Day 26, March 3, Sunday, Probolingo to Malang
Slowly made it through our morning routine. Ate breakfast and packed. #traveltip Pack the night before, just do it, even if you’re really tired, it stinks being held up in the morning organizing your stuff. Steve was feeling up for riding so we set out at 10:30. We encountered a light headwind. Today, it wasn’t that bad, it was actually refreshing and kept us cool under the sun.
We made a turn toward Malang at the main junction and stopped for lunch at 1. Empty restaurant, bad sign(it was probably a dinner place) but the fish was still alive when we ordered it, good sign. Had fish and chicken(I got some fried chicken (risky ‘cause I didn’t know how long it’d been sitting for, ended up being fine). Left at 2 and around 3 the road began a gradual incline. At 4, it started raining. It sucked, usually I’ve put rain clothes on at the first sign of rain, but was lazy today, we just rode through the rain, reach the top of the hill and headed down into Malang, found a landmark, some roof cover and called our next host, Thea.
Thea gave us directions and the three of us traversed back and forth through Malang playing the stop-at-every-intersection-gas-station-and-Indomaret-game to ask for directions. We actually didn’t get too lost and made it to Thea’s neighborhood, was going to ask a woman walking her dog for directions, and it ended up being Thea!
Backstory: On Kawah Ijen, the three of us got into conversation with Thea, her husband Hengky and two kids, Gavin and Gregor. We discussed our respective trips and future plans. Thea gave us her contact information inviting us to stay with her if we go through Malang. We took up the offer. Thea is an American that has been living in Indonesia for about 15 years. Thea studied abroad in Bali during and then returned to Indonesia(Yogyakarta) after graduating.
We followed Thea to her house set up base camp in the guest room and washed up. Showering here was a trip ‘cause I haven’t had a warm shower since the States. I wouldn’t say it was refreshing, it felt too warm, I turned the water back down, ahhhhh, and showered the rain, sweat, dirt and exhaust. It feels soo good to get clean and dry after a big cycle. The warm water was foregone, but I was stoked on the showerhead style wash, vs. the tub of water and ladel.
We went out for dinner to get Malang style fried rice, Nasi mawut, fried rice with fried noodle and a different style spice. #travelfood #Indonesianfood Not too mention, frog legs in a sweet and sour sauce, mmm, and pigeon. The frog legs were the consistency of chicken a bit tougher, but not chewy, good flavoring. The pigeon was like chicken’s dark meat, a gamy-er version of chicken. Not bad.
photo: pigeon on left, frog legs on right.
Headed back, chatted with Hengky and Thea, went to bed in an air conditioned room. First world comforts, I won’t take you for granted.
Day 27, March 4, Monday, Malang
Slept in, stepped out of our guest room into the heat. Woah, I did not realize how warm it feels until seeing the contrast, A/C please! Thea suggested that we shift our routine forward, way forward. Starting at 10 is crazy, as we’re starting as the day reaches its hottest temperatures. Thea generously told us to feel at home, settle in, raid the fridge etc. She offered the breakfast options. Cereal, papaya, cooking something and granola. #firstworldcomforts Granola?! GRANOLA?! Oh goodness how I’ve missed it. Upon hearing the “gra” of “granola”, my decision was made. I was going to bless my taste buds with this healthy, non fried, dried fruit and nut mix goodness. Some rich Californian whole milk dairy would have been another level, but that’ll have to wait until home. The granola was still awesomely satisfying.
photo: granola
I think the more appropriate name for this post is “Eating our way through Malang” Soon after breakfast, Hengky took us to get Malang style second breakfast, Nasi buk, rice in a banana leaf, with a few crisps and different meats. In the meats were beef tongue and tripe. From the food stand we headed to the immigration office for Steve to extend his Visa and Andres and I discussed our options. We asked them how long it would take; 5+business days. Hmm. We still weren’t sure if we would stay in Malang or head out before Steve, or if we would even want to extend our visa. Usually, this sorta’ thing is settled when they suggested a “fee” (bribe). So before it had to get to that, Andres and I decided we’d be willing to pay a bribe to get it done faster. We asked if we could pay an “express visa fee”. Nope. Wait. What? We just offered to pay one, they didn’t even need to pressure us. Darn, I guess the President’s anti corruption campaign is working. Steve got his paperwork done, he’s to be back by Thursday to drop it off and may be able to pick it up on Friday.
Back at Thea’s, we ate lunch and chatted with Steve’s friend, Danny, an Indonesian he met climbing Mt. Tambora. At 2:30 we left with Thea to go “hashing” A social, running/hiking club activity with British roots. I’ve never been, why not have the first time be in Indonesia? Our trail was on the fringe of the city in Batu, an agricultural region in the western foothills. We followed the paper strips along through the farmers houses, some pine trails and then the farmer’s trails. It was really beautiful. I was torn, run the trail or take in the scenery and get some good photo shots. I chose the latter. Teva’s are fine for hiking, but I wasn’t willing to run the risk of a rolled ankle or sprained knee. The route was beautiful, passing through cabbage and carrot acres. The farmers were working away and is I passed by we’d greet each other “Sore”(g’ afternoon) I heard thunder so I put away the camera and picked up the pace to the finish. I was the last one, whoops. I need to find a balance between pacing and documenting. All the newbie hashers (Andres, Steve, Danny, Danny’s friend, and myself) were sung an initiation song, ordered to chug water (it’s traditionally beer, but it’s an older hashhing crew) as water was poured over our heads. We were now hashers; our mother hash is the Malang hash.
photo: walking through agriculture plots on our hash route
photo: view back towards the lowlands
photo: following the shredded paper marking our route
That night Hengky took us out for a bite to eat and beers. This was my first beer of the trip, traditional Indonesian Bintang. I guess it’s about time to at least try the local beer. Headed back with Hengky’s friend, Sonny, logged/blogged. Off to sleep.
Day 28, March 5, Tuesday, Malang
Today, Steve was hoping to make it up Bromo with his friend Danny, so Andres and I went out for a day on the town.
Thea wrote down a checklist of local, touristy, novel, and wacky spots to see in Malang. After my bowl of granola, Andres and I went to check out the “Hyper mall” against Thea’s recommendation. Andres and I are interested to cover all our bases on Indonesia, seeing a country isn’t just about finding the opposites, but the crossover as well. The mall, didn’t seem to be too hyper 1) because it was empty and lacking in stores, a quick 10 minutes and we’d seen it all 2) because the name was actually “hypermart” which was not the name of the mall but rather a grocery store inside. We got some donuts, were about to leave when we realized there was a bigger mall next door. We knew we had all day, so we reparked our bikes and took a gander. Clothing, food, jewelry, a book store, toy stores, video game store; it had it all. Nothing grabbed our attention, it wasn’t a place we wanted to stay, but at least we got an additional glimpse of modern, Indonesian consumerism.
photo: the not so hyper mall
Next stop was the town square “Alun Alun”. We decided to skip walking the square due to a light right and hopped over to our next stop “Toko Oen” and Old Dutch hotel next to the square. Andres and I chatted over some fruit juice and took in the Dutch atmosphere. It was weird to be in a historical Dutch building… in Indonesia. It was quaint, but these relics of colonialism make you wonder who’s house would have occupied this plot of land if the Dutch never came.
photo: Toko Oen
Next stop, lunch. Found some Masak Padang, chose the vegetable dishes and for the first time I was charged less than Andres. I think they got the bill wrong, I think I had one item more than him, I went over it with them and he still said mine was 18000rp whereas Andres’ was 22000ish. The reason I’m surprised is that I’ve subtle price increases on things that I buy, versus what Andres buys. Maybe I’m paranoid, making things up. But I’m pretty sure there’s and implicit Bule(white, blonde foreigner) tax. I.e. I got to the top of Ijen after Andres he directed me to the Bakso cart(Indonesia street cart noodle dish) It was tasty and it came up that Andres spent 7000..whereas I spent 8000. I think there might, maybe, possibly could be an implicit bule tax. I’ll find out more as the trip goes on.
Next stop was the Tugu hotel for the best baked goods Malang had to offer. What we’d found so far is spongy, light bread nothing near the dense fudge brownies you can find back home. Unfortunately, there were no brownies, so we chose an array of pieces and tried them out. Still not like home, but they were good nonetheless. We’ll have to keep our eyes out for a good expat bakery somewhere down the line.
After the dessert break, we went to the “bird market”. I was expecting a food market with chicken cuts etc. It actually was a pet bird market selling exotic birds and other pets. If you are a member of PETA, I recommend you skip past this section. The market was a 150m stretch of maggot sellers, bird cage makers, exotic pets, a few food stand and some pet stores. Mostly birds, ranging from finches to canaries to parrots and then some, ravens, color dyed chicks, and roosters, and ducks. At one station, there were huge fruit bats, owls, a monkey, ravens, other birds, and weasel-like rodent I didn’t recognize. I think she specialized in illegal animals. Soon after we saw a merchant hold up a 3ft long snake, lower it into a paper bag with poked holes and hand it off to the customer. This place was way different then Petsmart. The zaniness of this small street made us question the Bakso meatballs on the street carts, and of Bakso meat in general. Just kidding, but seriously.
photo: when easter eggs hatch
On our way home we stopped by the import grocery store to pick up mushrooms and bell peppers for making pizza, and then ACE to check out bike accessories.
Right after getting home, Hengky took us out for traditional Bakso, in a sit down eatery. The meat tasted fine, aha. Really, Andres and I are eating our way through Malang. On our way back we picked up Gregor from tutoring and Hengky offerd for us to try wild boar. Sure, why not? So we turned of the main road, and into a neighborhood to someone’s house. Andres and I would have never found a place like this, selling meat out of someone’s home, the locals always know best. This is when our day gets interesting. Hengky chats with his friend and turns toward us and offers “Would you like to try dog? He says he has the RW, Rot Weiler” We refused. Then our conversation turned towards the topic, Hengky’s mom cooked it when he was younger(I don’t think regularly, but he’s had it) but he doesn’t eat it now. We were curious to know more, so we continued the conversation. There was not a dog in the back, it was already butchered and Hengky’s friend had the meat. The butcher gets the dogs from various people who send them to him, I’m guessing strays etc. Apparently the butchers friends call him when there dog goes missing and one time the butcher had a dog matching the description of his friends dog (you really can’t make this stuff up). At some point, it was said “I’ll do it if you do it” Andres, Steve and I uncomfortably looked at each other and mulled over the idea. Okay, we’re doing it. And Hengky, asked the butcher to also give us some dog meat as well. We got out bag of meat with a good portion of boar, and a handful of the other, mystery meat.
Mystery meat pizza anyone? Aha, no. Earlier, we had all discussed making pizza so once we got home we made pizza with Thea’s dough and sauce. Bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, sausage, mozarella and feta cheese. Andres, Steve and I set to work chopping, seasoning and spreading the dough. In the cooking process, each one of us had our bites of the mystery meat. It was spiced like the boar, and wasn’t too weird. A softer meat, gamy flavor. It wasn’t bad, not something I’d rush back to have, prolly simply due to the fact that it’s dog.
To cleanse our taste buds we had our pizza and Steve’s awesome apple crumble. For any potential, future hosts reading this, I’m not lying when I say we’ll cook for you!
Day 29, March 6, Wednesday, Malang
Today is Andres’ and my 1 month anniversary! Kind of, cause February is a short month. But regardless! All I can say is Wow, time flies, and we’re barely through Java. It’s been everything, touristy, different, hard, easy, beautiful, boring. I’m definitely excited for many more months to come.
We used the rest of the pizza toppings make awesome scrambled eggs.
Today, Steve headed to Hot Springs with Danny and Hengky took us to the nearest beaches. 80kmish away, but through hilly coastal, country. If we were going to bike this, it would be tough, with solid mountain climbs, then descents to sea level and back up again. After 2 hrs of driving we got to “China cave beach” Holy shit, it was beautiful. We walked around, took in the scenery, felt the water, picked up shells, and just sat in the sand listening to the waves. I really wanted to swim around, but there was heavy wave action, a steep beach, a visible rip current and solid 7-8ft waves out the back. No swimming here, but a good sign for surfing further down the line. There is no off season in Indonesia.
photo: waves are much bigger than they appear, overhead out the back, with a lot of water sucking east and then out to that rock
Around the corner was a small lagoon/bay set up so Andres and I hopped in for a swim. Ahhh, it’s so nice to get in the water.
photo: our own private swimming lagoon
photo: Andres and Hengky in the China cave
Before we decided we’d stay there forever, we checked out the cave and left for the next beach, a fisherman’s village that provides the catch for all of Malang. Hengky used to fish here 15 yrs ago but hasn’t been back since. It looks and is different; there is now an entrance fee and many more boats/ buildings. As we pulled up to a small warung/house, the man sitting outside smiled and said “No, no, no” with a bit of disbelief, and surprise. This was who Hengky fished with as a kid and he hasn’t been here in 15 years. The fisherman left on his motorbike and we asked where he’d went. “To pick up fish” Cool. The fish was cooked up and subsequently eaten up as Hengky and his friend chatted.
photo: fresh fish for lunch
Last stop was the bay around the corner, another fishing spot, checked it out, took some photos and headed back to Malang.
photo: the third beach, can’t remember name at the moment
Before reaching home, Hengky pulled off the road to park and I asked if we were picking up Gregor. “Nooo, best lamb sate and Gule in town!” More food?! I think I’m a broken record by now. It was great sate, compliment with a sweet peanut sauce and the Beef gule was a curry-like soup with tender beef in it. Okay, Andres and I were stuffed and at home we just laid down and let the digestion take place.
After digestion, Andres suggested we go out in search of Terang Bulan to commemorate our 1 month. Thea told us which food cart to look for “Holland” and the knock offs were decent. Off we went to explore. We passed many carts but didn’t see Holland. Picture “Harold of Kumar go to White Castle” in this case is was “Andres and Chris search for Holland Terang Bulan” We rode for about an hour, getting further and further, once the road got really quiet and less urban road. We stopped and Andres said “Alright, I think we’re good an’ lost now” We decided to go back to the first cart we saw, nearest Thea’s house. We ordered banana, chocalate, and peanuts, mmm, and chocolate and cheese for Gavin and Gregor(really popular with Indonesians, but we haven’t crossed that line yet). We ate at the cart and covered the basics with the cart owner: where we were from, our names, where we were going, our marital status(this is a regular question in the name, age, home country series). We are only able to speak very little, but they were still stoked to chat with us and as were we to practice. A group of five or six twenty-something’s were going from cart to cart, joking around, singing, bothering the cart owners until the cart owners gave them a few hundred rupiah, then they’d move on the next one. The group walked up to our cart, despite the owner’s shoos and the front runner pulled off his hat swinging it down right in front of me and they broke out into song with one ukelelia as the background instrument. Earlier in the week, we asked Hengky for some phrases to use when bargaining or prevent merchants from hassling us too much. We hadn’t been able to test their effectiveness, until now. I looked down at the hat and back up at the group and sliced through the first few seconds of their song saying “SAYA SANGAT MISKIN!” “I am very poor!”. The group’s song came to a discordant hault. They were shocked to here Indonesian from a Bule, let alone an obscure phrase like that. The cart workers started cracking up and the group members all turned to each other confirming what they heard “sangat miskin?” They gave us that Okay-you-got-us-look and moved on to the next cart. Hengky’s going to love this one.
Day 30, March 7, Thursday, Malang
Andres and I made French toast in the morning(we were trying to make as many back home dishes as possible) and ate breakfast with Thea, Hengky and Steve.
photo: Andres flippin’ the French toast
After breakfast, Hengky took us up to see a waterfall in the Batu region. It was a touristy set up, entrance fee, games and activities and a 5 minutes walk from the parking lot to the waterfall. It reminded me of those caves you pass by when road tripping through Utah and Arizona, $5 entrance fee, with weird exhibits inside and not so much natural cave. This waterfall is along the same vein. I think my mom and dad will get this one the most. Sorry to all the other readers.
The surrounding scenery was certainly beautiful and Hengky drove us further along the road to show a bit more of our route out of town. That night we made some more western style food (things steamed/boiled/roasted) and Thea taught us how to make beer chicken. Yummmm.
Seriously, potential future hosts, we’ll make you food.
Skyped with my mom and then David, and then hit the hay.
Day 31, March 8, Friday, Malang
Today was a lazy day. We’ve found that every couple weeks after doing something all day everyday, one sneaks in where you just sit and relax. Part of me feels guilty, but then again it’s okay to slow down. Read, wrote more blog, logged, and emailed until Andres, Steve and I went out for a short bit in the afternoon. We stopped by the big mall, Andres and I lost Steve, and wandered around a bit. After no sign, Andres got a bite to eat and I waited by the bikes. We all reconvened and set out, Steve to pick up his passport and Andres and I to check out the used phones. We turned on a few and they looked off, maybe fake? So we walked down the street and found another phone market. Andres and I have been super indecisive, discussing what we need in the phone, smart versus non smart and how much we’re willing to pay. We checked out two phones, one looked real, the other didn’t. Still didn’t get a phone. Back to the house for more relaxing.
Tonight was our last night so we packed our bags and went out to dinner. Tried some new Indonesian dishes and went home to go to bed early. Thea is setting us on a new early schedule. We’re going to get up at 5 and be out the door by 6 so we can cycle when its cool.
It’s been a lot of fun in Malang and Thea and Hengky have been great hosts. I’m definitely feeling ready to hit the road, though, as we’re barely a couple hundred miles from our starting point. Next stop is Jogja, a cultural center of Java, 4 days of riding away. Steve has worked out a potential route and we’re 25 days away from Jakarta.