Yogyakarta Archives • FlipFlopGlobetrotters.com

Six months on the road…

Lisa — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 08:22:32 +0000

Pretty much unnoticed we passed the half way point of our Big Adventure a few days ago. Six months on the road with our little world traveler! And what’s even better… we have another six months to go!

So far:
We traveled by plane, train, car, bus, boat, motorcycle, scooter, horse carriage and becak,
visited 5 countries,
went to 16 destinations,
took 11 flights,
and stayed in 20 hotels, apartments and bungalows and 1 night on a boat.

One of our first times on the motorbike with the three of us in Sanur, Bali

For Jace there were a lot of ‘firsts’:
first time swimming in the ocean in Dahab
first time sleeping in a hotel
first time on the metro in Kuala Lumpur
first time on a motorbike on Bali
first time he celebrated his birthday abroad
first time seeing a temple and a buddha statue
to name only a few…

Our little world traveler celebrated his second birthday in Amurang, North Sulawesi

Some of our own highlights:
Mau’s brother Robin coming to visit his little nephew (and us…) in Dahab for 10 days
House exchange with DigitalNomad.nl family in Sanur, Bali and having our own private pool
Meeting our friend Tracey again in Sanur and being her neighbour for two weeks in Amed
Discovering and exploring a huge empty temple complex we found on the way from Sanur to Ubud when we were on a scooter trip
Preparing offerings together with our hostess’ mother at our homestay in Ubud, Bali
Attending a big cremation ceremony of the village priest in Ubud, Bali
Watching a Barong Dance performance on Nusa Lembongan. They called it ‘trance dance’. Little did we know that lots of people in the audience would actually be going into trance and had to be restrained by local priests.
Celebrating Jace’s second birthday at Sendowan Baru guesthouse in Amurang, North Sulawesi
Being able to observe a big group of black macaques in Tangkoko NP in North Sulawesi from only a few steps away
Being able to dive together on Bunaken, because the Dutch owner of the resort offered to babysit Jace
Spending a night on a boat in Halong Bay, Vietnam
Riding from Nha Trang to Dalat in Vietnam on a motorcycle

And some more general things we love about this trip:
being able to spend so much time together as a family
discovering new places together
watching Jace try loads of different types of food and loving most of them
meeting lots of new and inspiring people
being outside so much and seeing Jace run around and play with everything he finds
watching our little boy grow and learn and seeing him so at ease wherever we are

Of course it’s not always easy. Like all young parents we struggle with raising a very active and stubborn toddler, but we’ve added an extra hurdle by doing it while traveling. Also we’re still adjusting to this new way of traveling as a family. If you’ve read our post about traveling with a child, you’ve noticed that there’s quite a few things that change when it’s not just the two of you anymore. That being said, we’ve had so many amazing experiences, met so many fantastic new people and seen so many great places, we wouldn’t have missed that for the world!

Jace is generally a very happy child and it’s a lot of fun to watch him discover all these new places, new people, new tastes, new animals… He smiles a lot and is constantly running around checking out his new environment. He loves to go exploring with us We know he won’t actually remember this trip, but we hope this sense of discovery, the idea that anything is possible, all the impressions he gets and the foods he tastes will stay with him when he grows up.

We’re very much looking forward to our next 6 months on the road!

Group picture! Great trip to the oasis with Sameh, Eid and Mau’s brother Robin in Dahab

We love this picture of our little boy with our bedouin driver Eid, taken when we were at the oasis in Dahab

South East Asia here we come! On June 5th we left Egypt and went to Bali

Jace’s first time at a temple. He was fascinated by all the statues and carvings

It’s really cool to meet so many friendly locals, like this guy in Sanur. It’s more difficult to meet fellow travellers, but much easier to meet locals when you have a child!

It was amazing to be present at this huge cremation ceremony for the village priest in a small town near Ubud

Local women carrying offerings for the deceased village priest on their heads to be added to the funeral pyre

Barong Dance in Nusa Lembongan. Very impressive

We could get really close to the black macaques at Tangkoko NP, North Sulawesi

Beautiful view from our balcony at Happy Gecko Resort on Bunaken

Nice family pic at Prambanan near Yogyakarta

One of our fellow traveler kindly offered to take our picture at Halong Bay.

Easy Rider trip in Vietnam. Our little world traveler had a really good time on the ‘momo’ (his word for motorcycle)

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From Bunaken to Hanoi via Yogyakarta and Kuala Lumpur

Lisa — Sat, 12 Sep 2015 10:19:30 +0000

On September 2nd we left Bunaken with lots of pain in our hearts and a promise to return. We spend 7 lovely days there and wished we could have stayed longer. But that’s the problem with planning ahead. It gives you a bit more peace of mind not having to decide what to do at the last moment, but it also compromises your flexibility.

Prambanan in Yogyakarta makes you feel very small

We booked a flight from Manado to Yogyakarta as we wanted to see a little bit more of Indonesia. And according to all the guide books and other travelers, Jogja was supposed to be a nice city. So on September 2nd we took the boat from Bunaken to Manado, then a car to the airport, then a plane to Jogja, then another car to our new hotel, Duta Guesthouse. It was quite a trip again, but Jace slept a bit on the plane, so all was good. We spend 4 nice days in Yogyakarta, but didn’t see as much of the city as we would have liked. After almost 4 months of traveling in Asia you would have thought we knew by now to plan more conservatively and lower our expectations, but I guess we haven’t learned yet and were a tiny bit disappointed by what little we were able to do in those 4 days. After running around for about 2 hours chasing Jace all around Prambanan we decided to leave Borobudur for another time. We did rent a motorbike and drove around for two days, which was very nice.

Family pic at Prambanan, taken before we chased Jace around for two hours

Amazing street art on every corner of Yogyakarta

On September 7th it was time to leave Jogja again. This time we decided to travel by train, since everybody told us that the train ride was so nice. Although the train itself was great, lots of space compared to a plane, the trip wasn’t very memorable. We were hoping for some great scenery along the way, but if it was there we must have missed it. We arrived in Jakarta late in the afternoon and took a taxi to yet another hotel, the FM7, which came recommended by some other Dutchies we met in Bunaken. A bit too fancy for us and the room was quite small, but they did have a child’s cot for Jace and all three of us had a good night.

Lots of space on the train from Yogya to Jakarta

In the morning of the September 8th it was time for us to leave Indonesia, as we only had a visa for one month. Of course we’ve only seen a small part of the country, so I’m sure we’ll be back! After an uneventful flight with Lion Air we arrived in Kuala Lumpur.

Since I had been a bit sick (I’m suspecting the aircon on the train!) planning ahead went completely out of the window and we found ourselves in KL airport, with a 2 year old and no place to stay. After three hours of searching, debating, stressing and searching again (and keeping Jace busy in the mean time) we finally settled on the EV World Hotel in Sepang, about 20 mins from the airport. Because we had to be in the airport again early in the morning on the 10th, we didn’t want to go all the way into the city. As is usual when you have absolutely no expectations, it turned out to be a great choice! Very friendly hotel staff, great upcoming area, lots of restaurants and a very relaxed atmosphere. Would have been even more perfect if the hotel had had a swimming pool, because it was extremely hot, but all in all we had a really good time there.

Jace at EV World Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Who needs toys when there’s a garden hose lying around…

The morning of the 10th was absolutely crazy. I have no idea why we thought it would be ok to leave the hotel at 8 when our flight was a 9:45. On top of that, again, we spend too much time on the internet searching for a nice place to stay in Hanoi and didn’t book anything. So we had the stress of searching for a place till late the previous night and still hadn’t booked anything the morning we left. And to make matters even worse (I’m still blaming it on being sick) we completely forgot to arrange our visas for Vietnam! Which we discovered at about 6:30 in the morning…

But, all turned out well, even if it cost us quite a bit more than we’d hoped for. We found a website that could get us the visa recommendation letter (which you need to be able to buy your visa in Vietnam) within 2 hours with their ultra urgent service (of course for an ultra urgent price). I guess it happens more often that people need a visa at the last moment… We got to the airport in time and about 2 minutes before boarding we booked the first hotel that came up in booking.com when searching Hanoi. It turned out to be another lucky shot. The Rising Dragon Villa Hotel in the Old Quarter is actually really nice, with a great breakfast in the morning and friendly staff. They even upgraded us to a family room free of charge. So now we’re out and about discovering Hanoi and planning our next moves in Vietnam. Again, we have no plan, only a plane ticket to KL on October 10th. But we’ll talk about that more later. With Jace running around we don’t have as much time to update our blog as we would like and we have so much more to talk about, but at least the story of where we are is now up to date again

Father and son in Hanoi

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