Around the world in ? days!: July 11

July 11 Day 147

At about 1 am, when everyone was asleep, the conductor woke everyone up so that he could flip the seats around because the car was changing direction. This meant moving your stuff when you're half asleep, trying to figure out where the pocket on the seat in front of you is now, look for anything that might have fallen on the floor while you were sleeping etc. Luckily, nothing was lost but it took awhile to get back asleep again and we would have preferred to just go backwards.

The last hour of the trip after sunrise was nice, with lots of paddy fields and mountains in the distance. When we got to the sop on our tickets there was some confusion as it was one stop before the Banyuwangi stop but most people seemed to be leaving there and it was listed on our ticket. while we were trying to decide what to do, the train started up again and made the decision for us.

The next stop was the last one and we were able to get a cab using a meter into town. Our driver was a real character who was shouting out to pedestrians during the entirety of our trip and turned some local religious talk show on the radio really loud. Meg thought he was trying to convert us but that would have been difficult since there wasn't one word of English in the whole thing.

We showed up at Green Ijen Homestay and were met by Yoga, who told us that Johan had gone to meet us at the first train station that we didn't get off at. Our room was dark and worn but clean and so we spent some time trying to catch up on the sleep we didn't get on the train.

When we got up we went over the blue light/Mt. Ijen tour that we would do that night with Johan. We got some recommendations of what to do and then headed out to lunch to a place he recommended.

Along the way we found an ATM that worked for both of us, crossed a nice public square and a huge mosque and enjoyed the light traffic the town had compared to the rest of Java.

The place was a buffet with 4 kinds of rice and an array of other dishes that you could help yourself to. The rice was hot but the other things were lukewarm. Trusting Johan's advice and the steady stream of take out people were getting there, we decided to trust the place. The food was excellent and cheap and we didn't get sick from it, high recommendations.

On the way back we walked down the painted village where bright murals covered most places in a small neighbourhood, many of which were designer to take your picture on (angel wings, head in the mouth of a shark etc.) As we continued through the area we saw that kids were playing in the filthy river ad calling out to us ad many of the houses were little more than shacks.

Also on the way back, Meg got some pencils to give out to kids at a store where the merchandise was so dusty we felt like we were the only sale they had in the last decade. We also dropped off a pile of laundry at a place where we were ward that we would be charged for 3 kilos because it was the lowest amount on their scale. We were paying about $2.50 so it wasn't a problem.

We caught up with more sleep and hung out at the hostel. Two helpers for Johan had a room there but a bunch of young guys also seemed to be hanging out there. Other than that, most rooms seemed empty.

At dinner we went to a fancier place where Meg tried to order a meal minus tha meat but they said it wasn't available so she got a few side dishes. Strangely, the place was showing a rerun of a North American soccer game between Vancouver and LA of all things. The food was decent and the place was fancier than most on the strip.

Meg though that she left her water bottle at the laundry place but we couldn't find it there. We're not sure if the women there knew what they were looking for as their English was non-existent. Another casualty of travel.

Since we had to meet our ride at 1 am the plan was to go to bed as early as possible before our adventure, so that's what we did.