Indonesia Roundup

We've been out of Indonesia for a couple of days now so it's time to look back and reflect.

THE HIGHS:

- How utterly cheap everything is. $6 a night for a double room, 80 cents for a meal, $10 for a cross-country busride. NICE.
- Lombok. Not crowded or teeming with tourists. Beautiful coastline and excellent people, not to mention the Gili islands right off the coast.
- Hiking Bromo. Although I almost died of exhaustion, the beautiful sunrise and view was absolutely 100% worth it.
- Swimming in a jungle river in Ubud. Seriously like something out of a movie. Unreal.
- Learning how to surf. Bali was a total write-off, but surfing in Krui was excellent.
- Motorbiking around the countryside. A little scary at first, but once we got the feeling for the road, it was great.
- Excellent travel companions we met along the way.
- Best hotel ever in Krui. Inside a mansion with a doctor in house

THE LOWS:

- People constantly trying to get our money. Beggars, scam artists and touts, all with their hands out wanting a withdrawl from the walking ATMs. Some even succeeded.
- Burning my leg in Bali. It's just starting to heal NOW.
- Some pretty crappy hotel rooms. Goes along with the low price I suppose.
- Bathrooms. Had a few "three seashells"experiences, if anyone has ever seen Demolition Man.
- The Krui Putra aka HellRide. 10 hours of agony on a sweaty, cramped, creaky bus going along winding, bumpy roads.
- Kuta, Bali. Gross spring break atmosphere.
- Surfing in Bali. Bad judgement led to me getting pummelled by waves way too big for me and an all around terrible surfing experience.

THE MEH:

- Borobudur. I wasn't always a temple person anyways, but even this failed to ellicit any kind of excitement within me.
- Krui. Aside from surfing, this town wasn't my bag. Didn't appreciate the constant "hey meestar!"s either.
- Ramayana ballet. Maybe we got the b-cast that night, but none of the dancing or music seemed terribly on-point that night.
- Indonesian food. Sure it was cheap and pretty tasty, but unfortunately we never came across any dynamite discoveries.
- Museums in Jakarta. Thank god they were cheap, cause they were pretty brutal.


I wanna my experience in Indonesia a score out of 10, but I feel it's only fair to do that once I've been around to other places some more. Anyways, I'm in Singapore now and I got some good pictures. Next update will cover that. Tomorrow morning we're heading out to Malaysia.