hello hello! its alrdy a month since i've updated!
super delayed post. can't wait to blog all about the trip but i've been caught up with work, runs, trngs and was sick for about a week. hahas. so i'm back dating this post. its 29th Nov now though. k, hope i can rmbr much of the stuff that made the trip memorable. hahas
hahas. basically, the trip was from 3-10th Nov, 7days.
9 of us. suan, dickson, kat, noel, leticia, james, amelia and i.
suan, dickson and i have been friends for a really long time and they'd be the guys i'd call if i've got an adventure. we're also great procrastinators. so after yrs, finally we could work out a trip. jio james along too coz he wanted to climb, and also coz since they've climbed together on a few occasions and he jio amelia coz she wanted to go on an adventure like that.
7days:
Surabaya - Madakaripura Waterfall - Mt Bromo - Sea of Sand - White Water rafting - Mt Ijen - Kuta Beach - Mt Batur - Flight delay - Singapore
we flew to Surabaya via Jetstar and came back from Bali via Air Asia. the details alone was quite epic coz Rinjani in Lombok was really active and intermittently erupting, so severe that bali airport was closed and flights affected were cancelled due to the heavy amt of volcanic ash in that area. hahhas.
so our trip to conveniently siam the haza from Summatra was facing a more epic problem. ahhahas. i rmbr that all flights to bali on the very day we depart from sg to surbaya were cancelled as the airport was closed; so it was a close shave coz i was deciding to either fly to bali or surabaya but decided on the latter due to the travel arrangements.
coming back, we almost had to stay one more night. but its really by God's grace that we managed to fly back on our departure date with just a 5hr delay. ok. more details in the long post below.
ok. that's the flight situational update part of the trip. ahhahas.
ok. will do this day by day, with the write up summary taken off FB. i uploaded the photos on fb on the very next day we came back to SG, along with album write-ups, so i'll just copy off there and add in stuff. hahas..
Day 1
Arrived in SG. finally met Machdi, the guy i've been liasioning with for the last month. 2.5hrs speen van-bash-through-town ride to Madakaripura Waterfall where all the tumblrworthy shots generate from .
and a then a 2hr ride to our Homestay. (: felt really at home coz the food was all homecooked and warm. the temp was pretty cold when night fell, we're probably a few thousand ft up the ground.
Day 2
Left at 2am to take a 1hr drive up in a Jeep to get a view of Mt Bromo. shortest trek ever possible. probably not even 100 steps. no sweat. waited in the cold to chope good spots to take good photos of the 0430 sunrise. super crowded. super cold. but super nice. then drove to the Sea of Sand to take more tumblr worthy photos. took a mandatory $15 horse ride up/down to the crater of Mt. Bromo (as we needed to rush for time). sad for the horsies, and hope they can get some human love. finally at the crater after a long flight of man-made stairs. MT BROMO IS ALIVE. super excited to hear the rumbling due to the platonic plates shifting (probably part of the Mt. Rinjani explosion too). sulphur smell smelling like rotten egg. took more photos along the way before heading back to Homestay to have yummy home cooked food again.
2 hr drive to the water rafting place. 30mins truck drive and 30mins of jungle trekking to the start of the rafting. longest rafting ever. 3hrs coz it was really low tide. so it was tiring coz our raftings kept getting stuck at the rocks. but the view of the waterfalls were probably the bestest of all my rafting times, whilst trying to avoid bat shits. also surpised to see soooo many bats flying and in the bright sunlight.
2.5hrs drive to super affordable indon food before checking in to Ijen View Resort to have a very sad 1hr of sleep before heading out to climb Ijen, later.
Day 3
With less than an hour of sleep, we took a sleepy and rocky 2.5hr drive up to gate of Mt. Ijen. started trekking at 0230hrs as the gate only opened then because of the bad sulphur cloud. super duper cold. though it was a short 2.5hr climb, it was relatively steep and the dust and sulphur made it challenging to pace ur breathing. the sulphur was really bad. i mean we could smell it when we opened the door of the car when we arrived. upon reaching the crater rim, our guided handed us masks to protect ourselves before heading down to the sulphur mining area. reallly disppointed to not be able to see the lake (which was supposedly the main thing of the trek) coz it was very active and the sulphur fumes masked the whole area. we also MISSED THE BLUE FLAME by 20mins. we reached the site at about 0450hrs. apparently the sun rose slightly earlier than avg so we missed it as well coz we couldn't see it coz of the sulphur cloud. meh.. some of us managed to get a glimpse of it but by the time we're close to it, the sunlight made it tough to get those blueflametumblrworthy shots.
but it taught me another lesson, other than basking in Mother Nature and all her majestic beauty, there's also lessons to learn from the sulphur miners. pls go read (really a good read)
HERE!
after getting back down, it was another 2hrs drive before saying bye to our super dedicated tour guide Mohammad Machdi Yunus and madskill driver before changing vehicle to take a ferry (with the vehicle) to Gilimak, Bali.
another grulling 4hrs drive to Kuta before hungrily savaging our dinner at this pizza place and then having a well deserved massage before getting some proper sleep.
Day 4 & 5
waking up w/o an alarm clock always feels good. explored Kuta abit. went to the beach. rented bikes to ride around. pretty quiet and it was obvious that shops were hit by the airport closure / cancelled aussie flights in. not much angmohs around as usual, so it didn't feel like the usual bali even though it was the wkend. but, there was this Harley Davidson thing gg around, so it was getting abit irritating to heard the sounds of their engines and their actpoliceman siren.
managed to eat our fav Italian food, see our favourite waiter and painstakingly found our Indon food place for the next night's dinner.
it was the 5th day and everyone's getting abit dehydrated from the dry climate with Rinjani's ash in the atmosphere so it was only some of us that went back early to have a gd rest as we decided to proceed on to climb Mt. Batur, pickup later at 1am.
Day 6 & 7
almost no sleep attained before a 0100 pick up at our Hostel, for a 2hr drive up to 1,000 ft of Mt. Batur.
Most comfortable trek ever. was bout 18 - 20 deg of cold, terrain had good footing and it was really easy to make progress up. everyone should start with this if u want to trek but unsure of what's trekking all about.
2hrs passed really quickly. i could even stop to take slow shutter shots and still had alot of time before making it for sunrise. had time to explore the volcano abit.. saw the cave, played with steam and mountain echo. hahas. wanted to go higher up to the 2nd point but the guide told us tt it was crowded and we didn't have time since the view was gg to be the same. (it was sunday. advice: try not to climb on a sunday if u're able to plan it). otw down, there was a tomato garden too.
soon, we're back at the hostel. bathed, had a quick rest before riding out with james and leticia to grab some food and explore abit.
epic night we had after some drinks and deciding to ride to macs to get 50c mc flurry but to our dismay, the ice cream machine spoil. was about 4am in the morng. one of our bikes couldn't go further coz we totally ran out of fuel and had to make contigency plans. ahhas. dickson, suan an i had to look/act like locals as we were dangerously stranded on a very dark and quiet stretch of road while james and christine went to look for petrol.
and otw back, the most epic thing for this trip was overcoming a bike snatch thief. He tried to grab the phone out of my hands while trying to navigate back since we're low on petrol. He's got the wrong target man. Having a former SWAT team guy as the rider whilst trying to grab the phone from a contact player (still have the rugby world cup fever with AllBlacks winning it, and with the hakka warcry in my head) he lost the battle. i gave a thug and instead of trying to get the phone, he found himself trying to pull away from my thug since both of our bikes were swaying with the force. while holding on to he phone, i scratched him but had to soon let go coz i was afraid our bike would lose the balance. His epic horrified face is still fondly and vividly rmbred in my head after the both of us gave him his most memorable Beast mode scare with war crys and wild display of non-existent fangs. I've never felt myself in such combat-predator mode, but we did it. But honestly, it scared the shit out of me and i hope that guy have developed a fear in trying to rob people.
thankfully we're just about 2mins from our turn into the safe and legit carpark of our hostel before realizing that he wasn't alone; we had a 3-4 stray bikers riding with us from the stretch of road along the beach and i though it was just random riders before realizing it all made sense.
it was almost sunrise before gg to sleep and waking up again to realize it way the day to head back to sg. :( had breakfast at Bali Bakery, just behind our hostel while getting updates of our flight status. our depture time kept changing. from 1740hrs to even 0005 hrs. in the end, we managed to leave at 2230hrs. it was really by God's grace that we managed to fly on the same day of scheduled departure date. but it was a sight to see the boards stating flights being cancelled and delayed due to volcanic ash from Rinjani. heard that some passengers were in the transit area for 4 days, and there was chicken rice and water gg around for these stranded passengers.
so yea. here's 5 albums of the 7 days of travelling and adventures. we travelled in total of 422km from Surabaya to Kuta, Bali thanks to our dedicated guide Mohammad Machdi Yunus and his arrangements
--- incomplete post--- watch the video instead!
