From Semarang I took a travel to take me to Yogyakarta, its a five hours drive through Boyolali, Magelang and Muntilan. I’m quite familiar with the road as I go through them often everytime I have my school holiday. Eventhough Yogyakarta always have special place in my heart, that day I didnt spend time to roaming around and went directly to Lempuyangan train station where I should spend another hour to get to Kutoarjo where my friend is waiting.
Actually by then, I already have a booked ticket train that will take me to Yogyakarta from Brebes but hey I ended up join the road trip and postponed my arrival at Yogyakarta and I’m glad I did. From the wedding we drove to Semarang, enjoying the new highway that make the trip faster. We stopped by at Pekalongan and went to their Batik market for a while, you know shop, shop and shop until we arrived so late at Semarang. We stay at a friend’s house in the edge of the city near by the famous Sam Pho Kong temple.
Semarang is the city in central of Java, known as the biggest city as economic center and famous for it milky fish snack and lumpia. So of course we do the culinary trip along the city, visit the famous Lawang Sewu, Batik Village and Sam Pho Kong temple. They also have the old town corner, filled with the Dutch architecture building and quite famous corner just to spend time with walking around and taking pictures. I hope you can enjoy the pic as I enjoy when I was taking them.
Continue readingTime passing so fast during travelling and cant believe it been months ago I start the journey. I spend half of the year on the road and I enjoy it. The excitement of seeing new places, culture and people that I see of they are so amazing. I’m gratefull that I have a chance to enjoy this luxury of travel for longer time than usual. But some friends and family start getting worry because stay away too long and once I’ve dropped down my mobile so they cant reach me and they report me missing in the middle of Nias ahahahaha another amazing way to end the journey as I end up being search by the police officer to my homestay due to the report. At the same time, it shown that your friends show that they really care for you. They watchin over you from a distance J thank youuuu….
I love to stay near the Sorake beach so much so I keep extending my stay day by day and I was informed that there will be a cultural festival in this south part of Nias, Teluk Dalam exactly, coverin parade from different area of their in their traditional costume and art performance in Bawomataluo village. Ohhh I’m so excited to watch another war dance and its singing along with Hombo Batu where they take turn to jumpin out the stone.
The stone jumping is one of the famous traditional culture from Nias known as Hombo Batu in Nias language where the man will jump over a 1.2 meter rock stone. It was the culture they have when in the previous time they use that to jump over the enemy gate using their costume to disguise while doing so.
I have a chance to watch the culture festival in the village where children have the jumping competition, start with the low height and getting higher and higher.
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Sorake beach famous for the corner to surf for all the surfer, every day from morning till afternoon actually surfer will gathered on the corner spot to catch some waves all day. They have the walking path along the reef nearby the corner so you can watch them closely enuf and feel the excitement too.
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Every afternoon has become a magical hours as the sun start settling down, the sky has become more colorfull from orange pinkish glowing, with the reflection above the water, it makes you fell like you are somewhere in a faraway land.
Continue readingI took an hour flight to Nias and arrive at the small airport on the edge of the island at Gunung Sitoli. Its not much of the city as it is a small place with few shops along the street. When you arrive you’ll be like and idol stars welcome by renting car drivers who try to take a passanger. Its not a formal taxi and you have to negotiate to get the right price till your destination. But once again you have no clue what is the right price for the distance you try to reach. Based on the information I receive from the fellow traveller, from the airport till to Teluk Dalam the place I’m planning to go is round about 300K IDR which is a lot. But seing the surrounding I understand why they put higher price, the distance wuite long and there is not much option for public transportation.
After the exciting trip at Mentawai, I get back to the same hostel. Getting myself in a girl’s dorm, take a refreshing shower and take a rest. Getting back from the jungle, especially the one in Teluk Bungus has left a mark on my feet. The musquito bites left some hole on the skin which gettin worsen by the humid condition in Mentawai, so I clean up my skin and get some antibiotics to go with. So make sure if you visit those place bring your insect repellent.
Mentawai consist of several island and famous for the Mentawai ethnic and their beautiful beach with waves for the surfer. I am not a surfer but I really eager to visit the place as you only see it through tv in the previous time. So the trip start with a fast boat riding for 6 hours, its a beautiful day, the clouds are full above the blue ocean and there are some fish jumping over in the middle of somewhere as I sit on top of the boat. We stop by at Mailepet port then continue the riding for another 2 hours before we arrived at our destination port. I go with a guide and another two friend traveler. Then we meet with another couple who just been abandoned by their guide so there is 6 of us at the end. The trip should be accompanied by a guide as they people speak in their ethnic language so we will need to be accompanied by certified guide who can help us to communicate with the local people. From the port we took 30 minutes ride to the villages where we will took another small wooden boat through the river to the jungle. Another man from the village join us as additional helper, so there are seven of us on the small boat with addition to the boat driver.
Ansella 