Java – Melang

Day 1 – Travelling to Java

Waking up with bad stomachs (from our re-hashed boat food we think) we were served breakfast outside our room then we caught our complimentary transfer to the airport, which was only about 10-15 minutes away.

Unfortunately we had to catch two flights again as there was nothing direct, so we had to go back via Bali to get to Surabaya airport in Java.  We had a bit of a delay in Flores which led to about a 15 minute turn-around for our connecting flight, we made it just in time but we were concerned about whether our luggage had!

Arriving at Surabaya airport we were relieved when our bags came into view on the conveyor belt and headed out to work out how we were going to get to Melang (A place when we intended to do our volcano trip from).

We checked with the first taxi/transfer service counter we found and they were quoting an extortionate amount to get us there.  So not seeing any obvious alternatives we found the airport helpdesk, who were in fact incredibly helpful.  The guy on the counter asked us if we wanted to wait for a local minibus or get a shared taxi which he would sort out immediately.  We opted for the shared cab and he told us we could go and have a cigarette outside whilst he arranged it and would come and find us.  True to his word after a while he came and got us and led us to where the cab was waiting with another passenger already onboard.

It was a journey of around 70-80km to Melang and that wouldn’t have been that bad apart from the traffic in Surabaya was horrendous and it must have taken us over an hour to get out of town.  Despite that the journey was fairly uneventful apart from the driver being pulled over by the police for some driving misdemeanour which he was fined Rp100,000 (£5) for, which was quite steep as we were only paying him £10 for the trip!

Eventually after around 3 hours and getting late we arrived at our hotel gagging for a beer only to find out that Melang was a very Muslim town and our hotel didn’t serve beer.  So after unpacking Shell and I asked the receptionist if there was anywhere we could get a beer and he gave us some directions to a restaurant somewhere up the road. 

After a few false starts we found it and sat there for a while and had a few beers (although I think the restaurant staff were waiting for us to order food!) , before returning back to the hotel to watch some TV before bed for the night.

Day 2 – Happy Birthday too Me!!!

Waking up in the morning I could now open the birthday cards that I have been carrying around for the past few months (delivered by Daryll in The Philippines), plus one home made card from Shell.

 

For a change we went down for breakfast and were confronted with a chicken curry then we did a bit of research on Java to work out what we were going to do here.

In the early afternoon we thought we would walk into town to see if we could find some cheaper alternatives to the volcano trip that our hotel was offering.  We checked with a tourism office and they offered one that was slightly more expensive so we thought we would just book with the hotel rather than waste time looking around and instead try and find somewhere for a birthday drink.

After traipsing around for quite some time and getting various directions from the locals we finally found a restaurant that sold beer, so we celebrated my birthday in a pretty empty restaurant with a couple of beers before returning to the hotel in the late afternoon.

 

Back at the hotel we then booked a volcano trip for the following two days, the only drawback was the trip started at 1.00am the next morning.  At the same time we asked the receptionist if they could order some beers in for us, which they said they would and we would have them in twenty minutes.

We retired to our room and watched some TV, then because I was slightly miserable due to lack of options on my birthday and the beers had not turned up (an hour  later) Shell asked me what I wanted to do and I said I fancied Pizza.  Unfortunately there was no restaurants that did western food nearby so  Shell then managed to google take-away’s and found a Pizza Hut and asked the receptionist if he could arrange a take away for us, which he did.  Whilst waiting I called my mum so she could sing me happy birthday!!

Our pizza turned up as well as our beers (although they were a bit warm), so we spent the evening eating slightly dodgy pizza, warm beer and watching The Soprano’s before hitting the sack,  we only had 3 hours before we had to get up again!!