Out of Indonesia

Alright, so I've made my way to Bangkok and found a 24 hour internet cafe where they boast recliners that have clearly been picked up in various alleyways behind the homes of obese gamers that burned through the armrests and blew out the seat cushions with endless hours of seemingly epic WoW battles. You geeks no what I'm talking about. How much for a dwarf priest?

I'm also here without my notes, so this update will be totally scattershot because it's 2 a.m. and I'm coming down from a very thorough massage and an insane tuk-tuk ride with a lost driver...my brain is, well, drained. But here it goes. I spent several days with Ajeng's grandmother's driver who picked me up in Surabaya and drove me to Malang to meet up with another uncle. We then drove to Mt. Bromo to catch the sunrise. Hmmmm. Now that I think about it, I wrote about that right? Too lazy to go back and reread other blog entries. Anyway, I went to Yogiakarta and visited Bodobudur and Prambanan temples. One Buddhist. The other Hindu. I had a whacked out guide named Hari who deserves his own entry, so more on his crazy ass later.

I eventually met back up with Ajeng and we flew to the island of Sulawesi just east of Borneo. We stayed in the town of Manado and hired a local boat captain to take us out to Bunaken to go snorkeling in the surrounding reefs. It was also the end of Ramadan so the nighttime celebrations were a spectacle of motorbikes and scooters and bad hip hop music on parade. The next day we visited a local market where the butchers were carving up everything from wild boars to bats to dogs. Yes, dogs. Needless to say, we skipped lunch and visited the infamous Japanese caves. They were built by Indonesian soldiers under force by Japanese invaders. The soldiers where then killed and the caves were later used by the Japanese to hide after Allied Forces landed. It's not a happy place, to say the least. However, we did venture inside where Ajeng and I heard school kids singing. But...there's no school nearby and it was in a different language than Indonesian. Oh, and I our driver who was with us didn't hear jackshit. FREAKY.

The only way to follow that up was to go to Love Hill a special monument with shrines and temples and churches for all the world's major religions. We climbed 500+ steps to reach the cross at the top. We then promptly went to an ancient cemetery where the bodies where buried in the fetal position above ground in carved stone boxes. Come to think of it, that was a bizarre day. We did finish the evening with a mad dash into the jungle to see the smallest monkeys in the world which are indeginous to Sulawesi and Borneo. So, that was cool and not so creepy. I'm sure Ajeng would disagree seeing as we had to hike out of the jungle in the pitch black with our guide stopping to show us tarantulas along the way.

Then it was back to Jakarta where I left Ajeng once again so she could go to work and I could go rafting with her entire family. Which by the way, qualifies for family of the year. They really go above and beyond to be gracious hosts. We stayed outside of this town called Sukabumi in huts along a river I need my notes to remember.

This is getting insane. I really want to share specific stories but find myself short on time and just travelogging. Please be patient...I'll get to some musings soon. I need to go to bed now. Thanks for all of the emails and for keeping up with the blog. So far I've made $11.67 off the ads. That's like 5 cases of beer here in Bangkok.