From Indonesia to Malaysia
Hello everyone.
Just a quick one to keep you up to date on what we have been doing for the last few weeks. We spent a few days lazing around in Lovina, Bali where we had a great bungalow on the beach and a massive pool, often all to ourselves.
From Lovina we took an overnight bus to Probolinggo in Java. Luckily Rach was paying attention to the road signs at 2am as the driver did not tell us when our stop was and nearly drove straight on through to Yogyakarta! From here we went to visit Mount Bromo. As per our usual luck the weather meant getting up at 4am for the sunrise was a waste of time; lots of cloud obscured the view. It was much colder up there and for the first time since the US the wooly hats came out! We took a 4×4 up to the viewpoint which was pretty cool even though we had the grumpiest driver in the world. I would be grumpy too if I had to get up at 3.30am every morning.
We took a 10 hr minibus journey to Yogyakarta, where we feared for our lives as the driver was in the habit of overtaking 3 abreast close to oncoming traffic. We stayed in Yogyakarta for 5 days. The city was a bit of a disappointment with not many sights to see but we did take a trip to Borobudur and Prambanan – 2 ancient temples that are world heritage listed sites. They were very impressive, and we enjoyed the stories of the guide we hired at Borobudur. Sadly Prambanan was much damaged in a 2006 earthquake and had yet to be fully repaired, hence the scaffolding and large piles of stones. Take a look at the pics.
We have now flown to Kuala Lumpur which could not be more of a contrast from Indonesia. It’s very modern and comparatively wealthy with huge shopping malls and monorails etc. The massive mall that we visited had a theme park and water park inside the complex!! After we spent all day swimming then (window) shopping we went to the cinema, which was only £1.50 a ticket!! By the way the new Star Trek movie is excellent, even Rach agrees. We are enjoying our stay in China Town with the night markets right outside the front door. Lots of fake gear.
Highlights of Indonesia:
Good, cheap food and drinks
Beautiful beaches and scenery everywhere
Fantastic snorkelling on the north coast of Bali
Lowlights:
‘Transport mister?’ every 10 seconds
Litter problems from the tourists
3 days til Rach parents arrive so she’s very excited and it’s my birthday today, so we’re off out to Little India for a decent curry and to The Reggae Bar for lots of beers!
Matt
10 comments
Prambanan reminds me of a level from Crash Bandicoot! Make sure you eat something random in China Town. Have a lovely birthday! Hope you liked my card x
I was just reading this (at work) when my boss came over and asked if I was alright…I must have had a right miserable looking scowl on my face – probably because I’m so jealous that I’m in Beastly Eastleigh and you’re in Kuala Lumpur!!!
Have a good birthday Matt, and I hope you have a brill time with Rach’s parents.
xxxx
Happy Birthday. What a fabulous place to spent it! I’ve just come back from Rafting down the Grand Canyon, so us ‘oldies’ do get our share of fun!
Happy Birthday mate!
Will email back soon! honest! 🙂
Happy birthday Matt. I’m sure you will have a great day. I can make you feel even better….it’s peeing down here!!! When is summer coming????
Hope you have a great birthday and like your greetings, Ha Ha ! Nice to see your Dad looking so well.Glad there OK. Bob and l have finished work now and are sooooooooooooo excited about coming to see you.Pack tomorrow and then ‘take off’ time. Hooray !! Looking forward to some sunshine,lousy here at the moment.See you soon then.Take care Much love.Grandad sends his love also and says to behave yourselves !!
Hi ya mate,
Happy Birthday hope the curry is good and the bathroom can cope with the aftermath of the beers too. Kuala Lumpar looks amazing, well jealous and blackburn safe now. Agree bout Star trek saw it last week thought Sylar was well good as spook. Enjoy and speak soon
Hey guys its been a while and Happy Birthday Matt, hope you both enjoy the indian food in Little India. Kuala Lumpur was nice and I think I stayed by ChinaTown too right by the indoor crazy market.
Have you entered the Petronas Tower yet? or the KL Tower? You will need queue up very early to get tickets and time slots to enter the Petronas Tower bridge so good luck! We got there at 8am and got a 10:30 slot. 1 person in line can get 3 tickets.
Also the smell of the hot buns they sell in KL shopping plaza (very bottom floor) will wake you up and did I mention it tastes very nice as well!?! Oh and they have Nandos there too or if you want malay food then cheap food on top floor as well.
Glad you guys are still having fun….wish I was still exploring lol but managed to get a job in London now and saving up for next year’s holiday to the Philippines and hoping to gain open water scuba diving there…..
take care now.
Lou
Hey Lou
Congrats on the job! We will go up the Petronas Towers next week hopefully, but will get there much earlier this time!
You will have to tell us all about the Phillipines as we are not going to make it there, but maybe will get to go another time.
x
Hey guys, finaly got a bit of time to check tour blog out, been meaning to for ages. I thought I would set aside an hour to look through it and get up to date, ot a chance, you guys have been everywere!!! i got caught up with all of Thailand though and really enjoyed reading it. I loved the bit about the taxi arguement and him trying to take you somewere else. Nearest thing we got to that were the bloody tuk tuks in Bangkok (would make you go anywere for bit of free fuel lol). Hope you guys are enjoying yourselfs still. Reaaly enjoyed meeting you too. Sian says see read your blog week or so ago but when she tryed to leave a messafge she got cut off so she is messaging through me lol, she says she loves the pics and you need not worry about stealing our pics lol. I have left my blog address in the info part but my email address is john_mrg@hotmail.co.uk and my facebook is johnathan garry (pic of an idiot wearing a yellow shirt asleep in a bar in Prague, sound like me? yup!). enjoy and keep in touch X X
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