Selamat tahun baru dari Yogya!

It feels like I left Holland a century ago but it's actually been just little more than a week. As planned, my first flight was to London where I spent 2 days freezing since my luggage for Asia didn't exactly include snow boots and winter jacket. Except for that I passed the sights once more and walking trough London's streets forever, especially exploring the asian stalls in camden town as I couldn't wait for asia to come haha With many other young budget travellers, mostly Australians flying home, I spent a night at Stansted Airport because as it turned out there was no public transport during Christmas to reach the airport early the next morning.

Unsure what to expect of a 13h-AirAsia-flight I entered the plane but it turned out that the flight was actually quite enjoyable. I read two chapters, had 2 asian meals, rented an "e-player" as you can on board and watched 3 movies, played 3 games... and there we were at Kuala Lumpur Airport. After a 1h-bus ride I checked-in at THE cheapest hostel I've ever stayed at (3euro per night!) and the hostel looked accordingly with filthy, crowded rooms and way beyond dirty bathrooms BUT air-conditioning at least during the night! I didn't care since I was finally in Asia!! KL is quite a city. Because I didn't feel like staying in the stinking dorm and I wanted to get over my jet-lag asap I started walking around as soon as I arrived downtown at 5am. But I had to get back to the hostel around noon as I almost collapsed due to the heat. My first REAL asian meals out on the street were with some other travellers from the hostel and Friday, on my last evening in KL, I met up with some friends of Kirsten who are working in KL. As we went out I noticed that even though the food is real cheap, drinks are almost same price as in Holland. After the reggaebar I went directly to the airport around 5am to catch my flight to Jogja (=Yogyakarta).


Having a major hangover I slept almost as soon as I was taking my seat and woke up just in time to watch Merapi from the air. Merapi is a volcano, 25km from Yogyakarta, that had a huge eruption a couple of weeks ago with many dead. But luckily the volcano is quiet now and here in the city pretty much all the ash has been cleaned. Jaaa I'm in Jogja super excited and feeling part of the city already haha. het was wel even wennen aan de warmte, het tijdverschil, de cockroaches, de taal, het gedoe op straat, de prijzen, 4man op 1 scooter etc. maar valt allemaal wel reuze mee. Ik kon gelukkig in kuala lumpur al beetje de jet-lag verwerken en proberen door de hete vochte lucht heen te ademen;/ Iemand van de international office van de uni heeft mij bij de airport opgehaald en naar het adres gereden waar ik iig de komende weken ga wonen. Ze noemen het hier allemaal homestay maar het is eigenlijk gewoon een soort heel groot open huis met 12 kamers, veel openlucht en regelmatig bezoekje van een cicak (hagedis), spinnen, muggen, en mieren maar vergelijken met de omgeving hebben we het hier lekker lux Jogja - lovely people (bij de airport dachten ze dat er drugs in mijn kniebeschermers zaten haha), lovely culture shock, lovely sun!!


[for the reference: I am holding "only" around 100euros]

Ik heb inmiddels zelfs al een paar bahasa indonesia lessen hier gehad die ik goed kan gebruiken want de mensen hier op straat spreken echt niet of heel slecht engels. Vaak kunnen ze alleen maar "miss, miss!" roepen.

Vrijdag hebben we hier met alle 10 exchange studenten een introdag en volgende week maandag begint het op de uni. ok, nu ff mijn indonesisch-huiswerk maken

xx