Clancye is the greatest!

Not long now before the short flight to Oz!

In the meantime Indonesia has been a surprising discovery. People are so friendly and the scenery has become more breathtaking the further south we travelled. I always imagined that crossing the Equator for the first time would be special with the sun shining. However the reality was a very dull day. But we still enjoyed the moment with plenty of photos being taken.

On the ferry to Java the highlight was seeing Darren attempt to dance with a karaoke singer in the executive suite! This sounds posh but only consisted of a comfortable seat and air conditioning for which we had to pay a small fee.

Reality also set in well and truly with some very long days again on the bus, some of up to 14 hours, e.g. today we left Mount Bromo at 5am to arrive in Bali 14 hours later! But it has all been worth while. We have seen whole communities fishing on the beaches of Pangandaran. The beautiful Buddhist stupor of Borobudur was followed by what for me has been the most breathtaking scenery of the whole trip - Mount Bromo, a volcano over 2200 meters above sea level. We walked to the volcano passing a Hindu temple at its base. Then climbed the side and looked into its heart. Several of us (including me) managed to walk the circumference of the peak and spot several other volcanoes in the distance, this included Clancye which is described as the greatest! (I did promise to mention this on the blog). The late afternoon meant a jeep ride to the nearest mountain top for photos of the sunset. I can't describe the beauty. Several volcanoes were spouting out their smoke and were lit by the fading reds and oranges of the sleeping sun.

Today the crossing to Bali was choppy and one of the first things to notice was that this island is most definitely Hindu. This contrasts so much with the rest of this former Dutch colony which is Muslim with a significant Christian population too.

I suppose I should also mention that the bus has certainly had some tensions amongst its people. The main difficulty being the rush for a good seat with leg room each morning. This has got worse in Indonesia as the bus had seats with different leg lengths. The bus was also smaller that previous busses used so we have had to carry luggage in the passenger area. Not a too pleasant experience for some!! Hopefully this will not happen from now on. I have been told that the busses in Australia are good.

We now rest in Bali tomorrow before going to "The Land Down Under".

As a final note I think I should mention something our guide Anto said in passing about the religions of Indonesia. He explained that the majority of people are Muslims but that all people here are tolerant to each other and for that reason people all get along together. On that note I think I should go to bed and look forward to a rest tomorrow.

"Night night and God Bless"