Month: August 2017

Around the wild corners of Bali

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Bali

Interesting to know…

Bali is the only Hindu island in Indonesia. When the Islam came in 15-th century all the aristocracy and the priesthood of Java came here and established their Hindu bastion. The religion has remained unchanged for 500 years but the differences to Hinduism in India are obvious. Here the religion is mixed with local animistic beliefs and rituals and thus has been formed a specific, local form of Hinduism. For example people are not vegetarians and they even eat veal. People don’t put the typical red dot on their foreheads (sindur) except when they visit the temple and stick rice beans between their brows. Only one god, who represents the infinity, is acknowledged (Achintya) and the other: Vishnu, Shiva and the rest are just his manifestations.

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East Java – the fiery breath of the Earth

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The volcano Bromo

09.07

We are ten kilometers away from Ngandjuk. After breakfast we start hitchhiking. A strange couple takes us – a transvestite and a young driver. Magy doesn’t even realize that this is a man and believes that the driver is his/her son and that s/he has three more as s/he tries to convince us. Anyway the people are nice. After that we start hitchhiking using the new method: walking and waving. One car tries to stop, almost causes a crash, and then continues. In a while it comes back, forms a traffic jam and takes us. Inside is an amiable family from Madura. They will takes us directly to the incredible Elizabeth, our host from Jakarta, who is now in her hometown Surabaya. This time we travel really fast and take the 100 km for just 6 hours 🙂
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Ancient sacred sites, gutting chickens and dangerous volcanoes in Central Java

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The mystic Java

25.06

We continue to the next town Wonosobo, 25 km away where our couchurfing.org host awaits us. A nice man with car takes us and in half an hour we are in the center of the town. Since we entered Central Java we noticed that towns are really clean and well kept. They look to us more like the Malaysian ones than other Indonesian.
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