Mount Bromo - Probolinggo - Surabaya - Solo - Yogyakarta

When travelling, we experience new landscapes, cities, cultures and architecture. We see animals and plants that we don't know or have never seen in the wild. We try food we never ate before and drinks we never drank before. 

And although all of those new discoveries are - most of the time - pretty great, it are always the people that strike us the most and that leave lasting impressions. 

The masses on the top of picture perfect Mount Bromo for example, the active volcano on East Java and a number one tourist destination. At 4.30 in the morning hundreds of people, mostly Indonesian tourists, are squeezing themselves into the sea of people that's already there to catch a glimpse of the sunrise. 

Half of them then wants to be in a picture with the couple of "boulés" or foreigners that are there. Or just say hi or shake hands. All of that to prove they've been travelling too, just like the rich white people that we are. Good thing we met lovely Gery and Josien from the Netherlands to share the many requests with. 

People also prove to be very intrigueing in traffic here in Indonesia. There are cities here we've never heard of but still millions of people live in them. Surabaya for example (a necessary stopover on our trip). The only thing to experience there is the traffic. Four lane one-way roads are the norm here and being a pedestrian is as adventurous as venturing out in a jungle full of wild animals. There are a couple of pedestrian crossings, complete with traffic lights, extra warning signs, a time-clock and even an astounishingly loud alarm signal. All useless as the river of cars just keeps flowing through the red light. The only solution: raising your arm and jumping in that river. 

Very striking: although there is way more traffic (the motor bikes!) and it seems like there aren't any rules here, there is a lot less aggression and frustration than we're used to in Belgium. No middle fingers, no angry horns, no shouting. Is it possible we have too many rules? Or are Indonesians just more empathetic and polite?

More places with little rules but more peace and quiet are to be found in the villages surrounding Solo (Surakarta). With a bicycle we explored some local "factories". Five women making rice crackers for example, with a baby sleeping in the middle of them, in something that looks like a sweat hut. Back in Belgium, it would've probably been shut down fifty years ago due to (the lack of) hygiene regulations. But the crackers still tasted amazing. 

People doing the very same labour hour after hour, day after day are to be found everywhere: in the numorous rice fields (where Java used to be a big jungle, it is now one big rice field with some towns and cities dotted between them), in the illegal alcohol distillery, in the tempe makery, in the gong factory/shed or in the batik factory. They all have some things in common: the temperature easily reaches 35 degrees and it seems like there aren't any safety or health regulations. And again, they all make fabulous stuff. 

Taxi, bemo and becak drivers in Yogyakarta, the cultural capital of Java, are another interesting race. At first often difficult and unpleasant people, until you negotiate the right price. Than stories about the city or their lives come up in combination with some very Dutch words and sentences they picked up over the years: "Lekker hé", "Kijken niet betalen" or "Slapen in de straat", we can't always make sense of it, but it sure is pretty funny. 

Dutch is quite popular anyway (thank you colonization), as proven by our Dutch speaking guide at the wonderful Borobudur temple, a huge Buddhist construction from the 8th century and, depending on the source, considered as one of the seven present-day world wonders. Being terribly embarrassed when he found out one of us is a Dutch and English teacher, he managed to convey everything in a very clear way, apart from some conjugation mistakes here and there. 

As much as we like listening to Indonesians talking about their country, we also found some who had been to Belgium. As Boy, our host in Yogya put it: there were four things that he had to adapt to when visiting Belgium: all of a sudden he had to wear a jacket and closed shoes, cook for himself (since eating out in Belgium isn't as cheap as cooking yourself), walk everywhere instead of taking a becak or a motorbike, and use toilet paper. 

Although it's obvious we live in an incredible country when it comes to social security, health, income, cleanliness, general organisation, history and a bunch of other things, many Indonesians wouldn't want to swap. 

There are probably many reasons for this. One of them might be that we're having such a hard time living together. As Paul, our guide in Solo said: "There are no people in the streets and nobody says "hello" to one another."

We have become true individualists in "civilized" Europe. Here we meet people living in a country of 260 million people, coming from different backgrounds and having different religions (the five official religions are buddhism, hinduism, islam, catholicism and protestantism) and still, mostly, getting along just fine. 

It does make us wonder what happened to us with all our money. Anyway, the conclusion is: we love people!