Day 86

24/09/2009

Lazy morning to make the most of the beach location. Simon and Pat caught us up last night and are staying in a hotel 5 minutes down the beach. They have also decided to stay 2 nights.

Checked out at 12:00 and drove across Bali to see a few of the volcanoes., and a lake between two of them. Stopped to eat on main road overlooking the lake from where you can see the lava flow from the 1963 erruption of Batur.

Got to the Lombok ferry about 18:00 and were in Lombok by 22:00. Two hour drive across Lombok and we were on the Sumbawa ferry by midnight.

There doesn't seem to be much to see on either island so we'll press on through the small hours.

Lat 8 28.67 S
Long 116 40.85 E
Town Labuhao Lombok

Day 85

23/09/2009

Very lazy day - swim in the pool at 6, breakfast at 7, then claim a sunlounger under a tree by 8:30.

Lazed all day with occasional dips in the sea and pool, the odd beer and not much else.

Watched the dive boats come and go and people snorkelling on the coral reef about 100m off-shore.

Day 84

22/09/2009

Left at 7am in the hope of a couple of hours of easier driving which we got. Maybe the east of Java is a little less manic than the rest as the roads were better all the way to the Bali ferry at 11:30. Or maybe it was just a Ramadan thing.

Crossing takes about an hour and a half, including the half hour wait off-shore for a berth to become available.

Bali is refreshing afer Java. A slower pace of life, quieter roads and nicer beaches. We've decided to spend a couple of nights here and enjoy it. We could have driven across in a day and got the Lombok ferry but .... sometimes you have to stop driving for a day.

Walked along the beach, lazed by the pool, read some more Lonely Planet. Bliss.

Lat 8 08.72 S
Long 114 39.27 E
Town Pemuteran
Distance 23884km

Day 83

21/09/2009

We were the first to buy tickets for the Prambanan temples this morning at 6:15. They are Hindu temples built in the 8th and 9th centuries and bear a considerable resemblence to parts of the Angkor complex in Cambodia. They have suffered over the years from the many earthquakes in Java and maintenance and restoration are never ending tasks.

We wandered around the site until 8:00 before returning to the hotel for showers and breakfast.

The usual story with the roads today - mostly slow. In the end we covered about 335km by driving until 8pm.

The low point of the day was while waiting in one of the many traffic queues with the usual idiots hurtling up the inside of us, seeing a motorcyclist trying to cross the stationary line, hit by one of the small buses and thrown in the air. Even worse as he was crossing the stationary line directly in front of us, and I saw in the door mirror the bus along side us. The surrounding pedestrians immediately came to his aid and carried him and his mangled bike to the side of the road. It looked so organised you could believe it was a frequent occurence. He appeared to have a few broken bones and his helmet had come off during the collision (chin strap not fastened).

We've stopped tonight at the foot of Bromo, which is the most visited volcano on Java. Not sure if we will drive up to it in the morning or get across to Bali and find a nice hotel on the beach for a couple of nights.

Lat 7 45.34 S
Long 113 13.16 E
Town Probolinggo
Distance 23633km (re-revised the adjustment due to tyre size from +5.5% to +3.5%)

Day 82

20/09/2009

The standard of driving in Indonesia is not vastly different to that in China where as soon as a queue of traffic forms due to some hold-up, lots of drivers will try to jump the queue by using the other side of the road or drive along the verge on the nearside. Road rage doesn't seem to have arrived here yet otherwise there would be a blood bath most days.

The most frustrating part of this is the total disrespect for the police in both countries, where they can be stood at the road-side while this is going on but seem powerless to stop it.

Driving today was a bit better than yesterday as the Cirebon to Semarang road along the north coast of Java has 2 lanes in each direction. After Semarang it is a mixture of 1 and 2 lane and we covered a little over 300km in total.

Took a detour from the best route across Java this evening so we could see the temple complex at Prambanan early tomorrow and stay in a nice hotel where each room is in it's own block and has an outside bath and shower.

There have been a fair number of older VWs around in Indonesia, exclusively beetles and bay window vans. Some wave to us, others are oblivious to seeing a later version of their vehicle. We did see two bay windows travelling together to the south of Bandar Lampung (Sumatra) as we were waiting at traffic lights and they stopped and waved to us but we were trying to reach the Java ferry in daylight so didn't stop. I hope they understood.

Lat 7 44.93 S
Long 110 29.28 E
Town Prambanan

Day 81

19/09/2009

The beach was as disappointing as expected, with about 1 metre of grey sand and non too inviting water. The range of barges moored just 25 metres off shore provided some interest.

The swimming pool was a lot better but they were cleaning it when I checked about 7:00 so we skipped that too.

Driving this morning was very easy with a toll dual carriageway taking us east to Jakarta and then south-east to Bandung.

Then it all went horribly wrong. We joined the back of a queue of traffic at 13:00 and moved 6km in the next 3 hours. The flow wasn't much better after that and the 100km to Cirebon took us until 22:00. Ramadan finished at 14:30 - we should have stopped at noon and joined in the party.

Got a scrape in the passenger rear wheel arch when a yellow lorry decided he wasn't going to let us filter in front of him into the single lane ahead. Same corner as the damage in Turkey, so will need some filler and the spray gun when we get home.

Lat 6 43.14 S
Long 108 34.12 E
Town Cirebon

Day 80

18/09/2009

Left at 6:45 this morning as there was no breakfast and stopped about 9:00 to make tea and eat cereals, crispbread and jam.

Realised today that my left arm is getting a bit burnt from the sun when we are travelling east. The sun is now moving across the northern sky during the day.

Roads not quite as good as yesterday, and definitely busier. Decided it was worth continuing a little in the dark to reach the ferry this evening, which we did by 18:30. Crossing costs $19 for a car and passengers. The ferry is ex P&O and looks like they were the last to do any maintenance on it.

Remarkably little queuing at the Sumatra side and the ferry was not a quarter full, but things were manic at the Java side.

We arrived in Java at 23:00 after sitting off shore for nealy two hours, presumably waiting for the berth to be available. Drove north out of the port to a place called Pantai Pulorida (I think it translates to Florida beach) intending to free camp but stumbled on a restaurant with some holiday cottages so are staying in one of those.

Will probably have a later start tomorrow as it's passed midnight now. From what we can see tonight, the beach here isn't going to be very impressive in the morning so probably won't have a swim before breakfast.

Pat and Simon stopped at Bander Lampung, about 2 hours from the ferry so won't be across until midday.

Hearing about some bombings in Jakata - pleased to be avoiding the big cities.

Lat 5 54.26 S
Long 106 00.69 E
Town Pantai Pulorida

Day 79

17/09/2009

The room at Pink Hotel looked even worse on second inspection, so after cooking some tea, we slept in the van in the car park. At least the water came back on during the evening so we could shower in the morning.

More driving today but the roads are straighter and we equalled yesterday's distance by 12:20, and totalled about 550km for the day.

First hotel we tried in Lahat was full, which is very unusual. Second had rooms, and we took one despite being on a noisy road. Not the best hotel, and could have done with some money spending on it, but we both slept surprisingly well.

We ate fried rice at a street cafe which was good, as usual. Pat and Simon are still running an hour or so behind us.

Lat 3 47.34 S
Long 103 32.35 E
Town Lahat

Day 78

Left the hotel at 7:30 and continued south stopping a few minutes before noon when the GPS read 0 00.45 N and some kind person had put a gantry over the road saying that we were now crossing the equator.

Both my and Simon's GPS put the actual equator about 200m south of the line painted on the ground. I couldn't quite get it to read 0 00.0000 N but managed 0 00.0025 N

The rest of the day was spent driving along the Trans Sumatra Highway, which often has tarmac no wider than the roads into Witham Friary with a bit of gravel each side for when the oncoming lorries don't move over enough. Which is every time there is an oncoming lorry.

Late in the day we started to come down from the mountains that form the backbone of Sumatra and our average speed picked up a little. We still won't make our target of the Java ferry by friday afternoon, but hopefully we'll be across sometime on saturday.

Ramadan ends on saturday and our experience of this on previous holidays is not to try to travel anywhere. We'll see how we get on this time.

Tonight's hotel (it's raining again) is called Pink Hotel, and Beth thought it might be a brothel when we walked in. If it is then the rates are very reasonable. I'll let you know if it's good value.

Simon and Pat were a bit behind us at the end of the day and stopped in a town about 50km before us.

Lat 0 53.43 S
Long 101 20.96 E
Town Kiliranjao

Day 77

15/09/2009

Early start today in anticipation of slow progress, which is how it turned out. 10 hours driving got us 340km. No ill effects from the hotel -seems OK in the daylight.

The roads vary from good but twisty to bad and twisty, but the driving is enjoyable (for me at least) and the country side and towns are great. Not sure if this is officially tropical rain forest, but it's well south of the tropic of cancer, certainly rains a lot, and if you didn't describe it as forest you'd have to use the word jungle.

Not many (any?) suitable camping spots this evening, so we're in a hotel again with the usual eating arrangements - Beth and I at a street cafe across the road (cost £3.30) and Simon and Pat eating in the hotel (cost £11)

Just look at that Lattitude.....only a few kilometres to go now.

Lat 0 52.25 N
Long 99 33.71 E
Town - can't remeber and the map's in the van, and it's raining again. Try Google Earth.

Day 76

14/09/2009

Oh what a day.

Don't people in Indonsia realise that by attempting to rip off the few visitors who do come to their country that even fewer will come in the future?

So you will have guessed that extracting our vehicles from the hold of a boat and out of the port wasn't a ten minute job.

The full details would be a bit dull. The summary is that it took from 8:30 to 13:30, and cost us a total of $740. There seemed to be some random number generator in operation to calculate the port fees, which was finally resolved when we sat at the desk of somebody sensible and miraculously the cost fell by $170.

Having left Belawan we hit the roads of Sumatra to find them quite well surfaced, but very busy in the first 100km. As the rice and palm growing plains gave way to rubber plantations and then to tropical rainforest on the hills of the south-west side of the island, so the roads became less conjested and our average speed moved up from 35km/h to about 50km/h.

We just made it to the edge of lake Toba before nightfall which is not long after sunset at these lattitudes. Rather than camp as we had planned (there was a storm moving in from the east) we found a hotel. It's up on a headland above the lake so should be a good picture or two in the morning. It's slightly eerie as we are the only guests, the hotel is down a long twist track from the main road and there's not another house anywhere nearby.

If I don't update the blog tomorrow, you have our coordinates......

Lat 2 41.73 N
Long 98 55.08 E
Nearest Town Parapat

Day 75

13/09/2009

A day at leisure in Medan so we got a becak (I think that's what they are called - a motor bike with a 2 seater covered side car) to a shopping mall which was packed with people looking for a bargain amongst the many stalls selling clothes and shoes.

We didn't find anything much, most of the men around here are Beth's height or less, so there isn't much in my size.

Generally had a lazy day knowing that once we got the vehicles back we would need to be driving 9-10 hours a day to get across Indonesia and have enough time left to justify shipping across to Oz. The roads here sound a bit like Laos in quality and twistyness.

Checking the bus schedules shows the time from Medan to Bandar Lampung (south east end of Sumatra) is 40 hours - 4 days for us.

We were able to watch the Italien Grand Prix this evening so witnessed Mr Hamilton throw away 6 points on the last lap. Nice to see Rubino on the top step, but where did those Force Indias suddenly come from?

Day 74

12/09/2009

Went back to the customs house this morning to find where our boat would dock so we could be there to see the unloading, and got caught up with several customs officers trying to expedite our vehicles throuh the process and allow us to leave Belawan today.

After going back and forth between customs, the port and our agent, who was surprisingly at work on saturday after we'd been told we wouldn't see her until monday, we got our vehicle Carnets stamped and our Bills of Lading acknowledged. The boat had arrived safely and all that we needed was a crane to unload us and we could drive away. But it was not to be. A crane was simply not available on saturday, however much money we offered to throw at the problem. We were going to have to wait until monday.

So back to Medan, and enjoy the delights of the capital of Sumatra for the weekend.

Lat 3 34.42 N
Long 98 41.11 E
Town Medan

Day 73

11/09/2009

Checked out of the hotel and got a taxi to the Sumatra ferry terminal for loading at 8:30 and a 10:00 departure. The boat was quite small, seating about 200, but was quick through the water. The crossing was a little over 6 hours but the sea wasn't very smooth, several people requirng the use of plastic bags, including Beth once and Simon four times.

On arrival we were supposed to be meeting with a lady from a shipping agent. We thought we were getting into a taxi to take us to her office but seemed to have somehow got the local Mr Fix-It-At-A-Price along for the ride. He, of course, worked for the same company so would be able to help us get our vehicles off-loaded and through customs. Cost would be a mere 3.2m Rupiah (a little over £200) and that was just for the first vehicle. It had cost us less than £300 at Penang and that included the passage on the ship.

We arrived at the shipping office to find our contact had already gone home and the office was little more than a private house. Our Mr Fix-It told us that the customs house was also closed but he could find us a hotel. We insisted on going to the customs house where, of course, we found it to be still open. His credibility was falling fast.

Unfortunately without the required language skills we weren't going to get very far but did establish that it was open 8 to 12:30 tomorrow.

We then made the mistake of asking Mr Fix-It to take us to a hotel of our choosing in Medan without confirming a price first. We got there OK, but were royally ripped off on the price. I don't think his English was good enough to understand what "tosser" meant.

Spoke to Mr Lim who is also not able to contact the agent over here so it is looking like monday will be the earliest we can drive out of town.

Got a text from Mr Lim later to say our boat is expecting to dock at 12:30 tomorrow so we need to be there as the vehicles are unloaded.

Hotel is OK but it didn't meet Pat's standard so they are staying across the road. As it's Ramadam, the restaurants are all packed immediately after sundown, so we ate a little later this evening. Pat and Simon didn't like the look of our choice so ate at their hotel, but Pat wasn't able to have her first choice of jacket potato and her second choice was sent back as the beefburger was soggy and cold. Stick to street vendors would be my advice. Tomorrow they're considering changing hotels - moving to the Novotel - keeping their tourist pound in the hands of the multi-nationals.

Day 72

10/09/2009

Seems very strange to be moving to a different hotel with a small rucksack and no vehicles. No worries about finding secure parking.

We'd decided to move across to Penang island today as the ferry to Sumatra leaves from here tomorrow morning, and there is more to see and do over here.

Collected the Bills of Lading from Mr Lim and paid him. Decided to go to the top of Penang hill by the cable railway as it's over 700m above sea level. The view of the island, channel and mainland are spectacular.

Ate at another Indian restaurant this evening which was good. There are a lot of people from India around here.

Day 70

08/09/2009 - I think the day count went wrong sometime back.

Simon and I have been trawling around the shipping agents in Georgetown this morning to find one able to ship our vehicles across to Medan in Sumatra. After suggestions that we needed to put them in containers, and then, as Tiny is too tall, that we needed a special open topped container to be brought from Singapore, we found the right man for the job.

Mr Lim was out of the office when we arrived arranging the shipping of two American motorbikes, so we felt we were in the right place.

When he returned he confirmed we could have our vehicles shipped on a smalll boat leaving friday and arriving saturday in Medan. If we didnl't load until friday we would have a problem as we need to be here to load the vehicles and would also need to be in Belawan (the port near Medan) to off load on saturday, but would have missed the friday foot ferry, and the next would be monday. Flying was one option, or spliting up, with Beth and Pat going to Belawan on friday and Simon and I following on monday or flying on saturday.

This was all resolved when we found we could load tomorrow so could all travel together on friday.

Took the opportunity to drive across the Penang bridge this evening, which is a little over 13km long.

Day 71

09/09/2009

Arranged to meet Mr Lim at the Butterworth end of the Penang ferry at 10:30 so we could go to the customs house and then to the dockside to await loading. Mr Lim was held up elsewhere and by the time he arrived the customs house was closed for dinner.

This wasn't really a problem as we were expecting to be waiting on the dockside until the evening to load. Even with the delay Simon still did an oil change and I rotated tyres on the van and generally checked around. I found a split boot on the top ball joint on the front suspension and another on the steering track rod. Both are small holes, but will mean dirt getting in and causing extra wear. Will keep an eye on both.

Also spotted that the part of the rear spring that had broken off in Laos actually came from the bottom of the spring, so where it appears to have shifted at the top is it's normal position. The bottom hasn't moved atall.

Vehicles were loaded this evening - but the pictures describe this better than my words.

All safely loaded

First lift completed

Preparing to lift

Driving over Penang bridge

Indian meal on first night in Malaysia

Kwae bridge. Not hugely impressive to look at but with huge significance.

Ta Som ......

Ta Prohm - fantastic trees

Angkor Thom

Look what I built from matchsticks

Angkor Wat

Northern Laos

Northern Laos hills

Mekong from our hotel, Luang Prabang

Temple at Luang Prabang.

Mekong river, Luang Prabang, Laos

Tropical garden, southern China

Day 68

07/09/2009

It was a little hard to get up and leave our beach side camp site after just one night - whilst not idyllic, it was certainly very pleasant. Dozens of fishing boats had been out all night, returned to harbour at first light and were heading back to their favoured spot as we ate breakfast.

We headed further south and crossed the border into Malaysia mid-afternoon. South for a couple more hours brought us to Butterworth which is on the mainland opposite the port of Georgetown on the island of Pinang. We hope to ship from here to Sumatra but have already established that there are no scheduled vehicle ferries from anywhere in Malaysia to Sumatra. Tomorrow we talk to shipping agents to see how much it will cost to send them as freight.

Ate at an Indian along the street from the hotel which was outstanding. All the cooking was done at the front on the street with seating areas behind where you could see everything that was going on. Unfortunately we sat upstairs in air conditioned splendour, so missed out on that aspect.

Lat 5 24.48 N
Long 100 22.22 E
Town Butterworth

Day 67

06/09/2009

Early morning there was a bit of a commotion starting with Simon's car alarm going off at 3:45 followed by somebody with a German accent shouting in English, and the sound of something metallic being hit hard. Turned out that the German owner of the hotel had driven back from Bangkok in the late evening, stopped for something to eat and had somebody run into the back of his new pickup truck and drive off.

He was obviously not best pleased with this, drove home and opened a bottle of beer, then another, and by the time we had breakfast at 7:30 he was much the worse, and had inflicted more damage on his pickup truck in the intervening 4 hours.

Drove south for about 6 hours then found a beach location to camp. There is a small cafe about 200m from us but otherwise the beach is desserted. Cold beer is always welcome when the weather is as humid as this, and the seafood stir fry was very good.

Passed the 20000km mark today and dropped to within 9 degrees of the equator. If all goes to plan we cross the equator in Sumatra. Getting exciting.....

Lat 8 53.58 N
Long 99 55.04 E
Distance 20323km
Town Sichon

Day 66

05/09/2009

Visited the best of the 3 museums in town that described in a non-critical way the facts behind the building of the railway from Burma into Thailand. It certainly wasn't an easy task given the terrain and haste with which it was forced through, and when you look at the weather here in monsoon season (now) you realise why so many lives were lost. About 100,000 many of whom were buried beside the railway, and were subsequently reburied in more formal war cemetries after the war. The Japanese did at least keep complete records of deaths so the graves bear names, ranks and regiments.

The bridge itself has been rebuilt a few times at the end of WWII and isn't particularly impressive but you can walk over it and actually be on the bridge when a train passes over.

Headed south in the afternoon to find a suitable beach location for an overnight stop, which we eventually did. And the fish is paricularly good here too.

We will continue heading almost due south for the next few days and will start to think about finding ferry times between Malaysia and Sumatra. Also keeping an eye on the situation in Java.

Lat 11 47.86 N
Long 99 48.11 E
Town Prachuap Khiri Khan

Day 65

04/09/2009

A return to travelling after our longest stop of the trip so far.

Read the Lonely Planet write up of Bangkok and realised that neither of us had any desire to be there, so we skirted the edge on our way to a particular bridge crossing a river Kwae.

It was a particularly late arrival as Simon and Pat can't quite get their heads around leaving early. A 7am departure isn't early if you are in bed at 9:30. It's light at 6am and dark by 6:45 so adjust your body clock to the sun not some false invention of "time".

We arrived at 8pm by leaving at 8:45am but could have been there in daylight.

Lat 14 02.11 N
Long 99 31.12 E
Town Kanchanaburi

Day 64

03/09/2009

Second day at Siem Reap and second day visiting the Angkor temples. Yesterday we went around the central area which are the most frequently visited and best known, so today we went a bit further out to see some smaller, quieter temples.

And I got that "wow" feeling several times during the day so it must have been the mood I was in yesterday.

These really are quite remarkable places, built between 1000 and 800 years ago and whilst they were partially demolished by the jungle, much of the carving is still very sharp. The scale of the major temples is comparable to anything elsewhere in the world and belongs to a civilisation, the Kymers, I barely knew anything about.

It's a "must visit" if you're anywhere near this part of the world.

Sadly we ran out of time to visit the last of our planned temples, but we did allow most of an hour at the Camodian Landmine Museum, run by a Cambodian guy who has been removing landmines for about 20 years both as an employee of clearing organisations and self funded. Cambodia has a huge problem with landmines due to the Vietnam war, which injure several people every day, even 30 years after the war has ended.

This was unexpctedly to be our last day with Tom. He'd been planning to leave the group in Bangkok but hadn't firmed up his plans, but a combination of the great temples, the relatively low cost of living and a text from Sonja who he met in Vientiane to say she was heading to Siem Reap seemed to cement his plans. It's sad but we each have our own lives and objectives, and travelling with people all more than twice your age means you risk missing something of what travelling is all about.
At least we were able to show him that married life has some downs aswell as all the ups!

Day 63

02/09/2009

Spent the day with Tom around the many temples within the Angkor area. Hired a tuk-tuk for the day for $15 and visited Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Keo and Ta Prohm.

They are really quite stunning temples but for some reason I didn't get that "wow" feeling as we approached the first at Angkor Wat.

Built around 1050 to 1300 they are the temples and cities of the Kymer empire which (apart from Angkor Wat) were abandoned by 1600 and left to the jungle. Exploration and renovation started soon after 1900 led by the French and continues today with support from half a dozen countries.

Ta Prohm is of particular interest as it was deliberately left unrestored to show how most of the area was back in 1900. Today there is some restoration work going on here so that the tree roots growing through and on the structure don't destroy more.

Met up with Pat and Simon this evening and we ate in the town centre then wandered around the markets for a couple of hours.

Day 62

Last night's bite count was higher than anticipated as most of us had a dozen or more bites around our ankles from an unknown source. Camping may be cheap but....

We headed south for about 200km and then turned east to the Cambodian border, destination Siem Reap, the town where the Angkor temples are located. The border crossing was straight forward and only noteworthy as we used our Carnets for the first time.

The Cambodian roads were very good so we had no problem reaching Siem Reap, the only issue being to chose a hotel suitable for all. We've all ended up in different hotels, and I think Pat may have thrown her toys out of the pram just once too ofen for us to travel much further with her.

Lat 13 21.63 N
Long 103 52.24 E
Town Siem Reap