Bromo Cottages Hotel Surabaya

Today is my last day in Surabaya, I have purchased my train ticket to Semarang. Prices are still up and I had to pay for the full fare to Jakarta. The ticket for executive class from Surabaya to Jakarta is 440,000. I am told that the prices will be going down on October 4th!!!

... so I decided to wait til I get back to Jakarta to buy whatever I end up buying!!! There are alot of choices when it comes to wood sculptures . . . and typical indonesian souvenirs.

I did some more walking to visit more sites such as the Monumen Kapal Selam (Submarine Monument) which is actually a Russian made sub marine that was used by the Indonesian Navy. I found it to be quite interesting as I had never been in a submarine before. Just the ...

... chain and were saved by a local mechanic and rode a boat to a cascading stream of unbelievable turqoise blue. 11) Hongsa, Thassouang Province, Lao: Way of the Mahout, Day 2: Riding atop my 28-year old friend, an elephant by the name of Jan Ping, I steered my man through absurdly beautiful and lush forests of mountainous northern Lao, meeting villagers and ...

... J'etais un peu vexe de voir leur aisance. Un autre 8km a marcher pour le retour. Nous avons quand meme bien apprecier ses marches puisque nous avions une popularite sans conteste. Les jeunes voulaient des photos, des salutations etc. . . . On nous meme offert des choux, nos poches etaient trop petite on a refuse. Au souper, nous avons bien bavarder avec notre nouveau copain, tres interessant de comparer nos mondes et opinions. (un dentiste malais qui vit a Londre et qui est d ...

... be working. I assumed that we were going to hammer in nails or something. To the left of the building was a rubble pile. This was our real task for the day! Our first task was to separate the "good bricks" from the unusable bricks. We had to get the bricks clean by knocking off the plaster. I never realized how fragile bricks were. Some of my attempts at cleaning caused the bricks to be unusable. Our next task was to clean around the rubble ...

... didn't get the message after many muezzin prayer calls across the city. It was early afternoon by the time the mosque tour was over, so we departed for Ary's favorite restaurant. It was a large, noisy, family oriented franchised place, like an Indonesian Applebee's or Olive Garden. As far away as I might be from home, there are some trappings (such as the presence of this kind of restaurant) that just don't change. KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, they're all ...

... t want to take anymore of this time and continued my hike. I arrived at the top of the crater and looking down was an amazing sight. The bottom was covered with a blanket of white smoke and I wasn't sure its depth. I smelled the pungent odor of sulfur in the air. I saw little shadows moving about in the abyss. I was unsure whether I should descend into the gaping hole. I remembered Dante's Inferno, the remarkable journey down to hell. Slowly I stepped down into the ...

... sped away with the money claiming it was 50000 in the beginning. Plah. So we were there exhausted, hungry and angry at the local menthality of tourist equals money. So no wonder we were paranoid whenever local approached us afterwards... We bought tickets for the morning train at seven and agreed on a lift to hotel by a local who spoke some Swedish. Sign of trust ;) He was nice however, and the drive was as we agreed and they took us to Wisma ...

Bali is predominately Hindu, the biggest Hindu outpost in the world. Java however is nearly 80% Muslim. Going by recent news reports I was expecting to get my head kicked in as soon as I set foot off the ferry. Not so. All the people I've met have been so friendly. Everyone has a wave and a "Hello Mister" for you as you walk down the street. After Jakarta, Surabaya is the second biggest city in Indonesia. Imagine massive ...