Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Summer Clossing

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This summer I accompanied 10 groups of French tourists to spend their summer in Java. Some of my reservations have been cancelled due to the earthquake in Java. It’s alright… hope next summer there will be more tourists come to Indonesia. In the mean time I’ll be busy with my study in the university. I’m going to study art… metal smithing next month. However I still continue teaching silversmithing course in my studio. You can maybe visit my web at www.artstudio76.com


Should you need info regarding to Indonesian tourism especially Java please feel free to write me & I’ll do my best to provide the requested info.


Monday, August 28, 2006

Kuoni Of This Summer

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This summer finished by accompanying a French couple Jeremy & Maud from Kuoni. We did an overland tour from Yogyakarta to Surabaya. As last summer, we went to Surabaya by train then continued to Bromo. The sun rise was very beautiful. Don’t forget to send me the photo with the jeep!!






After sunrise we went down to Surabaya for the last night in Java, Novotel Surabaya. Unfortunately there was a traffic due to a problem fixing of a gaz company (PT. Lapindo Brantas). It took us 1,5 hour to escape from the traffic. Then we continued to traditional Javanese port Pasuruan to see traditional sailing boat.


Our last night in Surabaya wasn’t good for me.. to many mosquito in this big city. Next morning dropping Jeremy & Maud to Surabaya international airport for catching flight to Bali. Have a nice trip!! Bonne Continuation!!

3rd Group

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Laurent et Solenne, Armelle et Isabelle, Francois, Jacques, Fabrice et Celine… are the members of my 3rd group. Maybe they’re also my last group of this summer.. I don’t have any reservation yet The tour was really good… and the members were really nice too. Before starting the trek we stopped at a huge tea plantation. Isabelle & Laurent bought a special knife for cutting the tea leaves. (n’oubliez pas de m’envoyer les photos avec les femmes du thé)



After visiting the waterfall in Tawangmangu we went to a swimming pool. Jacques, Laurent & Armelle (petite papillon avec son maillot de bain) enjoyed the cool water 15 degree C. Solenne, Isabelle, Francois, Fabrice & Celine had chicken & rabbit satay. The satay seller (Mbok Gito, 60 years old) used to served the 1st Indonesian president Mr. Sukarno. Celine & Isabelle, please send me the photos you made with her. I promised to bring it to her someday when I visit Tawangmangu again.




Finishing the tour around 5 pm and back to Yogyakarta for a dinner before arriving to hotel.On a goûté cigarette de clou de giroffe, même Celine qui n’est pas fumeuse l’a aussi fumée. C’est pas la faute de guide qui les a propose (don’t blame the guide). Je ne sais pas si Isabelle a ramené une cartouche de cigarette avant de partir.. et Armelle..tu as déjà acheté une balayette à Lombok avant de partir?

Next morning I dropped them in Tugu train station for next depart to Surabaya as previous groups. Et voila!! Les 3 groups de Volcan Légendaires / Nouvelle Frontieres..hope next summer there will be more tourists come to Indonesia.

2nd Group Volcan Légendaires

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Here they are.. my second group of Volcan Légendaires..Michelle & Eric, Willy & Marlene, Celine, Bertrand & Thony, William, Philippe, Christophe, Francois & Anne. We did the same tour as the first group of Volcan Légendaires..and we could reach Tawangmangu / waterfall this time. We left earlier & moved faster to get there. It was really beautiful…a waterfall of 81 metres & monkeys around..



Unfortunately, I only have one email address.. Willy, please let me know if you have email the addresses of our group.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Yogyakarta Bromo

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Last summer I accompanied a Belgium couple to discover Java for their honeymoon. Nico and Esther came to Indonesia through a French tour operator KUONI. I picked them up in Yogyakarta airport than dropped them in Novotel hotel Yogyakarta. Next morning we went to Borobudur the biggest Buddhist monument in the world then continued to do a city tour in Yogyakarta (visiting Sultan palace, bird market, water castle, batik and silver factory).

We also visited Prambanan (hindus temple). After staying in Yogyakarta 2 days, we continued our journey to Surabaya the capital of East Java province also the 2nd city in Indonesia. 5 hours in the train from Yogyakarta to Surabaya was a great opportunity to witness a real Javanese life. People selling in every train station, huge rice fields along the road and then switched to teak forest and also city life in Surabaya. We escaped immediately from Surabaya to go to our hotel in Tosari. It took 3 hours drive before arriving to our hotel. Finally we arrived in our hotel at 4 pm so we had enough time for rest cos we had to wake up early tomorrow. Next early morning, at 4 am we took a jeep to go to Penanjakan (2700 m) to see the sunrise. After that we continued to Bromo (2400 m) to see the active smoking crater.

Going back to our hotel for breakfast and shower then we went down to Surabaya. We visited a zoo actually to see orang utan, komodo and also white tiger before we go to our hotel in Surabaya for the last night in Java. Next morning I accompanied them to Surabaya airport cos they’ll continue their trip to Bali.

Well, what a short time with Nico and Esther cos they’re very nice couple. We still have good contact till now and they even support me for the earthquake in my city, Yogyakarta. Last month they wrote me that they already have a baby. Theo is very cute and he looks like his mom Esther. Congratulation Nico and Esther…


Silver Course

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Steven and Saars, a Dutch couple was traveling in Yogyakarta last July for couple days. It’s nice to see them when they came to my studio for short course to make silver jewelry. We had early dinner in a warung (small resto) close to my village.

After having dinner then we started to make our jewelry. Saars made a silver ring and Steven made a key chain. They both worked very hard, Steven was having hard times in soldering his piece. But congratulation Steven, you did a great job.

Finally they both did it very well. Saars got a very nice ring and Steven got his unique key chain. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of what they made. I’ll ask them to send it to me. Most important is that they are satisfied joining with my course making very beautiful stuff with their own hands…

Climbing Merapi

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Last summer I accompanied some French groups to climb Merapi volcano (3000 m). They participated a tour package called Volcan Legendaire. In the beginning, I was bit afraid cos Merapi was also more active than usual. Thanks God nothing happened during my 5 times climbing Merapi.
We left from our hotel at 11 pm to go to Selo, last village on the foot of Merapi. It took us one and half hour to get there. I had contacted my friends (4 local guides) to accompany us to reach the peak. 3 tourists accompanied by 1 local guide cos we were walking in the middle of the night, very dark and very narrow and dangerous paths also the deep ravines.

After walking for about 4-5 hours finally we reached the peak of Garuda (name of the peak). Even though we didn’t reach the peak at the same time cos some of partipants didn’t walk as fast as the others but most of them did it. It an extraordinary view from the peak, sun rise was very beautiful. Considering to the Merapi’s activity we decided not to stay too long cos it was scary in fact.

It took as about 3 hours to get back to Selo village to get our car. Walking down from the peak, the view was also beautiful. Narrow and steep paths we had passed were very beautiful and dangerous in fact.

We got back to our cars at 10 am then continued to Yogyakarta. We were all just sleeping in the cars after walking the whole night. But it was just unforgotten memory in Yogyakarta..
I just hope that next year there’ll be next groups cos this is a very good program actually and I can see the tourists are satisfied for what the got here in Yogyakarta.

Indonesie

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L’indonésie est un tel puzzle géant jeté entre le continent asiatique et l’ Australie, l’archipel équatorial d’Indonésie, vaste comme quatre fois la France (1 904 345 km2) comprend plus de 13 000 îles don’t les plus grandes sont Java, Sumatera, Borneo, Celebes et Papua (la partie occidentale de Nouvelle Guinée). Les 13 000 iles qui constituent le territoire d’Indonésie, à peine 6000 sont déjà nommé et seulement 1000 habitée de façon permanente.

Si l’on superposait l’ Indonésie en Europe ou bien aux États Unis, elle s’etendrait de Madrid à Moscou ou de San Fransisco à new York, et en France, de Paris à Abidjan. Imaginez la prodigieuse diversité du paysage, de la culture, de la faune et de la flaure et vous commencerez à apprehender la complexité du pays. Unifier ses 350 group d’ethniques et ses 150 langues differents???

La devise “ l’unité dans la diversité ” est la phylosohie national et heuressement on a l’Indonésien comme la langue national pour se communiquer de tous les group d’ethnique differents.

L’ Indonésie est un pays d’une beauté etonnante dans sa diversité: On trouve des cimes enneigées de 5600 metres d’altitude à Papua, des marecages etouffants dans les terres basses de l’est de Sumatera, des forêts vierges verdoyant dans l’ouest de Java et sans parler des volcans en activité qui pontuent pratiquement tout l’archipel. Le plus tristement celebre est le Krakatau. Son eruption en 1883 a provoqué un enorme-raz-de marée et fait perir 36.000 personnes. La plus triste catastrophe est le tremblement de terre qui a provoqué le tsunami l’annee passé à Aceh l’extremité de l’ouest de Sumatera qui a fait perir plus de 200.000 personnes (Indonésiens). Et récemment en Mai, un autre tremblement de terre à Yogyakarta qui a fait perir plus de 10.000 personnes.

Par sa population, l’Indonesie se place au 5e rang mondial. Celle-ci est estimé à 220 millions d’habitans qui sont inégalement repartie. L’île de Java comme le 5e des grand îles en Indonésie en abrite les 2/3. Une politique gouvernementale de transmigration vise à distribuer et implanter les habitants dans les îles moins peuplées.

En raison de sa situation en latitude, l’Indonésie est caracterisée, dans son ensemble, par un climat chaude et humide. Le climat est aussi remarquable par l’uniformité de ses temperatures qui sont génera lement superieures à 24o C et ne s’abaissent pas au dessous de 20o C except dans la montagne.

Plusieurs centaines d’années avant l’ère chrétienne, des vagues successives de peuple “ austro-asiatique “, ancêntres des Indonésiens actuels, refoulèrent les autochtones mélanesiens et négritos vers les régions montagneuses peu hospitalières. Puis l’Indonésie s’integra progressivement a l’aire de civilization indienne par l’intermédiare de commerçants et de chefs religieux qui diffusèrent le bouddhisme et l’hindouisme. Les prestigieux royaumes hindouistes de Sumatera ou de Java, dontil reste les temples de kalasan, de Prambanan et surtout de Borobudur ne purent résister aux progress de l’Islam, introduit par les commerçant Arabes a partir du XIVe siècle.. Ces Etats s’effacèrent pour laisser la place a des sultanats. Au XVIe siècle, la colonialisation Européenne débuta avec les Portugais, relayés ensuite par les Espagnols, les Hollandais et les Anglais. Les Hollandais réussierent à évincer leurs concurrents et à assesoir leur dominationsur l’Indonésie tout entière. Comme ce fut le cas pour d’autres pays colonisés en Asie, l’occupation Japonaise de 1942 à 1945 ouvrit la voie de l’accession à independence. Celle-ci fut proclamée le 17 Aoùt 1945, au lendemain de la capitulation Japonaise.

Soft Trekking

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Last week I accompanied a French Group to do soft trekking from Ceto temple to Sukuh temple than continued to Tawangmangu waterfall, located about 100 km from Yogyakarta. Luca… un flic qui s’interrese beacoup a la politique (tu m’ as laisse un bon impression d’un flic francais).. Thierry est professeur…(n’oublie pas de m’envoyer les photos avec mon T Shirt de Henry).. Jean ( il etait Italien avec sa belle femme Sylvie) Claire, Veronique, Etienne, Martine, Delphine et Jean Pierre sont les proffesseurs

They came to Indonesia through a French tour operator called Nouvelle Frontiere. The real program was to climb Merapi volcano but due to the Merapi’s activities which is not possible to do the trek therefore we did a soft trekking from Ceto to Tawangmangu instead.
We left from Yogyakarta at 7 am and arrived in Karangpandan bus station at 10 am. We had to switch to smaller vehicule cos our bus from Yogyakarta was to big for narrow road to climb Ceto. We did some shopping actually in Karangpandan traditional market, provision for lunch during the trek. Jean a achete une CD de la musique traditionelle de Java..gamelan

30 minutes driving up through tea plantation to reach Ceto temple which is located on 1400 above sea level. Compared to Borobudur or Prambanan temple in Yogyakarta, Ceto is much smaller and looks like temples in Bali. Main temple is located in the back, is one of the characters of East Java temples. It doesn’t mean that the temples are always in East Java province. These temples are usually built after 10th century.

After visiting Ceto temple we started our soft trekking. A huge tea plantation was our first view for about 1,5 hour. My group was excited to see the tea plantation and and women picking tea leaves. What a wonderful panorama of this plantation. Everywhere just tea…tea mountain and very fresh air ..

Finally we arrived in a village which is also the end of tea plantation. After that we just entered in a pines wood. Wandering in a quite pines for about 1, 5 hour. We just met 2 peoples in the pines, a local people and another hunter with his gun chasing a bird …maybe. Our pique nique was also in the pines. Si tu veut faire sortir, fais sortir et les autres vont le prendre (Jean a di a Delphine). Merci Veronique pour nous as montre comment decortiquer les ananas

Walking, talking and kidding ..(on a bien rigole.. avec Jean a sculptor from Paris? sorry Jean I forgot, just remember that you have an exhibition in a gallery in Paris and Veronique wants to go there) sent us to another 14th century temple. It’s often called as erotic temple for its sculptures and statues.

That’s just a little ornament of the temple and here is the main temple looks like. Some say that it looks like Mexican temple or Pyramid in Egypt.

Well..we just did half trekking which means another 3 houres to go. Our next menu is Javanese village life…. Wandering in a javanese village life let us to explore small, clean streets in the village. People is very friendly and some traditional javanese houses can be found here. As the village is a plateau therefore we don’t find rice field cos rice doesn’t grow well above 1000 metres. We found some carrots and potatos instead. See a lady is cleaning her carrots on the street…
We arrived at the gate of Tawangmangu waterfall but unfortunately it was already close. We’re about 25 minutes late cos it’s closed at 4 pm and we got there around 4.25 pm. Tant pis, but still we could meet our little friends…monkeys..waterfall guards… Luca et Thierry ont goute boisson traditionnelle a base de cacahuettes..c’est bonne mes amis??

We left from Tawangmangu to Solo for a dinner then continued to our hotel in Yogyakarta. Next morning I dropped them in Tugu train station for next depart to Surabaya cos they had to continue their trip to Bromo, Ijen and Bali. And over next morning I picked up another group just for classic tour. Next month, I still have 2 groups from Nouvelle Frontiere and hope they won’t cancel cos the 3rd one already did.

Bonne continuation mes amis!! Je vous sohuite un tres bon voyage en esperant de vous revoir lors d’un prochain sejour.

Jean, n’oublie pas de m’envoyer le DVD de notre balade.
Agus