After spending few days in Singapore visiting my cousin Monique and few weeks in Bangkok visiting my other cousins, Minsan, Tutu and Janry, I came back to Indonesia, to Ubud. After traveling for more than 8 months, I felt that I needed to settle down a bit. The plan was to stay there for 1 month and practice some yoga, rest and think about my next steps.
But as soon as I landed in Bali, I felt weird. I felt dizzy when I was moving my head and everything around me was moving like I was drunk, very drunk, but I wasn't... The second day I could barely walk straight so I decided to go to the doctor who finally told me that I had "Vertigo". All I had to do is to rest, rest and rest. So that's what I did. For days I stayed in my hotel room lying on the bed staring at the window (I was not supposed to move, read, watch TV or have any activity). First, it was a real challenge to stay like that but then i got used to it and this gave me time to think about my trip and my next steps.
I stayed 10 days in Ubud. As soon as I felt better, I decided to leave Indonesia. I realized that the best place to practice yoga and to live the spiritual side of it was not in Indonesia but in the country that created yoga, India. Another country that was absolutely not planned in my trip.
The day before I left Inodnesia, I called my Taiwanese friend Lili who also was in Ubud, to have a last lunch together but that day she didn't answer the phone. Instead, it was her brother who did and gave me the saddest news of my whole trip. My friend Lili passed away 2 days before from a heart attack. Lili was the one I used to meet for every lunch and dinner when I was in Ubud, who showed me all the places with the best food (she was a guide book writer), who was my only friend in Indonesia... This sad news made me realized how life can be short and that more than ever, I will try from now on to enjoy life as much as possible.
After that, I was even more motivated to go to India.
But first I had to apply for my Indian visa in Jakarta so I flew there and stayed for a couple of days. Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is located on the West side of Java Island. It is a big, crowded and aggressive city, I hated it. Instead of waiting for my visa in Jakarta, I decided to take a night train to Yogyakarta, in Central Java. Yogya like the locals call it, is the cultural city of Java. It's also where the biggest existing Buddhist monument is, called Borobudur. Very impressive.
But not as impressive as what I saw the next day. After a long bus ride we arrived near Bromo which is one of the most beautiful sight of all Indonesia. Bromo is an active volcano. To have the best view and to see the sunrise, we had to climb a mountain at 4 o'clock in the morning. It was definitely worth it. After that we climbed on the crater Bromo. That was amazing. To stand at the border of the crater where smoke is coming out is a unique experience. Next to Bromo there was 2 more volcanoes and then nothing, a huge empty flat landscape covered by black sand. It was breathtaking. Definitely one of the highlights of my trip.
The same day I took another night train to go back to Jakarta. But before that, I had 2 hours before catching my train so I decided to take a taxi to visit Surabaya's Chinatown, the most important one in Indonesia. But instead of visiting Chinatown, I spent 1.5h hours in the taxi (the driver took me to some place I don't even know the name) and then back to the station. I refused to pay the driver so we ended up fighting in the train station and then at the police station... It's not everyday that a Chinese girl is yelling in the train station. I finally agreed to pay half the amount to the driver because my train was about to leave and that the police officer wouldn't let me go. I got on the train 5 minutes before the departure swearing that I will not come back to Indonesia before a long long time.
Indonesia is certainly a beautiful country but for me, too many bad memories happened there, unfortunately.
Time to leave and to discover India.
Next step: Rishikesh, Delhi and Rajasthan (India)
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire