Road to Bali

Bromo was our last stop in Java before heading to Bali. It was very difficult this time to convince the driver of our minibus from Bromo that we wanted the bus station and not their own tour company. We managed in the end though I think they told us about 4 times that where we were (the HQ of their tour company) was the bus station. More fun followed at the real bus station where we were charged an entrance fee. We think it is part of an effort to clean up Java’s sketchiest bus station. We found a local bus traveling to Banyuwangi where the ferry leaves to Bali. The trip was 5 hours the first 3 of which I spent in mild discomfort really needing to use a toilet. To my great relief we made a quick pit stop at a bus station somewhere. Perhaps it was a little too quick as I was just coming out of the bathroom when the guy who works the door on the bus came running up telling me the bus was leaving. And indeed the bus had pulled out and was stopped in the middle of the road waiting for yours truly to come back from the toilet.

Unloading the water truck to unblock the main artery of East Java.

We were delayed again, for a little while longer than a pee break, when we caught up to an accident between two trucks at the bend in the road. Somehow a water truck got stuck up on another truck in a way I simply don’t understand how it could have happened. I thought we were going to be there for hours but in less than one we were rolling again. I was looking out the open window at my seat passing loads of other delayed trucks and buses waiting to go the other direction and every single time somebody saw my foreign face they would follow me until I was out of sight. I'm writing from Bali now and any one of the streets in Ubud would fit in very well in the Glebe. It sure is different from Java!