Finally, I was able to cut my time to write my month in Indonesia, just over a month after I arrived in Vietnam.
It would be more accurate to say that I spent a month between the islands of Java, Bali, Gili, and Lombok because Indonesia is a state with many more touristic islands, others not yet reached by mass tourism, others more unknown.
For some a month in Indonesia, it might look like a lot, but I can assure you that a month is not much, especially if you want to explore more islands, and especially if you do not want to travel by running.
It’s amazing how many people decide to come to Indonesia to see Bali alone, and better to say its beaches and Gili Trawangan, one of the Indonesian island islands, which now has nothing to do with Indonesian.
Bali is certainly a wonderful island, but Java is, in fact, one of the islands with the highest number of places to visit if you think of temples and volcanoes.
By visiting Java, you have the chance to discover a more “indigenous” Indonesia, Indonesia than what you might expect, a Muslim majority site where, except for the most touristic places, you feel a simpler atmosphere, not changed by tourism and its needs.
I feel that my way of traveling is evolving more and more. Although I like to meet travelers backpackers from all over the world, they are increasingly interested in meeting local people, and maybe living with them, although this means, for example, not having a shower, but instead, having to wash with buckets of frozen water, and make a really simple life.
I find it so nice to see and know the local life beyond tourism. I feel and think that the best way to know a country is to get in touch with the locals, but not just to chat with them, but also to spend time with them, let them show their life and the place they live in. And if I think of my travels, the most beautiful are those where I had the chance, or I chose to live with locals or I just got in touch with them.
I think experiences like Couchsurfing and Workaway are great opportunities to live with the locals and in the second case also make it useful.
It’s amazing how people wanting nothing in return deciding not only to accommodate you and to prepare you for eating but even to give their time to show you where they are living.
If for the Workaway, you receive food and accommodation in exchange for a few hours of work a day, couch-surfing, is a network of people from all over the world hosting or wishing to be accommodated .. it does not require anything in return but only their company, there is only the desire to know about travelers, their stories, adventures, etc.
My first real Couchsurfing experience I had in Yogyakarta, where a very nice girl, Aline and her mother, housed me in their modest home outside the city. Although at first, I thought it would be better to live out of town, I soon realized that living in rural areas outside of it was a great luck for me.
Once again, I was living in a place where I was the only stranger and the thing you know is for me a source of joy, not of fear.
And so I went for a walk with her and her other friends around the area, discovering places outside the most popular tourist circuits, like Pine Forest, for example, then, of course, I have the most famous temples. Prambanan and Borobudur.
Prambanan‘s visit did not give me great emotions, perhaps because I had been in India and had the chance to see much more beautiful Hindu temples, perhaps because before entering the temples complex there is a large parking lot, perhaps because in the period when I visited it there was the jazz music festival, which, although I appreciate it, did not lend much to the context. It remains one of the greatest Hindu temples.
But then there is he, Borobudur… I and Aline woke up at 3 am and in the middle of the night, we got to this famous place with a scooter. Sleep was so much, but this site deserved all these efforts.
Borobudur, UNESCO site and one of the largest Buddhist monuments in the world, long hidden and now so touristy … Wait for dawn in the darkness, without realizing what you’ll see around and in front of you … hear the magic of this place set on a hill overlooking green fields and distant hills, survived several natural, marvelous and unique calamities!
The only negative note is the number of tourists who, with their cameras, disturb the sight. I found the temple and the complex of gardens kept very well.
The hotel/resort that, upon arrival, delivers the map to every visitor, the torch, which then offers breakfast in the garden and finally gives it a souvenir, blends in with the surrounding environment, having an architecture similar to the traditional ones and therefore the landscaping impact is really minimal.
Beyond these two most important and beautiful temples, I recommend staying a few days in Yogyakarta to visit the oldest part of town and rural areas outside of it.
Bondowoso is a small town where I headed to do Workaway after leaving the beautiful Yogyakarta. I took the train to Jember, my host came to pick me up and from there we went to what would be my next home.
The initial shock was strong, because I found myself practically in the middle of nowhere, or better, in the middle of rice fields, of tobacco plantations and cocoa!
So I spent my days in a rural area, teaching English but above all enjoying the simple life of the villages surrounded by rice, cocoa, coffee and tobacco plantations. And again, it’s great to see the people’s enthusiastic smiles even though I’ve found people and kids pretty brazen in asking you a photo, touching or just looking at you.
I still remember the walking paths between rice fields, stops in the gathering huts, the afternoon dinners for the dark, silent streets.
The island of Java is not only famous for Hindu and Buddhist time but for its volcanoes, Bromo and Ijen.
To visit the Bromo I headed to Probolingo and from there I took a shuttle that left me to Cemara Lawang, the best point especially if you want to visit the volcano without any means.
And so I and some affiliated girls on the spot woke up at 2:30 and started walking from 3 am in the dark of night with silence and sky full of stars on us.
It was a tough day, one of the tedious things since the beginning of this trip because we walked a lot until 11:00. We headed for the King Kong Panoramic View Point to witness a magical dawn that little by little let us see the volcano that without realizing it was just there before us! And then I headed for the caldera of the volcano but to reach it I had to walk a lot; once arrived at the area not far from the caldera it really seemed to be on another planet.
I could not imagine that the fatigue used during Bromo’s visit was nothing compared to that used to see the Ijen Volcano!
There are some magic places in this world that when you see them you wonder if they are real or not. This Java Island Volcano has become famous since a National Geographic documentary showed blue flames and workers who take sulfur from volcano miners near the caldera.
It was a really tiring but exciting climb, but not for blue flames (there are many tourists and there are people who work hard and could do better without people walking around). The most exciting thing was to get to the top of the volcano and see an amazing landscape around us: on one side the lake of the volcano and the caldera, on the other side, the mountains and the clouds. I am always surprised how nature can be so amazing and spectacular!