From Ijen, much of the route was a back-track towards Surabaya. As soon as we turned off the main artery the gradient of the road increased, the air became visibly less dusty and the traffic that had filled every inch of the road vanished. As we climbed higher, the valleys and surrounding mountains showed more of themselves, even on the steep face, farmers grew cabbages, corn and potatoes, zig-zag paths ran through the crops making the tending and harvesting pro...

The 7am train journey to Surabaya was very scenic, endless paddy fields in varying states of the growing process made the colours switch from patches of deep green where the new rice plants were being propagated, through green and brown where the rice was growing to yellow where the rice approached harvesting and finally to black where the harvested plant stubs had been slashed and burnt. In every field, groups of people were sowing, harvesting, spraying or repa...

As we pulled into Yogyakarta station, we had the tell-tale signs of sitting down for too long, so with numb-bums and heavy legs we went to find a taxi. The first had a minimum fare of 50,000 rupiah, way too much, the second didn't want to go to that part of town (we started get concerned) the third beckoned us in with a huge grin and off we went. The hotel was in the south of the city and although in a small traveller hub, it was well away from the main tourist...

Bandung was a couple of hours by train from Jakarta, we hopped into a taxi and in no time at all we were at the hotel, which happened to closely resembled a prison. It was a little way out of town, away from the hubbub, in fact it was away from everything. The town was lacking in major attractions, they had a couple of museums, an art gallery and a few places of worship. It's a busy city, the main roads are heavy with vehicles, the side roads are extraordinarily...

We had an early morning flight from Singapore to Jakarta and in many ways you'd struggle to find two more opposite places. The shine and swagger gone, in their place grime and chaos. But it was undaunting and somehow strangely comforting. We found our way to the local bus stand and waited with the locals for the bus headed to Gambir in the central hub. We both dozed off during the ride and were jolted awake as the bus driver slammed on his brakes, the reason unkn...