Kepanjen, Java, Indonesia
We didn't travel far after our one night return to Malang. About an hour further South from Malang to the town of Kepanjen. We wanted to take a look at the coast and some beaches further South and when checking online there seemed to be very few places to stay close to the coast and the few we did find were out of our price range. Kepanjen was the closest place we could find, about a one hour ride from the coast.
It was interesting arriving in Kepanjen. We had our homestay pinned on a map and as we neared where we thought it was we were in a tight maze of back-roads and houses. A lot of the locals we passed looked stunned to see two pasty westerners riding past. Stunned but as always immensely friendly once we gave them a smile.
An old guy spotted us and pointed around a corner. This happens a fair bit as sometimes these homestays are fairly isolated with no other lodgings anywhere for miles so the locals assume that is where you are looking for. We turned many a corner but couldn't find any sign mentioning homestay. Eventually we turned back on ourselves presuming we had missed it down a small alley somewhere and this when a woman started shouting after us...."Mr Gareth.....Mr Gareth?". "Erm yes?!" how do you know? Pretty obvious really when we are two westerners riding round on a scooter looking lost. Word must have spread fast that we were riding around the area so the lady from the Homestay had popped out to find us. Amazing, that's what I call a good service!
Our Homestay was tucked down the narrowest of alleys, just wide enough to ride a bike down before it opened up at the far end where our homestay was nestled between a few houses. A few locals were out with their kids flying kites and again the friendliness was very touching.
With our digs found and our bags dropped off we headed out to find some food. This again proved to be another interesting and very cool experience. We rode up and down a road that various food stalls set up before spotting a few make shift warungs lining one of the side streets. Patched together with scaffolding and plastic sheeting there were about a dozen of these lining one side of the road. We took a quick look in each before settling on one and popped in and sat ourselves down.
It was an old couples place. Just a few basic things to pick from. Our Indonesian has been improving over the past few weeks and we now know enough to get by with a few basics especially when it comes to food and drink. With some Nasi Pecel ordered (rice with Chicken, some veggies and a spicy peanut sauce) we sat ourselves down and watched the two of them prepare it. An old wide pestle and mortar affair where the lady made the peanut sauce to order with each dish. Again word must have quickly got round that we were in that particular warung as suddenly it got a bit more busy in there. I'm pretty sure most of the of the people in there hadn't seen a westerner in the flesh before. The odds were we were probably the only westerners in this small town at this time, we certainly didn't see any others at all that day or the few days after this. The odds of how many westerners that have passed through this town also eating at this one particular warung must have been pretty slim. Everyone came in to have a look at us. To give us a smile and a nod or a hello. It's really nice being in these kind of places.
What's also nice in these places is when we get charged the local price. You find that in the more popular touristy areas that you sometimes get charged some additional tourist tax, and that's fine. It's still cheap for us anyway and we certainly don't begrudge the locals an extra 20 p or so on top of the usual price. In this place we were most definitely charged the local rate which is always nice to see. It only cost us about 55 p each for a good plate of food. Very tasty and amazing value.
After finishing up and bidding our farewells it was time to head back and get our heads down in what was a hot box of a room. No nice cool air-con in this homestay, just a fan that despite blowing cool air didn't make the slightest difference. Cool anywhere within a 5 cm distance of the fan, everywhere else was hotter than outside the room. But what do you expect for £7 a night.
The next day we were up and out on the bike early, riding South towards the coast. It was a nice ride out. Once we got past the highway to the South it was nice quiet country roads.
We didn't have any particular beaches in mind, we just hit the coast and would then see what we came across once there. After an hour or so we found our first beach, Pantai Ngliyep. It wasn't anything spectacular. A few small coves, and pounding waves. The local kids there were nice and friendly though and yet again we had several selfie requests. We even ended up live on some kids Youtube channel. Not sure if the wee chap has much of an audience but it was fun all the same.
From Pantai Ngliyep we headed East, eventually picking up on a brand new beautifully smooth tarmac coast road. It seemed very popular with the local biking community and I'm not surprised, it was great to ride. We sped along enjoying the cool breeze and ocean views for a couple of hours, eventually arriving at Pantai Goa Cina.
This beach seemed very popular with the locals. A couple of tour buses arrived when we were there, with locals crammed in like sardines. Speaking of sardines we decided to grab some food there. We got a beautiful whole grilled fish between us, lovingly smothered with local spicy sauce. Some rice and veggies with it all for the princely sum of about £3. You can't go wrong at that price and eating seafood more often is something we promised ourselves we would do this trip. In the past we haven't had it very often as it's always the most expensive thing on menus but it's so much cheaper than back home and it would be silly to miss out when it is so fresh and tasty in these parts.
It was an interesting day. We didn't really get a lot of beach time, most of the day was spent touring round on the bike with the freedom of not having any bags with us and it was a nice relaxing day out mingling with the locals again.
The next morning we were packed up early and ready to head off back towards Banyuwangi and Mt Ijen, the famous volcano with it's 'blue flame'. Very luckily we had 3 free nights booked in at a luxury resort up in the mountains in exchange for the usual photos, blog mention and instagram post. It was to good to turn down and they would only accommodate during the week as they do most of their business on a weekend when locals flock to see the volcano. We couldn't turn the offer down.
We were on the bike early as we knew it was going to be a long days ride to get to Jember then on to the resort early the following day. The ride was going great. We climbed back up into the mountains near Mt Semeru not far from where we had stayed at a homestay a couple of weeks ago.
As we turned a corner we ground to a halt. The road was closed off with barriers and police. There were people everywhere in the road, music playing people dancing, it was buzzing with activity.
One of the policeman stopped us and the first thing I thought was 'ah here we go, our first run in where need to pay a bribe'. I don't really know why I had that mentality, most likely down to the various reports I've read from others. That couldn't have been further from the truth. As with every other person we have met so far in Java the policeman was amazingly friendly. Asking where we were from, about our travels round Java on the bike, English football. He was so friendly with us.
After chatting for a while he asked where we were headed and said the village was having it's annual festival but if we rode slowly and carefully we could pass through the festival and out the other side.
As we edged our way slowly on the bike into the masses we got stopped everywhere. The locals were so interested in us being there and welcomed us in to the festival.
I parked the bike up and Dani was instantly dragged off by a woman to go and join in with the dancing. I was dragged off in the opposite direction by a team of security guards to pose for photos and to enjoy some free drinks and food. The hospitality was immense.
I know I've mentioned it a lot about how friendly and welcoming the locals have been with us in Java but it's hard at times to convey just how nice an experience it's been. We get stopped several times a day by people just genuinely happy to see us and taking an interest in why we are in their country and the fact we are traveling round on a bike we have rented from Bali. The other day after Bromo we were riding down the highway when an old bloke pulled past us on his bike, gave a toot of his horn, a big smile and approving nod and a thumbs up to what we are doing. It's easy for the locals to work out that we have come on the bike from Bali as the number plate is a dead give-away.
I think that's the main thing I have taken away from this trip so far. The fact that so many locals seem to give us a very approving nod. As if to say they are impressed and loving the fact we are roaming round this huge island on our own. Not on a tour bus or in a fancy comfy private aircon car, but that we are doing it ourselves on the bike and mixing in alongside the locals. It's really heart warming stuff to be welcomed in this way and I can't speak highly enough about the people of Java and Indonesia as a whole. If you have time to spend here I really recommend that you get out and about as much as you can, it's a very humbling and rewarding experience.
We stayed at the festival for about and hour and we would have loved to stay all day if wasn't for the fact we had our nice luxury digs all booked up to get to the following day. The people there really wanted us to stay and it took a lot of willpower to bid our farewells and move on.
Unfortunately due to the size of the festival we kept getting held up trying to make our way through the road. Like a salmon swimming up stream.
Eventually we decided to turn back and take a detour that we had seen a sign for just outside the village. This turned out to be one hell of a detour and with hindsight we may as well have stayed at the festival another couple of hours and continued to make our way through the thronging masses. The detour took us high up into the mountains towards Mt Semeru on bumpy dusty dirt tracks. It was certainly an experience for sure but the festival would have been the better choice given how long it took us to navigate this crazy diversion.
Eventually about an hour after sunset we rolled into Jember where we would be spending the night before heading on to our nice resort the following morning. I'm glad we didn't try to ride the full distance in a day as it would have ended up being a ridiculously long day like the Mt Bromo escapade.
It was a great day full of wonderful touching experiences. Since leaving Mt Bromo several days ago we haven't seen another westerner at all. I have a feeling we are going to find it hard to move on from Java as it's turning out to be the great adventure we hoped it would be.
