Saying "Good Bye"

Hallo,
our joint days are over. :-(
We would have liked to stop time and stay forever together in this "travel-mode". We had a fabulous time and will never regret one single day of this journey although it was rather "rough" at some points in time. But all added up to a very, very good experience and adventure. So we are sad to have to end this now....

Rainer continues and you can find his adventures on his new blog (Click here).

We hope you enjoyed reading our posts and viewing our pictures.

This has not been the last blog! :-) Because this has not been our last journey....

Hope you are all fine! See you soon!
Renate & Rainer

Our last days in Java

The unquestionable highlight: our last vulcano in Indonesia: Krakatau. One of the most active vulcanoes (you recognise the pattern, don't you? :-)) was again INactive. :-) But nevertheless it was a great sight with its prime location in the middle of the ocean.

We took our last days rather slowly and relaxed and spent them:
- burying our toes in fine black sand :-) :-)
- camping at the feet of Krakatau vulcano :-) :-)
- climbing the vulcano (although it was forbidden ;-)) to peek into its crater curiously, half expecting &  hoping as well as fearing to experience somthing extraordenary down there :-)
- reading & listening to music
- trying to overlook the trash lying on every beach :-( by, at the same time, trying to understand why the indonesians don't care a bit whether their rivers and seasides (and sea) are littered as much as they are, but instead keep on throwing everything over the fence (and that's not literally spoken...that's what they do :-( )
- rocking on big waves in a small boat
- sitting in trains & cars during tranfers
- sleeping longer
- trying hard to find something to eat during daytime because of Ramadan-month
- struggling to escape cars, buses, tuk-tuks and motorcycles trying to cross streets with six and more lanes in Jakarta (if you now instinctively think: "traffic lights" or "pedestrian crossing"... Forget it !!!! )
- fighting the thought of our trip together approaching the end....time is ticking away :-( :-( :-(

Again, as usual...we have uploaded our pictures.
Enjoy.....

Renate & Rainer

Avoid being a pedestrian in Java!

Can it get any more touristy in Java? We guess not. The central Java attraction are the attractions most visited by tourists coming to Java. And of course by us.

The two important temples are "World Heritage Sites" and thus can actually not be missed, although the entry fee is horrendous and everything else as well.

Vulcano "Merapi" supposed to be one of the most active ones in Java (although I remember the guidebood saying this about nearly every vulcano in Indonesia ;-) ) was not only INactive but also hiding timidly behind clouds! So actually he got the title: "currently most boring vulcano we experienced in Indonesia so far" :-) ... and we told him so! Ha!

Also the Indonesian tried to make the worst of the local transport possibilities: the local buses had holes through which you could see the road below and were overtaken by bicycles, the night-train gave its best with bright neon-lights in order to become a "day-train" again :-( and walking on foot through indonesian cities (not even talking about crossing streets as pedestrian!!!) is suicidal at least and reminds you of playing "Russion Roulette" all the time.

But we managed to survive all the struggles and can now provide you with the pictures.
Hope you appreciate our effort for you :-).

Best regards, take care and see you soon!

Renate & Rainer

"Hey Mister" or "How to shower without a shower?!"

Long bus rides on old busses, cold water "bathrooms", black smoking vulcanoes, tea and coffee with sugar, no sleep because of the permanent muezzin calls everywhere, Nasi Goreng for breakfest & a good street-stall "Soto Ayam", very friendly new indonesian personal friends and finally a "Hey Mister" called from somewhere every other minute, characterise East Java for us.

So, what are our first impressions of Java after having visited "East Java"?

Villages that do not recieve many tourist can be described as: friendly people, cheap accomodation, cheap food, bad transport, no tourist facilities, curious, perplex faces at our approach, a smile in return for a smile, no Internet, no hot water, no showers in the bathrooms, people selling you things for "real local prices" without hassle

Villages and places where many tourist can be found: expensive, bad accomodation, overcharged public transport cartels, people looking at you and seeing a big "$"-sign, expensive (not even good) food, better transport options, better facilities (e.g. Internet, Coffee), hot water and showers, you have to look harder for smiling faces, people thinking they can overcharge you for everything.

Take a look at our picture collection of our first week in East Java!

We hope you are all fine and send you best regards,
Renate & Rainer

Ever asked yourself where the sulphur in many of your daily products comes from...?

The sulphur miners from East Java defenitely deserve a special post in our blog!

The mining of sulfur in the Ijen Crater on East Java is often described as the most dangerous and toughest job on earth (see link). We doublechecked this ourselves...and we wholeheartedly AGREE!!!

We went up the mountain with them, down the crater and stood right beside the sulfur mining spot deep in the crater with lots and lots of sulfurous smoke so thick you partly coulden't see a thing.
The toxic, sulfurous smoke is really all around you and we got a pretty good share of it in our lungs, which is really, really scary, because  if you are really deep in the cloud, you get no air, breathing hurts your lungs and nose and you think you will choke or loose conciousness within the next minutes.
At least we have an excuse for our bad marathon-result next year: damaged lungs ;-)

The workers go down the crater, brake the sulfur, carry it up the crater as a load of about 70 - 80kg on their shoulders and down the outer side of the crater...2-3 times a day, everyday, without a free day ever, breathing tons of toxic smoke all the time.
For us this way only once, without heavy load, was nearly more than we could bear! We would not survive one single day in this job.
And the MOST AMAZING thing was: They still smiled at us and joked with us!

What we learned:
1) Thank God we have a different job! Look at the pictures and remember them everytime you feel dissatisified with your current job!
2) Those people, who have one of the worst jobs ever still know how to smile and be happy... why do we NOT?!

Take care!
Renate & Rainer

Bali or "How many temples fit on one island?"

The motto of Bali Island seems obvious from the first glance: Tourists, Tempel & Rice Terraces

The question "how many temples fit on one island?" can be answered with "an unbelievable quantity"!! Every family has at least one, every village at least three, not to mention the ones in between rice paddies and beside the road. We stopped counting after the first hour on the island and we stopped visiting temples after having visited about 20 of them. :-)

We tried to avoid the crowds of tourists in Resorts, Starbucks and Pizza Huts by heading east, west and north, and central :-) with the smallest car available. This turned out to be THE advantage of the day, as the road is so narrow, that in between of the houses or palmtrees on the left roadside, the group of children walking on the road, the motorbike on the left side of our car, our car, the motorbike on the right side of your car overtaking us, the motorbike overtaking the truck on the other side of the road, the truck on the other side of the road and the motorbike on the right outer side of the truck on the right roadside, and the person walking between the motorbike on the outer side of the truck and the houses and trees on the right roadside, was on average 1 cm, if not less.
We both ended up with a lot of new grey hair during our 7 days car-ride through Bali Island.
But on the good side ;-): we learned to no longer believe in "saftey distances" when driving but instead to believe in "Holy men" sprinkling our car with "Holy Water".

So if you take a look at the pictures please stop a second to appreciate how hard it was to hunt down all those temples monoevering  for hours through millions of motorbikes, mountains, cars, trucks, people, houses and temples and "Tourists on bicycles"!!! ( :-O!!!)

Have Fun! :-)
Renate & Rainer

Sea, Mountains and curves - Flores Island

Hallo,
The last two weeks we have been diving in the Komodo National Park and have traversed Flores Island from Northwest to South to the Middle to the South to the North to the Northeast. ;-)

- Dive Spots: Premium! Really, really excellent although the current was not as much as expected, what lead  immedeately to less big fish such as manta, sharks or barrakudas...but corals and fish schools and everything else: absolutely TOP!

- Boat: Small and bumpy...good luck there weren't a lot of big waves :-)..but we had it on our own. A crew of five for two passengers ..not bad ;-)

- Komodo Dragon: Sleeping.

- Flores Island: a lot of curves. For about 600km, which is the length of the "Trans-Flores-Highway", it took us three driving days (21 hours as a whole) to cross and criss-cross the island. Not one single strech of straight road! All curvy and in rather bad shape! Average speed: 25km/h to nill. Ufz!!!

 - Accomodation: really, really basic. Nothing to relax in.... :-(

- People: exceptionally friendly! Incredible! A smile on every face! :-) ! Thank you Flores people for making us smile and feel special all along the way! :-)

- Landscape: green, green and even greener! Jungle all over! The island is also supposed to have vulcano peaks, but they were not really visible to us due to clouds and fog. :-( So it could be a tale again ;-)

- Beach: mostly black. Ours: empty and relaxing after all the driving round curves :-)

- Look at the pictures if you are curious: Diving Komodo NP & Flores Island.

And remember: Keep smiling even if the road is bumpy & full of curves and obstacles and although it's raining and you can't see the way because of all the fog and dust!! :-)

Regards, Renate & Rainer