to shower, there was no sink, no electrical outlet and I hadn't eaten anything but a couple of cookies since lunch. There was nothing else to eat, so it was two Oreos for dinner. Very healthy. I didn't feel like changing into pjs because it was cold outside, so I took out my sleeping sheet and climbed in. I tried to call my parents to see if they could book me another night at the hotel I'm staying at in Surabaya on Tuesday night, but apparently I can't place calls and that idea was out. I went to sleep unsure what I was going to do about tonight. I slept pretty well because I was so exhausted.
(On my next blog post I will continue this story. Remember that I wrote this on Monday, even though I'm posting it on Tuesday. The events above took place on Sunday.)
Oye vey! Can't wait to hear the rest of the story!
ReplyDelete