For our last luxuriously long winter break of our Peace Corps service (and maybe our lives) we wanted to make it memorable. Fortunately, traveling on a tight budget ensures non-stop adventures. Here is an episodic account of our experiences in the last month or so.
Adventure #1: Harbin Deep Freeze New Year
Chinese people have their own Lunar New Year, so the "actual" New Year by our standards goes generally unnoticed on the mainland. Last year, we went to our hostel's bar in Xi'an a few minutes before midnight expecting at least a few people to be celebrating. We were disappointed by expensive, low-quality beer and a nature documentary playing on the big screen. Midnight came and went silently, save the sound of Richy and I clinking together our small beer bottles. We resolved that this New Year's Eve would be different.
And different it was. Although we originally tried to plan a weekend in Hongkong, skyrocketing flights and hostel prices for that weekend took it out of our financial reach. However, the far-northern city of Harbin had great deals on flights for the last weekend before the official start of the world-renowned Harbin Ice Festival. The ice sculptures take weeks to carve, so even though the festival had not officially begun, many of the sculptures would be completed and the parks open. We joined our friends Amy and Daniel (the Dane) in what was arguably the worst possible hostel in the city, but it was relatively warm inside, so we stayed.
The location and dismal nature of the hostel virtually guaranteed that we would be spending most of our time out in the city, which on the first day was an exciting prospect as we ooh'ed and aah'ed at the ice sculptures and played around on the frozen over Songhua River. We inspected western style bars and Russian restaurants to find one suitable for our holiday merriment, and enjoyed Korean and Russian food as a break from our usual diet of spicy, oily noodles and fried rice.
We then enjoyed a lively, vodka- and beer-fueled New Years Eve (at an "American" style bar, oddly named USAbucks), especially after a nearby Chinese office banquet gifted us their leftover beer snacks. We made friends with several Canadian and American expats before my stomach violently decided we had had enough and we headed back to the hostel by cab.
As the weekend progressed, the cold seemed to penetrate our layers more quickly, and we found ourselves spending embarrassing number of hours at Starbucks just to stay warm and avoid the hazy pollution filling the sky (the weather statement actually simply said "-28ºC, Smoke"). Before flying back to Chongqing, Richy and I had both developed an annoying hacking cough, which we attributed to the icicles we had occasionally felt in our lungs and the dismal air pollution.
Adventure #2: Pollution Induced Chest Cold from Hell
Back in Chongqing, we had about a week planned to recover and relax after our Harbin trip and prepare for our long trip to Indonesia. Little did we know that whatever bug had caught us in Harbin would make our recovery time more like a convalescence. We spent the first few days in bed, hacking our lungs out and consuming little more than tea and light soup broth.
Our friends Leo and Katie D. had planned to come visit us during the weekend with Leo's friend, Eric, visiting from the states. We wanted to entertain them and show them around the city, but our energy was lagging and our coughs were hanging on. We managed a few outings, but we were pretty much wiped out by about 6pm every night. We found it was much easier to walk around with facemasks since it blocked the cold air and nasty exhaust fumes from irritating our coughs, but making us look like we were in quarantine.
After Katie D. and Leo left, we knew we had to recover to make our trip to Indonesia possible, so we spent the last few days barely leaving the bed, and not in a romantic way. We were hopeful that all we really needed was some warmth and sunshine to help us drive the last of our Harbin sickness away.
Adventure #3: Singapore Airport Paradise
Although we were much improved from our condition a few days earlier, we weren't exactly excited to get on an airplane, as fatigued and crappy as we already felt. Despite the convenience of the new Chongqing airport subway, we found ourselves spending an irritating amount of time schlepping around to find the outdated international terminal.
Once on the plane however, we were surprised at the level of service on Singapore Air's affiliate, Silkair, especially compared to the dirt-cheap Chinese domestic flights we had taken to and from Harbin. The meals were good, the drinks were free and the attendants were amazingly well dressed and polite. Unfortunately the flight was delayed because of rough weather near Singapore, and we were anxious the whole way knowing that we would likely miss our connecting flight to Jakarta.
Upon arrival in Singapore, Richy and I gathered our carry on luggage with a sigh, wondering what inconveniences we would need to face in the coming hours having missed our connection. Instead, the moment we stepped off the plane we were greeted by a friendly English-speaking gentleman who already had our new boarding passes for a later flight and meal vouchers to enjoy dinner at the airport restaurants. We were then ushered into what felt to us like a return to civilization with the most beautiful airport I have ever seen, complete with fast and free internet everywhere (with uncensored Facebook, Youtube and international news!), koi ponds, fern gardens, free foot massage machines, and hundreds of restaurants.
The second flight was even better than the first, and we touched down in Jakarta with time left to catch the airport shuttle. Unfortunately, Richy's bag did not appear on the baggage carousel and we heard his name come over the loud speaker. We went to the baggage office to learn that Richy's bag did not make it to Jakarta. Thankfully after some paperwork, they shoved a fistful of cash into Richy's hand (enough to pay for a cab ride and the first night for both of us at the hostel) and delivered Richy's bag to the hostel the following afternoon. Overall, two bad experiences that turned out surprisingly good. Singapore Air definitely deserves its good reputation.
Adventure #4: The Big Durian
We knew Jakarta was going to be a big, dirty city, much like Chongqing, but we didn't quite realize how different big and dirty can be in different contexts. It's often called "the Big Durian" because much like the fruit, it's big, stinky, a little intimidating from the outside and inspires a kind of love-it-or-hate-it attitude. For one, Jakarta has amazing, delicious and cheap street food on virtually every corner, whereas in Chongqing, authorities do whatever they can to keep vendors off the streets. However, Jakarta's sidewalks are mostly either too narrow to do any good or completely non-existent, so you often find yourself struggling to walk through a swirl of motorbikes and exhaust.
Despite the traffic dangers, we discovered one afternoon that nature still wields some power in such a big city. We had just finished wandering around Indonesia's impressive national museum for several hours, a visit made longer by the fact that we stayed inside to avoid a sudden torrential downpour. After the rain stopped and the sun came out, we walked over to the crosswalk so we could cross to where we could catch a bus to another part of the city. Patiently waiting for the walk signal to turn green, we felt some heavy drops coming down on us again, and Richy began to open up his umbrella, at which point we realized that it wasn't actually raining, but that a large tree was coming down on top of us! We grabbed each other and jumped into the street to get away from the falling tree as it crashed down on the light post we were standing next to. Luckily the traffic had slowed at the sight of the falling tree and we weren't hit. When we made it to the bus station, the locals who had watched the whole thing happened from across the street were patting us on the back and asking if we were okay. Our hearts were beating fast and our hair was wet, but we were unscathed.
The next part of the city we wanted to see was the old Dutch colonial neighborhood - the center of the city back when it was known as Batavia instead of Jakarta. The bus took us to the last stop by the port, and after wandering in the wrong direction for a while, we backtracked and eventually found the large square with old buildings surrounding it. While some of the buildings had been renovated with tile roofs and new coats of paint, several of the colonial era buildings had giant banyan trees growing out of them, with collapsed roofs and covered with vines. After being interviewed by some school groups about our tourism motives, we had a snack then headed out to try to find the old port. We checked our location on the map and headed in the direction of the water. Along the way, an old greasy man standing by a truck decided my presence was an invitation to grab my ass. I swung around and angrily waved my umbrella at him as he ran back into his truck, and made a point to glare at him for a good ten seconds before I ran to catch up with Richy. At that moment I realized that the fact that many Indonesians are Muslim is probably not the only reason why their trains and buses have separate sections for women. Although we found the port area eventually, it was disappointingly walled-off (in true Dutch fashion) and we had to console ourselves on the side of the road with a giant buttery pancake filled with chocolate sprinkles.
After exploring the city for a couple days, we decided to get back to nature with a trip to nearby Bogor and their famed botanical gardens. This involved a very crowded and confusing trip on Jakarta's commuter railway, and a lot of rain (with blazing sun breaks), but the gardens were absolutely amazing. Huge tropical trees, orchid gardens, herb gardens and everything from wild jungle-like areas to perfectly manicured lawns and European-style floral plantings. We saw giant lily pads the size of small cars, tiny frogs the size of bees, and a huge array of plants we had never seen before. The only disappointment was the absence of the famous giant flower that stands six feet tall and smells like rotting flesh, but we couldn't have expected much since it only blooms once every three years. We did get to see the spot where their tubers are buried, waiting to grace the world again with their giant smelly presence.
Adventure #5: Mt. Bromo
After leaving Jakarta, we headed by train to the city of Yogyakarta (pronounced Jogjakarta, and often called Jogja for short), which is famous for its batik fabric, nearby ancient temple complexes and the unusual fact that the city still has a sultan complete with his own creepy palace.
Our first night in town, we enjoyed the most amazing chicken sate ever: charcoal barbecued, with just the right balance of fat and lean meat, served with a spicy and delicious peanut sauce over traditional packed-rice cakes garnished with pickled onions, peppers and carrots.
Over the next few days, we explored the sultan's palace (creepy because of the slow, melancholy music played throughout, as well as old photos of dead people, but interesting nonetheless), and the breathtaking temple complexes of both Boroburdur and Prambanan.
Since the moment we arrived in Yogyakarta, the staff at our hotel had been pushing us to book a tour with them to Mt. Bromo, which was already on our itinerary, so we took a brochure and looked it over. One of the packages included transportation to the mountain, one night's stay at a hostel on the mountain to watch the sunrise, then continuing transportation to one of several destinations on the island of Bali. We decided that even though it was more expensive than taking public transport on our own, that the convenience of having it all getting taken care of and getting picked up at our hotel would be worth the extra cost.
At 7:30 the next morning, we were met by a van outside our hotel, which picked up another couple after us. The ride was supposed to be 10 hours, and after about 4 hours, we stopped for gas, but there was no food within sight. The driver assured us that we would stop at a restaurant in another hour. After leaving the gas station, the van was pulled over by a police officer and before rolling down the window, the driver nervously asked us for cash. Between us, we gave him 30,000 rupiahs (about 3 USD), which he then handed the police officer and stepped out of the car and into a nearby police station. They were obviously arguing and the driver kept stepping out of the station and talking to someone on the phone. After a few minutes, he came out and asked us for another 20,000. He then gave the money to the police officer and got back in the car, telling us his friend would reimburse us at the restaurant. He said that the money was for "mafia." Although I'm sure the police in the situation were corrupt, I was starting to get the feeling that the tour company might be more aptly described as an organized crime syndicate than the police were.
Later, at the restaurant (which was overpriced, small-portioned and obviously set up as a tourist trap) the driver only refunded us 40,000 of the 50,000 we had paid the police, claiming that he had no other cash available. Then, a new driver got into the van and drove us another 5 hours to the city of Probolinggo.
At this point, it had already been more than 10 hours and instead of dropping us off at the hostel on the mountain, we were being dropped off at another tour agency with a bunch of other tourists. Here, they were changing our receipts and trying to up-sell us new packages that included jeep rides and climbs to the crater of the volcano. We declined and told them that we wanted to keep the package we had already paid for and that we wanted to be taken to our hostel ASAP. They had to finish trying to up-sell all the other foreigners before we were allowed to load into a new van and finally arrive 2 hours later at our hostels (without dinner).
We were scheduled to see the sunrise over the mountain, so we awoke at 3:00 am to hike in the darkness to the viewpoint. Richy brought his headlamp and the road through mountain villages to the view point was well-marked, so the walk was steep but pleasant except for the jeeps revving up the mountain full of tourists every few minutes, leaving clouds of exhaust in their wake.
We made it to the viewpoint just as the sky began to lighten, but unfortunately the sky was overcast and the weather cold, windy and rainy. We could see the cone of Bromo in the middle of the older crater, surrounded by an eerie, barren plain, but we couldn't see the background of other volcanoes rising in the distance or the multi-colored sky that had been touted to us. We knew that the weather couldn't be helped, so we took a few photos and ate our cold, boxed breakfasts before heading back down the mountain. By that time, the villages had come to life, and since we were some of the few who had refused the jeep rides and were actually walking around on our own, the adorable village children greeted us on their way to school and locals going out for their day's work wished us a good morning.
We decided that we wanted to go back to sleep and get a full day of rest after the previous day spent in the car, so we informed the hostel that we would stay another night instead of continuing to Bali later that morning. We took a nap, had lunch, and then walked back up the mountain in the evening to try to catch the sunset. Unfortunately the clouds rolled back in just as the sun was setting, but at least we got another walk through the charming villages. As we walked down the mountain in the twilight, the Hindu temples along the way had children singing songs to Mt. Bromo over loudspeakers, an interesting and adorable counterpoint to the Muslim calls to prayer we had been hearing throughout the days elsewhere in Java.
The next morning we continued our journey toward Bali, and thanks to the rip-off tour companies, we found ourselves put on a public bus (which we could have easily booked ourselves for much less money) headed toward the ferry. To appease us, the tour guide refunded us 50,000 of our 680,000 tour price, promising that the money would then be enough cover our public transportation from the ferry terminal to our destination of Lovina. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the ferry terminal at 8:00 pm, the only van available wanted to charge us more than 10 times that price to get to Lovina.
Adventure #6: New Travel Buddies and Sewer Beaches
Luckily, we had made four new friends on the ferry. Nina, a Slovenian woman with fluent Chinese studying for her master's in Chinese in Chengdu, and Victor, a Lithuanian-Englishman teaching English in Chengdu, as well as a Dutch couple (un-affiliated with China). Since Chengdu and Chongqing are only 2 hours from each other by train, we felt like we were practically neighbors and hit it off right away. Although they had been with another tour company, they were put through the same scam and were left in the same situation as we were, stranded at the ferry terminal facing a ridiculously inflated price for a bus to the next destination. The six of us used our powers of persuasion over the course of an hour to negotiate a better price to get to Lovina, eventually working it down to a more manageable 50,000 per person (still more than 2x the price it should have been). The most satisfying moment was when Nina got one of the tour operators on the phone and screamed at him about how much of a scam he was running and how she was going to tell all her friends to avoid them.
The Dutch couple got dropped off at a place where they already had reservations, so Richy, Nina, Victor and I wandered a bit in Lovina until we found some bungalows with rooms to spare. We walked out to look at the beach from the guesthouse patio, which looked lovely under cover of darkness. We enjoyed a lovely late dinner of fried chicken served by a young girl willing to teach us some Balinese phrases, but unfortunately the light of the next morning showed that we had not in fact found paradise.
January is part of the rainy season in Bali, which means that during this time of year all the villages on the interior of the island get a lot of rain. This rain then washes mud, sewage and trash down the rivers and directly into the sea. Because the coast has reefs and lagoons, the waste does not wash out to sea very quickly, leading to roiling, foamy waves full of trash and beaches strewn with litter. Although the locals go out every morning to rake the trash into piles on the beach, it doesn't improve the water quality much and by the end of the day more trash has washed up on the shore. It highlights one of the many problems with tourism in developing countries, especially as large numbers of tourists add to already pressing problems with local infrastructure.
We enjoyed our time in Lovina nonetheless, with the trash making for particularly interesting beachcombing and conversation with our new friends keeping us busy between delicious local meals. Still, we wanted to eventually find a nice beach where we might be able to swim a little and relax in the sun.
Adventure #7: Ubud Cultural Paradise
Together with Nina and Victor, we made our way to the small tourist area of Ubud, which is considered a must-visit place for experiencing traditional Balinese culture. Although we had already planned to stay at a cheap home-stay, upon arrival we discovered that the rooms were moldy and lacked separate beds (Nina and Victor are not a couple, and therefore did not want to share a bed) so we wandered down the street and found a good deal on a nice place with a pool and wifi access.
From there we explored the town and it's lovely restaurants and coffee shops, visited the sacred monkey forest where Richy narrowly escaped having his iPod stolen by adorable but sneaky monkey fingers, and met up with some of our Peace Corps buddies for taking in some traditional dance, as well as hiking and biking through the countryside. On our last night, we discovered an amazing bbq restaurant and enjoyed some of the most amazing ribs we've had since leaving America.
Adventure #8: Amazing Ayu and Beautiful Padangbai
Nina and Victor agreed that although Ubud was great, we still needed to make another attempt at spending some time on the beach, so we agreed that our next destination would take us to somewhere toward the east of the island. With a more arid climate, the beaches on the east coast were reputed to be cleaner for lack of rain washing trash and sewage down the hillsides.
We still weren't sure if we were going to continue traveling together, so we decided to split up and check out our options before meeting up for coffee to discuss final plans. That morning, Nina had met up with a Balinese friend of a friend, who also met up with us for coffee. When we were introduced to Ayu, we sat together for coffee and talked about Balinese culture, tourism in Bali, and about life, love and family. She regretted that we already planned to leave Ubud since she didn't get to show us around and insisted that she not only pay for our coffee and lunch, but she then arranged free transportation for us to reach our next destination of Padangbai. Although she had barely met us, she showed us such amazing kindness and generosity - it was one of those moments that makes me love traveling.
Arriving in Padangbai was like a breath of fresh air. The beaches were clean, the water was blue, and the atmosphere (a mix of snorkeling and diving-based businesses, a ferry terminal and a fishing village) was very homey and relaxed. We spent 3 days in rustic bungalows enjoying fresh seafood, sunshine and relaxation. Richy also had his first experience snorkeling, which he found to be an amazing and addictive experience (I had a hard time getting used to my mask and having my face in the water, so I'll have to try again another time).
Adventure #9: Kimmie, Kuta, and Culture Shock
Finally, we headed over to the Legian area, north of Kuta to meet up with my sister Kim for the last four days of our trip. We found the villa with surprisingly little trouble despite the fact that the place was unmarked and we had very nonspecific directions. I guess living in China had just gotten us used to the idea that if you need to find something hard to find, just ask every local you see until you find it. Unfortunately Kim and her boyfriend Brett had a little bit harder time, but they got a little wider tour of the area by car as a result and afterward we enjoyed a nice dinner together at a delicious local restaurant with Brett's uncle and his girlfriend.
Over the next few days, we were taken out to see the Jimbaran seafood market, and the Bali cliffs surfing area by Brett's uncle (a retired surfer, who has been living on Bali for a few years), then wandered around the Kuta area shops and souvenir stalls with Brett's friends Scott and Alina (who also teach in China). Although the beach in Kuta was filthy (much like the one in Lovina, except most of this trash was from tourists rather than villagers) the international food was amazing and it was nice being able to see my sister again.
Being in and around so many non-Peace Corps affiliated foreigners was surprisingly uncomfortable for us though, and we experienced a bit of culture shock in dealing with the differences. It made me realize that no matter how hard Richy and I try to "go on vacation" that living abroad makes it hard not to be in traveler mode in dealing with locals, budgeting and generally letting go of all the things we've been taught to be hyper-sensitive to in the Peace Corps. Although I think this attitude helps us to save money and build relationships with locals, it doesn't exactly help us relax and relate to the perspectives of folks from home. It was a good forewarning of the challenges we'll be facing when we head back home.
Adventure #10: Singapore Layover Food Attack
After bidding farewell to Kimmie and Brett and hopping on our first plane heading back toward China, we found ourselves with 16 hours to kill in Singapore and decided to try to make the most of it. We did some quick research and decided to head toward the historic city center, where we discovered that Singapore is not only a treasure trove of human diversity, but also diversity in cuisine.
We had already eaten breakfast that morning in Kuta, enjoyed our last meal of delicious Indonesian gado-gado and homemade guacamole before boarding, then ate another lunch on the plane. So we were staring at all this amazing international Singapore food with absolutely no physical appetite. Did that stop us from stuffing ourselves with American ice cream, Indian pastries, sweet and sour pork and two whole chili crabs? We also spent every last penny we had for the trip - we even had to borrow 60¢ to get back on the metro to catch our flight to Chongqing. But it was worth it.
~ Katie
