In Reply to: Surabaya Access posted by Andreas on Friday, 26. November 2004 at 17:18 Bali Time:
We flew to Surabaya in Eastern Java last August & got a room in a good Hotel a stones throw from the Governors residence. We phoned Diah who we met in Adelaide with her little boy for treatment. She lives in Surabaya so came & visited us with her family & brought us a box full of pumpkin cakes.
It was great to see her again, & the next day was Independence Day so the road past our Hotel was blocked from traffic & the area soon filled with Police & the Military as well as a thousand strong choir. We enjoyed the singing & marching but everyone jumped when a loud explosion occurred. Not to worry though, just the start of a 21 gun salute. Next day we hired a taxi to Malang. (We used SUNRISE TOURS in malang for travel.)ph 62 341 359070 or email< anshoryglen@yahoo.co.uk> From there we went to waterfalls & hot springs with swimming pools. I got told off for entering the area for the ladies pool. Then on to a huge wildlife park. This place was amazing & the best of its type I have seen anywhere in the World. We drove through automatic gates to see Grizzly bears, Lions, Tigers, American Buffalo, Hippopotamus, Rhinoceros, Sun Bears, Orangutans, Cheetah's, Jaguars, Wildebeest, & even a herd of Elephants. Then we parked the mini bus & viewed the performance with the wild eagles & vultures etc. After this there was a circus act with two men in a large cage with 4 tigers & 4 lions getting them to do their tricks. All this for only $9 each. The following day we were up at 1.30 am to be driven to Mt Bromo. We traveled through the night until we arrived at the pinnacle around 5.00am. It was only 8c so we hired a jacket each & had a hot cup of tea. We shared the view of the sunrise with around a hundred mainly German & Dutch tourists. After sun up we turned to look at Bromo. An amazing site giving the impression we are on Mars with the unique volcanic vents all around. We then drove to the base of Mt Bromo & hired a couple of horses to travel to the 250 steps for the final part of our ascent. A few months earlier several tourists were killed by a sudden eruption but we were lucky. Upon our descent we found our water bottles were compressed by a third giving us a clue to the low pressure at the higher altitude & explaining why we felt a little out of breath. We then stayed at a town called Kalibaru. Each day we went on trips to visit the local spots of interest. The rubber factory was very interesting as well as a visit to the coffee, chocolate & sugar factories. Our Hotel was built on the top of a hill overlooking rice paddy's & it had the most enormous swimming pool, A cool breeze of the rice fields kept the temperature very pleasant & we had no need for air-conditioning. As we walked around the town two out of three people would talk to us, some out of politeness & some curiosity as we were the only tourists in town. People there are Moslem & we felt very safe & it saddened us that such nice people should have there reputation sowered & there economy diminished so dramatically through no fault of their own. Also sad was the fact that so many people from Europe & Australia miss out on the opportunity to visit such a beautiful spot. Our last day we said our goodbyes & headed for the ferry terminal, stopping on the way to view the fishing village. We saw around a thousand boats at anchor with fish for sale every where. A young lady approached us wearing a low cut top, mini skirt & a red Mickey Mouse umbrella. She chatted to us for a while in Bahasa. Her manner was very friendly but I never did figure out what she was selling? We traveled from the terminal to Denpasar in a local bus. Cost only $3 each but it took 5 hours crammed the bus with no air conditioning & a child crying as loud as he could for over an hour. We decided next time to hire a car & driver as saving around $ 35 was definitely not worth it.
Cheers
clive & Peggy. (If you want to know more email to cwheeler&picknowl.com.au)