We Indo part 2

Part 2

It's been a while! I'm currently sitting in the Manila airport, my infected swollen foot propped up on a seat next to me (just wait for that post lol), drinking an Oolong tea and reminiscing on what just happened these past 2 weeks. I've neglected blogging for a few reasons. 1. There's been little downtime to write, and when there has been, I spent it in different ways, like scootering around Bali or sitting in the pool with my head facedown in a towel. 2. I have one thing I'm pretty embarrassed about that has more or less shaped this trip and writing about it will be painful. I'll get that out of the way: my debit card got deactivated the moment I got to Yogyakarta. BBT flagged it as suspicious and wouldn't reactivate it. This all could've been prevented if I had called ahead of time to report the trip, but of course, I did not. I called my credit cards and had let them know, but, probably since I rarely use my debit card and had $100 cash or so with me, it completely slipped my mind. 

So there I was at the beginning of a two week trip, in a developing country where, I soon discovered, places that take credit cards are few and far between, with limited funds. Pretty stressful and embarrassing. Who leaves on a trip to Asia and doesn't call the debit card company? Me I guess! I was pretty wrecked. Luckily my pals all let me know that I could always venmo them and they could pull out cash for me, which ended up happening a few times and was really handy and amazing of them, but still. Nothing like majorly ferking up at the start of a trip. 

I guess the bright side is that I'll never do it again and that my friends have quite a bit of cash in their venmo accounts now. Even now, as I write this on the second to last day of travel, I am disappointed in myself and can't wait to touch down on American soil to not feel like I'm relying on others. That kinda hung over me the whole time which sorta stunk. But, the trip was still great!

What wasn't great, though, was Yogyakarta's traffic. It turns out that Java, the island Yogyakarta and Jakarta are on, is the most populated island in the entire world. And Indonesia itself is the 4th most populous country. This was all extremely apparent from the second we got off the plane. Our hostel was probably a 3 mile drive from the airport. Took us 2 hours. Also it was pouring rain and the final day of the 2 week Ramadan festival, so perhaps traffic was extra congested. Either way, it was a true foreshadowing of things to come.

After this initial commute from hell, we got to the Packers Lodge in downtown Yogy (also called Djoga) and reunited with Dane. Long time no see! We were all delirious and a bit crazed from the previous 48 hours of travel so we threw our bags in our little pod beds and off we went into the streets to find food. Dane heard about a classic Yogy dish called "Gudeg" which, after eating it, we decided should be called "Badeg". Indonesian food was off to a slow start. 

The next day we signed up for a temple tour of Yogy. The largest Buddhist temple in the world, Borobudur, was nearby, so of course we had to check it out. Our driver picked us up at 10am and immediately we had residual panics from the night before. We were essentially trapped in Yogy traffic, in this little bus, that only played the same Bruno Mars, Sia, and Justin Bieber songs on loop, for 12 hours. I could've walked to these temples faster than the traffic was moving. By the time we got to the first temple, Borobudur, at one, it was already lunch time, and the temple was crawling with people. Looked like an ant hill with ants pouring out from all orifices. Definitely a sweet temple and cool to see it, but WOW there was little to no respect for this incredibly sacred place. Since we are lemmings we took pix all over it and then hurried (ha!!!) off to the next temple. We got to the next one, Pramaban, at 6, just in time for sunset. Thankfully it was a little less crowded and dare I say, even cooler than Borobudur? 

 

My trusty selfie stick and I at Borobudur

 

Don't let the haters bring you down, Dane

The bus tour was our crew and then also two women from Surabaya, who sat silently in the back. Our tour guide told us to meet at the exit of Pramaban at 6. Well, we were there on time, but the two women weren't. So we waited. And waited. And went looking for them. And waited again. And finally decided to drive off without them...but lo and behold there they were at the exit of the parking lot. This became another trend all over Indonesia: there is absolutely no sense of time. I really believe it is a country where anything goes. Lawless, if you will. Some of the things we saw and witnessed in Bali really back this up. More on that later. 

The last 4 hour stretch of being in that bus really wore us down. I was so tired and disheveled and distraught that I believe at one point I was laughing in an extreme manic fashion. I had gone crazy. Thankfully Emily was there to squabble with me. Dane and Ron were somehow a little more composed than the two of us, which probably was another trip trend. 

Anyway, that was our last full day in Yogy, which I don't think anyone was too sad about. There were several times when I considered jumping out of the moving bus, but it was going too slow so no harm would've been done. I'd recommend Yogy as a romantic honeymoon destination whenever hell freezes over. To throw some positives in, it was cool to see this horrendous traffic, which isn't too far off from DC traffic actually. Ahh the comforts of home!