K2K, JAVA – Week 2
31-01-17
You never know what sort of day you are going to have until
you get out of bed and have breakfast. We woke early and were pretty much ready
to go before our planned 7:30 breakfast. Yhosie prepared a traditional
breakfast for us, rice, vegetable soup and eggs. Of course, a nice coffee as
well. Yhosie’s dad was keen to get us out to look at his antique bikes and said
that one of his friends had come over to show us his bike as well.
We polished off breakfast and took our bikes around to the
front of the property. We were greeted by Yhosie’s dad and his friend, who was
dressed up in period Indonesian Army uniform. Yhosie was interpreting for us.
The newly arrived bike was apparently an English made bike, but was Indonesian
army issue. He had it fitted out complete with a beautifully made leather frame
bag, complete with revolver and spare ammunition. He also had a canvas pannier,
rifle bag with rifle, and a helmet. They said that they had two other friends
coming over and they all wanted to take us out for a bike tour of Malang. How
could we refuse. I was made a member of the antique cycling club with a very
kind gift of a club ring, it felt like a badge of honour that I wore with pride
that day.
So once the other two friends arrived and introductions were
over, we set out on a tour of this glorious small city, with group photos all
along the way. I was quite amazing, all the locals knew them, as they meet for
a ride every Sunday. We went to the government offices, the independence
statue, we passed the Army Museum and finally a walk through the rather
disturbing bird market. They then took us out onto the road to Blitar, our
destination for the day, and we said our goodbyes and thanks, and we were on
our way. A couple of hours later than we intended, but we wouldn’t have missed
that for the world.
Milang sits at an elevation of around five hundred metres,
perched in a saddle between two large volcanoes, Batu and Semeru. For this
reason, Malang is just that few degrees cooler than the coastal areas, and was
very pleasant, despite the rain.
This also means that our first twenty k’s today were a very
gentle descent, so we caught up some of our lost time. We stopped at a bakery
to grab some quick calories and shared a mini sponge cake in the shape of a
love heart and a chocolate donut. The bakeries are all full of so many
different sorts of cakes and pastries but it’s a bit difficult to tell what any
of them are and what they would taste like so the good old chocolate donut is a
pretty safe option.
We then turned west towards Blitar. This road was quite
good, we had a steep descent into a river valley around a reservoir with a
hydro power plant. The climb back out was really long, but a good grade of
around 5-6 percent most of the way and we really enjoyed it and handled it
well.
We were a couple of k’s away from where a hotel was that we
were going to check out and feeling pretty hungry as we had skipped lunch when
magically an awesome looking café appeared on our left. We stopped and rode
into the driveway and were quickly helped by the car park attendant, parked the
bikes and ventured in. The place was alive with lots of young people, cool
music, great vibe, coffee, gelato, icecream, and all sorts of delicious
recognisable food to choose from. Dave of course had an espresso, me a
cappuccino, we ordered some fries and a serve of fresh fruit salad. Coffees
were really awesome. Fries perfect. Fruit salad was amazing but they had
dribbled mayonnaise and sprinkled grated cheese on top. We are not really
understanding the whole grated cheese thing on fruit salad. We had a great time
here and the staff who were really cool young people all wanted to have their
photo taken with us as we were leaving.
We checked out a hotel about 3 k’s down the road that looked
pretty good from the outside. The room rate was around our budget and included
breakfast. They offered us toast if we wanted instead of traditional breakfast
which sounded pretty good to me. Our room was really nice and had a hot shower
so it felt very luxurious. With showers done we ventured outside again and
walked the block to see if there was anything interesting for dinner but found
that the hotel café was problem the pick tonight. With a light dinner we found
ourselves retiring early once again.
01-02-17
We had the option of toast for breakfast again, so we took
that opportunity, clutching our vegemite ready to go. There were glancing looks
of consternation as it arrived however, it had strawberry jam on it. Ok, we
could deal with strawberry jam, but, the mountain of shredded cheese on top?
Holy mackerel. I suppose you could say that it was “cheese on toast”, a bit of
the old welsh rarebit,
but no, this was just wrong on so many levels. We ate it though, of course.
The previous evening, we had trouble getting money out of an
atm. We were running low on Rupiah, and had to sort it out before we left town.
We found an atm next to an actual bank and it still didn’t work. So I went into
the bank, to see if I could find someone to help. There was so much help on
offer, a concierge who could speak English directed me to a staff member who
could help me. The security guard had me jump the cue, and I was next in line.
The young lady helped, but eventually she suggested we try a different atm at
another bank at the rear. Either that or we were going to have to call ANZ in
Oz and see what was going on. We were worried our cards had been cancelled.
Meanwhile, I found out that they had a currency exchange available and we
changed some aussie dollars just in case. Mary was out in the car park looking
after the bikes and while all this was going on inside she had a lady on a
bicycle approach her who sold her 2 muffins from her baking basket, had photos
taken with the car park security guard and had more than half a dozen people
stop and check out the bikes. Never a dull moment hanging out with two fat
bikes. We went to the next bank along and tried there, and yep, it worked. So
at least the cards weren’t cancelled.
Cashed up, we rode on. It was a nice flat ride, through
villages and open farming land. About halfway we arrived in a fairly large town
looking for a lunch option. We stopped in front of what looked like a nice
traditional coffee shop. There was nice music playing. The owner spotted us and
came out and invited us in. He sat us down and coffee was ordered. It turns out
that there was a karaoke session on, and the joint was jumping. Everyone was
trying to get us to sing, but we were trying to explain that they really didn’t
want us to. Ok, if you not sing sir, you must dance. And we were dragged up to
dance, as this was the last song before call to prayer at noon, and no-one is
allowed to have any fun at that time. So dance we did, tried to pay for our
coffee, but no, this one is a gift, thank you. Lots of photos and videos were
taken of the crazy Australians dancing in their cycling shoes. It was the most
ridiculous, but most fun thing ever, totally hilarious. The song finished and
we were ushered out the door, goodbye sir. No lunch for us. Our usefulness
exhausted. Back on the bikes, we just couldn’t stop laughing. We never did get
lunch but we did enjoy the freshly baked muffins that Mary purchased from the
lovely lady on a bicycle early.
As we continued on getting closer to our destination we
could see dark heavy clouds approaching. They were moving quite slowly and we
were hoping they would stay away long enough for us to ride our last 5k’s. We
started to get just light rain and then before too long it was becoming quite
heavy, so we ducked for cover. We found a shop that had a veranda so stood under
there and saying hello to the lovely young girl working in the shop. She didn’t
speak English so smiles and a little laughter were exchanged. Before too long
an older lady appeared and she brought us out two stools to sit on. Then she
offered us a tasting of these round ball things which were a dried fruit with
puffed rice in them we think. They were really tasty. Not knowing what anything
really was in the shop and thinking we should buy something while we waited for
the rain to stop we ended up just grabbing a soft drink. With that in hand the
old lady then offered us a tasting of this really weird looking large crisp
bread. We have no idea what this was, not even a guess but it tasted ok. There
was a little conversation trying to happen but we had no clue what was being
said when Dave said something about papaya and the old lady started laughing
her head off. She then went out the back and told someone else the conversation
and she too came out laughing. Happy to share the jokes even if it’s on us.
Finally, time to head off as the rain was easing, we headed
into the town of Trenggalek, spotted a hotel and rode in to check it out. We
were met by a lovely girl at reception, organised our room and were shown the
way by two sweet girls. So tonight we had a lovely bedroom, but no hot shower.
Actually no shower at all just the traditional tub that’s filled with water and
a dipper to use to wash yourself with. The whole hotel seemed really quiet and
when we went to have dinner in the restaurant we were the only one’s dining.
The staff were amazing, so polite and professional and very courteous. It felt
like we were dining somewhere really posh as there were so many staff on hand
and one waitress stood back from our table with one hand behind her back and
was on call if we needed anything while we dined. The meal was really lovely
and set us up for a good night’s sleep.
02-02-17
We had a good solid sleep, it was a lovely quiet place to
stay. Breakfast was really good in the restaurant, with omelette, toast and
good java coffee. This really helped set us up for a big day on the bikes.
The first 12 km’s was pretty flat and cruisy, but the light
rain didn’t give up. Then the mountain climbing began. It was beautiful, the
valley, the terraces, the jungle. We only had 50ks to go today, but we knew
there were some hills, we just didn’t have any idea how many or how high. The
climb started steadily, no big deal, but as we went forward, the grade kept
increasing. It went up and up. There were several false peaks, wishful thinking
perhaps, but it just kept going up. There were several steep pitches that we
had to walk, and even those were hard to push up. The climb topped out at about
the 22k mark and around 800metres. Our accommodation last night was at about
25metres.
We had a nice descent after that down to around 450metres,
still raining though. We were seriously wet by now, but had to keep going. Then
the rolling hills started, we kept going for the next ten k’s varying between
450 and 550metres all with really hard grades, we were getting really tired,
and did I mention the rain? Finally, we
found the last crest and plunged down a beautiful but potholed road down to the
valley floor below and our destination, Panggul. It was still raining lightly.
As we rode the valley floor, we stopped to take some photos
of the terraces. A little further on, we noticed a group of young boys, fishing
in the rice paddy channels alongside the road. They were after Eel. It was a
very nice seen, and they were having a great time.
We found a place in town for a much needed coffee while we
collected our thoughts. There was only one accommodation option in town, the Hotel
Ratu. So we headed that way. They had a room ok, and the price was just ok, no
breakfast, no wifi, no hot water, and the room was pretty ordinary. Oh well, we
have had worse. Actually, on discovery of the soggy cigarette butts placed up
on the top of the wall tiles we decided that we hadn’t had worse. We weren’t
sure if they had been put up there to dry for later use.
03-02-17
Well we couldn’t get out of this hotel quick enough. I am
officially renaming the Hotel Ratu, the “Soggy Ciggy Butt Hotel”. Say no more.
We went to the local Indomart and found a half loaf of
wholemeal bread, what a surprise, so we bought a jar of peanut butter and that
was breakfast with a coffee from a warung up the road.
Straight out of town the climbing started again. We knew
this was going to be a tough day. They
weren’t long ups, but they were steep, we often had to get off and push. When
the rain started, and we had only completed a bit over ten ks in an hour and a
half, we were starting to think that we wouldn’t make it to Pacitan. We had
made unconfirmed arrangements to get picked up and taken to our resort at 3pm.
The rain got even heavier. There was no 3G connection all the way, so we didn’t
know if it had been confirmed.
We pushed on, but thought that maybe if we flagged down an
empty truck, we could get a lift. We had a quick break at a small village and
got a drink and an icecream. This was half way roughly and it had taken us four
hours to travel 28k’s. We were a bit down about it. We asked the guy who served
us at the warung if he knew of someone with a truck. He didn’t understand but
we thought that he was saying that after the next hill, it was all flat. That
gave us some hope, so we pushed on. We only had to do 30k’s in three hours for
goodness sake. The rain got heavier.
After the fourth hill, we actually weren’t going too bad.
And then miraculously, we topped out on the last hill and then the last ten k’s
into Pacitan was a beautiful easy descent into town along a really cool river
valley. We got there at 2:30pm and messaged our resort that we had arrived and
where we would wait for pick up. We had a sinking feeling that the messages
weren’t getting through. We had a cold drink and something to eat and waited,
still no response.
We decided that we would wait until 4pm and if we hadn’t got
a response by then, we would have to start looking for somewhere else to stay.
At 4:15, we got on the bikes and headed off to a nearby hotel in the city. That
wasn’t a problem and we got settled and cleaned up, and dry. We sat down in the
hotel lobby using the wifi, it was about 6pm when we noticed a local guy
outside talking to a security guard about our bikes and he came in side. “Are
you Mr David and Mrs Mary? We’ve been looking for you”.
Our first thought was, how on earth did you find us? All of
a sudden, four emails arrived on my phone. It turns out that they had a power
outage today and had no internet all day, and were a bit distraught that they
hadn’t been able to communicate with us. Obviously we had already checked in at
this hotel, so we arranged for the driver to pick us and our bikes up the next
morning at 10am and we would still stay out at IstanaOmbak. We sent off an
email to the resort to explain and make sure that the driver didn’t get into
strife. The poor guy had checked every hotel in town looking for us, following
a trail of sightings by locals along the way.
We still haven’t seen another touring cyclist on the whole
trip, so we are very unusual around here. We found a nice little warung just
down the road from our hotel and had a really nice dinner followed by a coffee
in an interesting little coffee shop on the way back.
04-02-17 to 07-02-17
Our driver met us at the hotel, spot on at 10am. He loaded
our bikes and gear into the back of his truck, we climbed into the front and
were on our way. He only spoke a little bit of English so the drive was pretty
quiet, but really enjoyable as we just sat back and enjoyed the scenery. We
came to a lookout area, an old Japanese bunker where our driver stopped so we
could take photos. The view was amazing, you could see the whole valley floor
with the town of Pacitan, the river that flowed through the valley, and the
river mouth right out to the sea. It was so thoughtful of our driver to stop
and show us the view from this vantage point.
Turning off the main highway three, we then headed through the
jungle and small villages on this tiny winding mountain road in the pouring
rain. It was very steep, both up and down, and the road seemed to be one
continuous pot hole. It was lucky our driver knew the road well. We had to keep
the windows down for two reasons, one, it just got too hot and the windscreen
would mist up, bad idea. Two, my head was banging against it as we plunged
through the pot holes. Getting wet on one side was a far preferable option.
We finally arrived in a sleepy little village on the coast
and into our accommodation, IstanaOmbak Surf Resort. Now this is a cool place,
yes, it was going to blow our budget, but we really needed a few days R&R.
The beach is a white sand beach, and regarded as a pro quality left and right
hand break. Many pro surfers come here, and Rod, the Aussie owner is a former
surf pro himself. This however, is the low season, and we were the only two
guests, awesome.
Rod and his partner Dewi are awesome. They really looked
after us, the food was great. Plenty of Bintang on ice at all times, lots of
other drink options including Mary’s favourite fresh juices. The weather wasn’t
the greatest for our stay, but we knew that was likely. But it did change
often, and if it was windy, you could just walk over the headland and drop onto
a beach the other side and out of the wind.
The rooms were great, classic thatch roofed beach bungalows,
with lots of options for couples, families and groups of friends. Rod has done
a great job designing the place, the communal areas and bar are an awesome and
comfortable place to chill out and ask too many questions. There is also a
great infinity pool that overlooks the beach. And, the work is ongoing.
We stayed here three nights. We did some minor activities,
went for a ride along the river and over to some other beaches about five k’s
away, walked the beach and through the village, had an awesome massage, ate,
drank and slept.
We would thoroughly recommend staying here, and is easily
accessible by flying in to Yogyakarta, Rod arranges pick ups if you give him
enough notice.
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