Lovina to Probolingo and Bromo

LOVINA – 6 days

After enjoying another two days in Ubud which consisted of a traditional Balinese dance evening and a day trip in and around the town visiting temples, mountains, rice paddy fields and coffee plantations, we travelled north through Bali, over the stunning mountains to reach Lovina.

Set across north Bali, Lovina is much quieter, less touristy at this time of year so great for us to relax. Beautiful beach with dark colour sand, Initially we stayed 2 miles off the main strip in the small village of Anturan & found best accommodation yet – an extremely friendly home-stay with handful of clean, fairly new, well looked after bungalows with a real family feeling. Met a fab guy called Georgio who is a Greek born Englishman who spends most of his time travelling Asia & producing wood carvings (he made Lily a lovely pendant). We then headed to the centre of Lovina and got a bungalow in a larger complex with a great swimming pool. Georgio would pop over & lend us his hammock & we would all chill together listening to his travel stories.

Pic 1. Lovina beach

Pic 2. Lily in the sea

Pic 3. Local kid making a boat

Pic 4. One of the local streets

To give you a rough idea, we try not pay over 100,000 rp for a room per nt. This equates to £7.00.
We soon got to grips with our room priorities – a fan not air-con. Air con gets too cold and is more expensive. Fan is great. Cold shower if need be due to the sweltering heat. And lastly to ensure we all get a breakfast in the mornings as if you don't ask you don't get! Everywhere has been clean and perfectly decent so far!

Most tourists who want to actually see Bali just rock up to these Bungalows, home-stays or cheap hotels, barter for a good price, then stay a night or two and head off. It's the norm just to stay a night if you want to.

Locals are really friendly and when you visit the same bar or Warung (cheap eatery), they will remember you and it's very comfortable to chat with them, they can tell you a lot about their way of living and are happy to do so, their English is a little ropey but some are better than others. Lily is still getting bags of attention, they are very into their kids here. Everyone talks to her and she is happy to tell her name and play with local children in the sea.

Pic 5. Lily with local friend

[b]BALI to JAVA (Probolingo)

Spent 8 hours on a very civilized coach with air con, blanket, pillow, food & reclining seats, only to get dropped off in Probalingo at 3am in the early hours at their aledged 'bus station' which was not a bus station but a dodgy geezer in a taxi office trying to rip us off to get to our hotel (we had phoned ahead and booked accommodation). We were not having any of it so managed to make deal in the end, but it was pretty frustrating to be pushed into a corner.

PROBOLINGO

There is no reason to visit this town unless you are going to climb Mount Bromo, which Minde was doing the following night/morning (2.30am to see the sunrise!!). The only alternative is to stay in Bromo itself but it's small village with 2-3 places and is a rip off with nothing to do. Not that there is anything to do in Probolingo anyway. It is not a tourist resort, locals were nearly falling off their scooters when they clocked us walking down the street, jaws dropping, kids pointing, but despite this, if you are friendly and smile, say hello, they suddenly realise that you are human and smile back genuinely and friendly. Thanks to lovely girl in a Nokia shop where we were getting a top up for the phone (that took at least half hour itself as her English was awful!), she packed us off in a 'becak' (type of rickshaw) to her favourite local eatery serving 'Bakso', meatballs in noodle soup. We ended up there again the next day as it was yummy & cheap. There was also nothing else around. This girl has now latched onto us a bit and is dropping us texts for an invite to lunch when we next return, and, for anyone who is not quite clear – we will NOT be returning to Probolingo!!

We arranged transport out asap by mini bus onwards to Yogykarta and were joined on the trip by 3 German students, who by accident, Minde met on the top of Mount Bromo. Another epic journey of 10 hours through the afternoon and night. Phoning ahead again to get accommodation, we rocked up at 3am and are continuing our journey with the guys...

Pic 6. Mount Bromo

Pic 7. Mount Bromo

Pic 8. Becak local

Pic 9. Candy Floss making by bike power