I heart Indonesia

Jakarta

Our first stop after leaving Europe is... Jakarta!! We booked our flights to Bali with Garuda Indonesia airlines and they had a free stopover, so it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. Incidentally, Garuda was awesome and it was a really easy, drama free flight.

Phil and I have a serious soft spot for Jakarta. In 2008, I went over to do an internship for 3 months. Phil joined me for a couple of weeks at the end... and proposed at the airport (awwww... romantic). We also spent a week of our honeymoon in Jakarta a year later, but haven't been back since.

I love spending a few days in Jakarta - even though it's busy, noisy, polluted and has some of the worst traffic jams ever. I find the size of the city (freaking ginormous) and the chaos really energising, the people are so friendly, the food is great and I love that you can find village life hidden in back streets all over the city - like the kampung (village-like area) below.



Jakarta's traffic jams - and it wasn't even raining...


A kampung in the middle of the city, complete with a herd of goats. I took this pic from exactly the same spot as the photo above, just facing another direction...

I was also curious to see what has changed in the last 6 years. The answer is... not much! Well not much that I could see in the few days we were there anyway. We revisited some of our favourite places. First up, Cafe Batavia in Kota, the old town of Jakarta. The area is looking as crumbly as it did on our last trip if not more so.


Cafe Batavia - possibly the only spot in Kota that doesn't look about ready to fall down! I love the old wooden shutters and panelling here. It feels like you've stepped into the 1920s!

On the food theme, we also had afternoon tea at The Dharmawangsa, a beautiful hotel where we toasted our engagement with martinis named after James Bond movies some seven years ago.



Still a killer afternoon tea served in the majestic library. Here are the Indonesian desserts plus a raisin scone...



And the rest... one afternoon tea is plenty to share

We couldn't quite manage the James Bond martinis, so Phil ordered a coffee. It was delicious, so I ordered one and then he ordered another. Then when it came time to pay up, we discovered that the coffee was... $10 a cup!!! Ooops.

It's pretty funny - I always thought that people whose travel anecdotes include complaining about paying $10 for a coffee were suckers who sit down at St Mark's square in Venice or in a cafe on the Champs Élysées and are then shocked when the bill arrived... I'd think, duh, just check the menu before you order... So, I guess the lesson is, check the menu before you order!!!!

I thought accidentally ordering $30 worth of coffee would bring out the GOMP for sure. But he just said 'well, it was the finest single origin Aceh coffee'.

I swear that's exactly what he said. I may not have mentioned it, but he's been getting reaalllly into coffee this trip, making delicious cold brew coffee since July and even getting a hand grinder delivered to Baden Baden so we could make our own from scratch!!

Meanwhile, I was still muttering about $10 coffee two hours later...

What else? Despite Jakarta being possibly the world's worst city for pedestrians, we did quite a lot of walking around. We checked out a couple of the big shopping malls, saw a movie (Transporter Refueled - it earned every one of its 16% on rotten tomatoes), and just randomly wandered about:


Yup, that's a ping pong lounge...


But what about the diet??


Berliner burgers?? Why not...



The 3 Buns Burger Bar. Run by the same guys who have Potato Head Beach Club in Bali. I had a super spicy mango and chilli margarita...

We had a really fun, relaxed and nostalgia-heavy time in Jakarta and revisited a few favourites while also trying out a few new places.

Next stop on the itinerary... Bali. We're in gorgeous Amed this week in East Bali. I'll post one pic below, details to follow:


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End of a Europ-era

Euro-tripping

After seven months of wandering around Europe, it's finally time to go...

AAAARRRGGHH - how is this happening??? How has it been 7 months???? Why can't it last forever???????

Now that I've got that out of the system...

Phil and I revisited some places we've been together (Munich, Hamburg, Berlin), we visited some places I haven't been to in ooh, almost 15 years - and where Phil had never been - (Budapest, Prague, Athens) and we went to a stack of new places (Rotterdam, Warsaw, Bratislava Sofia, Istanbul, Ljubljana). And we shared our travels with friends and family. Ahhhh... it's been an amazing trip.



Stunning cathedral in Sofia, Bulgaria


Prague at sunset


View from train, Greece


Nafplio, Greece - possibly heaven

We also didn't make it to a few spots that are still high up on my wish list, including Croatia, Romania, Scandanavia and the Baltic States. Phil is still longing to do a three day train trip from Istanbul to Tehran that I have to say looked pretty awesome but might be better in cooler months...

Ultimately, moving slowly and spending more time in each place brought the most rewards and I'm glad we didn't try to cram more in!! Plus, we met one of the key goals of the trip, which was to spend loads of time with family. We got to attend two family weddings, celebrate birthdays and go on a hiking trip!!


I still can't quite believe I hiked in the Alps!!

Europe herself has experienced a pretty tough year with the Greek debt crisis and the incredible refugee crisis with asylum seekers fleeing from Syria in droves.

Incidentally, it's been very moving watching the refugee footage - so many ordinary people coming out to offer help and then watching with tears in my eyes as the Hungarian police use water cannons on these desperate people. Is it a complicated issue? Of course? Is that an excuse for a lack of a humane and compassionate response? Hell, no. We stopped by Munich train station in our last days to see if we could offer our help, but the German police had the entry point all locked down with medical tests and shuttle buses at the ready...

Our timing in moving around Europe was eerily precise for avoiding some of the turmoil - we left Greece two days before the Greek banks closed, skirted around the huge influx of refugees in Greece and Slovenia and left Germany mere days before the borders were closed to stem the influx of refugees.

And while our banana republic currency (ahem... I mean, Australian dollar) was not at its best this year, it took an impressive dive in our final month, making our departure from the Euro zone just a little easier to take.

I wanted to list some highlights, but it's hard to narrow down after months of loving one experience and city after another. At this stage, standouts include my first ever skiing experience in Langrisse at the beginning of the trip, a super relaxed overnight train ride through Romania and Bulgaria and hiking in the Alps, spotting wild mountain goats - amazing!!


Budapest won us over with its energy and beautiful "ruin" pubs


Bit of the Berlin Wall behind us



Istanbul's magnificent Bosphorus river

A huge shout out to Phil's dad Klaus and Cornelia for making us so welcome for so long - we just had the best time in Germany!!! And to Niko and Chris and Carina for spending summer hanging with us.


Hanging at Lake Worthsee, Munich

Of all our stops, there is nowhere I wouldn't revisit - every city had its charms, although if you're looking for tips, I would make a serious effort to get to Budapest and Ljubljana. I was just blown away by how traveller friendly both cities were in every respect - affordable, easy to navigate, full of energy with heaps to do.

What's next
After a couple of acclimatising days in Jakarta, we're now in one of my favourite places - Bali. I'll let you know what we've been up to in the next instalment. Although, I have already discovered that the spa across the road has a 3 month old puppy AND today I had what I'm dubbing a "puppy pedi" which means having a pedi with a puppy on my lap... It's the world's best therapy for the bargain price of $6.50 an hour.


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We can come home!!

Okay, that heading above is a touch misleading... We are of course, coming home, you know, eventually. But not quite yet.

What I mean to say is that our absence is no longer dedicated (see post here) to our now-ex PM Abbott because he is GONE, son. Good bye. Good riddance.

Celebrating in Jakarta!!!!!




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Ljubljana - Part 2

Ljubljana turned out to be one of our favourite cities of this trip, and our visit lasted a mammoth two weeks!

While we initially booked return bus tickets to and from Ljubljana, we thought we would head out of town and spend some of our time in other parts of Slovenia, or even in Zagreb, Croatia (a mere 2 hours by bus). But it only took 3 days for Ljubljana to persuade us to stay put!


Beer tasting at the Union Brewery, five minutes down the road from our apartment... I can't believe we left our visit to the last day!!

Ljubljana is really more the size of a town than a city with only 270,000 people. Incredibly, despite the small size, it lacked for nothing. Most visitors seem to spend 3-4 days in Ljubljana which makes sense for a small city. But even after 2 weeks, I could have happily stayed longer...

I mentioned in my last post some of the things I was loving about Ljubljana in our first few days. And all those things - the free bike share, the friendly people, great coffee and craft beer and gorgeous dogs as far as the eye could see - continued to make our stay in Ljubljana really relaxed and enjoyable.


One of the many unique free drinking water taps in Ljubljana which made walking all day so easy!! They have free wifi all over the city too...traveller heaven!


This is a straight-from-the-farm, raw milk vending machine. You can purchase milk bottles and then fill with as much as you need.

So what did we do for two weeks??

Day trip to the Lake
As mentioned above, Slovenia is fairly compact, so it's quite easy to jump on a bus and see more of the countryside. Apart from Ljubljana, Slovenia's most famous tourist attraction is Lake Bled - a huge lake set in gorgeous mountainous surroundings, featuring an island with a very picturesque church in the middle of the lake and a castle perched on a hill overlooking it.

So we decided, if we were going to spend our whole visit in Ljubljana, we would definitely get ourselves to Lake Bled for a day.



Lake Bled... Not my pic!!

We bought bus tickets to Lake Bled, jumped on and... blew right past it in favour of Lake Bohinj!! Both our lovely air BnB host and our food tour guide had talked up Lake Bohinj, saying it was more beautiful and less crowded than Lake Bled. And because we booked our tickets for a very warm Saturday, we opted for the less crowded option. And I'm glad we did, because Lake Bohinj was absolutely stunning!!!


Lake Bohinj - gorgeous and peaceful

What else??
I definitely rediscovered my love for cycling. Ljubljana is the perfect cycling city with bike lanes on every footpath. It was so easy and fun to cruise around the city on the bike share system.

We spent a couple of days just riding around the city, stopping at interesting looking spots.


In summer, Ljubljana has libraries under the treetops - outdoor mini-libraries scattered around town with deck chairs. It's a lovely way to spend a warm afternoon.


Tranquil views down the Ljubljanica river

I also discovered that the city has a cat cafe(!!) which is totally free to visit - it's just a fairly regular cafe (with regular prices), but has 6 resident cats!


Cat menu, anyone??


Blissed out kitty

We also spent a couple of days in the very central Tivoli park which is all manicured gardens on the outside and a huge forested area if you venture inwards.



Forest walk in Tivoli Park

We found a fantastic restaurant on the top of a hill with gorgeous views and authentic Slovenian food at bargain prices!

We realised that our airbnb host had recommended this spot and on our second visit, we ran into him and his girlfriend and spent Sunday afternoon chatting away in the sunshine. Incidentally, Ljubljana is small enough that we also ran into our food tour guide, Iva over and over again. I think she thought we'd relocated to Ljubljana!


Sauerkraut soup at Gostilna Roznik - delish!!

We visited the Ljubljana castle (mostly worth it for the great views), went on a two and a half hour free walking tour and learned all about the history and architecture of Ljubljana, saw Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at the very alt venue, Kino Siska and visited the central markets - awesome on a Friday for the international food market - and the salami.



Yup, that is bear salami!! It's from local bears who are culled annually to keep the bear population sustainable. And it's really tasty...

We have visited some pretty awesome cities this year and fallen completely in love with a couple (Budapest, Nafplio...) but Ljubljana has definitely been one of the best and an awesome final European adventure!!

What? No more Euro??
Nup!! Unbelievably, after just over six fab months wandering around the continent, it's time to head over to Asia - we're starting with 6 days in Jakarta and then onto Bali.

A Euro adventure recap is in the works. Back soon...

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