It’s time to share the experience of a month traveling, an early Summer breaks holiday from Cyprus to Indonesia 🙂 It’s fun!!
Usually, I bought my ticket with a direct flight from Cyprus to Jakarta, Indonesia with Emirates airline, 11 hours with 5 hours transit in Dubai. As I did it a couple of times, and I always found myself getting stuck and bored at the airport, plus it’s already more than 5 times, so we said that we’re going to find another airline, as we were also thinking to stop by Athens, Greece for a couple of days.
Then we found one 🙂 We flew with KLM, Athens – Jakarta, 5 hours transit in Amsterdam!!! 😀 How cool it is as I never been to Amsterdam before and I always wanted to go there!! 🙂 It was perfect plans, until 2 weeks before we left Cyprus, as I started to gather all the tickets, passports and all necessary documents, I found out that the flight from Athens to Jakarta would take 23 hours and 50 minutes in total…
SHOCKED!! both of us…were shocked! Never thought that it could be that crazy!! 3.5 hours from Athens to Amsterdam which was nothing, 5 hours transit in Amsterdam which was a great escape and 15 hours flight Amsterdam to Jakarta, 45 mins transit in Kuala Lumpur and another 1.5 hours from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta…it was a torture! >.<
But we did it.. we were sleeping almost all the time in the big flights! 😀 And that 5 hours transit in Amsterdam, it was beautiful!!
We had only times to go around in the central station area, strolling the streets, amazed by how many people were there on the street on a cloudy day. Bicycle everywhere, fewer cars, cafes were all full, the building, the colors..it’s just amazed me! 🙂
Then I remembered this particular view – the dam and bicycle with the greens and windows on the sides, so I took a snapshot! 🙂
And this particular picture, the boathouse – this was the same boat house which my husband used to live in when he was studying and working in Amsterdam. It was a great memory for him! 🙂
I definitely will be back to Amsterdam one day! I love that place!! 😀
And that’s how we started our holiday! Then we arrived in Jakarta, it was a chaos in the airport, total chaos, super noisy, humid, hot, so many people. My sister’s driver picked us up and we were “trapped” in the traffic jam for 1.5hours >.< Oh my!!!
Spending 2 nights in Jakarta, recovering from long flights, then we flew again to Surabaya, East Java where another chaos awaited us. My youngest sister picked us up and another 4 hours driving from Surabaya to my hometown, Kediri, in heavy traffic with trucks, containers, thousands of motorcycle, cars, bicycles…speechless!
Then finally after a long 4 hours crazy drive, we’re home, where I was greeted with boxes in the living room 😀
Crazy stuff, I started to work almost right away, as it was Sunday, and my sister told me that we need to bring all of these souvenirs to Surabaya (for the party) on Friday morning. I got freaked out…because I’m the only one who knew how long it is to prepare a complete box – from attaching felt circle in the bottom, attaching glass on top, arranging the petals, attaching tag, taping flower into the box, fixing the box, adding ribbons, thank you tag and gluing small flower. I said to my husband that I desperately needed help or else, I won’t be able to make it in 4 days.
And I got all the help that I needed. One was helping me to cut ribbons for a name tag, one was cutting ribbons for the box, one was taping the box and thank you tags, one was attaching felt circle and glass candle. I did the last assembly and it was super fast.
All were done on Thursday after lunch. I was so happy that we made it! It looks very simple yet tons of details were there.
Then, the party day…I totally forgot to take pictures of them >.< @#$%^&! Totally forgot! They were there on the reception desk, nicely arranged and displayed, and I passed them a couple of times, but still…no photographs! Shame on me!!! >.<
I managed to take pictures of the flower arrangement, though lol!!
After a long 10 days at home, working on the souvenirs, finally, the real holiday began. We flew to Bali island, we booked a hotel in the middle of a busy area of Seminyak, and began our long walk on the beach, Double Six (66) beach, Seminyak, just 10 mins walking from the hotel.
A lot of bars along the beach, with traditional minimal style construction, bamboo, Balinese style umbrellas with colors and lights and bean bags…it was such a reward after 10 days. Everybody was waiting for the sun to set, facing the sea, background music nicely played so that everyone could talk to each other without screaming. There were local people selling their sarong, kites, handcraft items, ice creams, and many more! Beautiful days!!
I managed to meet up with some of my good friends, we had great times talking and laughing even though it’s for a couple of hours. I also met my crazy friend who opens Vietnamese restaurant in Bali, and it was great food and amazing coffee!!! Love them!!! xx
We also enjoying Uluwatu area, beautiful temple, amazing beach, stone style wall, scary stairs, it was just amazing!
Can you see the temple?? just on the cliff…there..yes…right there 😀 hehe I brought no big lens with me, I was just using my new toy, Samsung note 3 😀
And this is what lays under the temple..beautiful and rough sea, clear water yet scary waves! 🙂 And we were about to go down there! 😀
And this is the beach of Uluwatu, stone wall, scary steps to go down to this place, big waves, and we’re not allowed to swim, but you can surf, non beginner though, it’s one of surfers’ paradise!
Next stop: Tanah Lot – another rock temple, beautiful place, amazing energy which now has become so commercial >.<
It was full moon when we were there, sea level was quite high, with tide and big waves! When the tide was low, you can even walk to the temple, and they are using the temple for ceremonies. Amazing right? 🙂
Next stop: Jimbaran – seafood beach 😀 We went there after trip to Uluwatu, because we had to pass Jimbaran area to go back to Seminyak area, and it was in the middle of the day, 1 pm, super hot, humid and hungry. We stopped by Jimbaran for seafood fiesta! 😀 I asked a friend which one is considered to be a good one. In Jimbaran you will see lots of small restaurants offering seafood, but you have to be local to know which one is good. So we went and found Lia Cafe as suggested by friend, sitting by the empty beach, and enjoying seafood until we couldn’t move!
When I said “empty beach”…it was really empty! No Indonesian people will go under the sun, only foreigners! 🙂 And the place is going to change around 5pm, the beach will be full of people, tables, noise, smell of seafood until late at night. We were lucky to enjoy the empty beach with 3 or 4 couples around.
The last day in Bali, we spent it by sitting and swimming on the beach..and a bit of surfing for my husband 😀
Then we found Nebula cafe with their famous nebula burger 😀 It’s delicious, big size (even though it wasn’t enough for me :P)
And…that’s how we ended our Bali trip. We met great people, new friends, different adventures, got sun burnt, enjoying local food, stuck with Italian food for 3 nights in a row and we had our holiday!!
It was time to leave Bali and back to hometown for couple of days then started the trips back to Cyprus! That is the new look of Bali International airport. Things have changed a lot for the past 3 years.
Then a nightmare started just on the day that we have to leave the country…
From hometown to the nearest airport, Surabaya is only 127km and that particular day, we spent 6 hours on the road to airport, as they closed main roads due to severe floods up to 1.5 meter high. It was hectic, and we were so worried that we might not be able to catch up the flight. We had to reroute for 40 km plus to go to airport, and it took us 1.5 hours for the reroute as they moved all the traffic to the alternative road. It was totally crazy on the road, and as soon as we saw the sign of highway to airport, we’re so relieved! But it’s not finished yet!! At the last 100 meter just before the T1 gate, that’s what we got! Water everywhere, 30-40 cm high, lucky that the car was high enough to keep water to slip in. We arrived just exactly an hour before the flight *phew* lucky that we did online check in, so it was only baggage drop off. We started the trip! Surabaya – Jakarta – Kuala Lumpur – Amsterdam – Athens!
We finally arrived in Jakarta and greeted with “Welcome to Jakarta! Death penalty for drug traffickers”. We couldn’t help it..we burst into laugh after 6 hours drive in bad mood, and 1 hour flight. We took picture and kept laughing! so cute! >.<
Then after 3 hours waiting in Jakarta, finally, we’re leaving to Amsterdam, transit in Kuala Lumpur for an hour. The flight back to Amsterdam was shorter, it was only 13 hours (2 hours less), we slept almost the whole journey! 🙂 and Hello Amsterdam at 5.30 in the morning 😛 !!!!
We were waiting for 3 hours, did nothing, just strolling around the airport, coffee and breakfast, then flew again to Athens, Greece. It was pretty quick actually or maybe we didn’t realize it that much as we were playing games 😀
Welcome to Athens!!! It was hot, sleepy and tired! We crashed at best friend’s house for a couple of days and going for camping 😀
Yeah, that’s the first food that we had that later afternoon! 2 Gyros each, salads and french fries, felt so good after a month without eating them. It’s not that we could not find any Greek food in Indonesia (Bali has it!!), we just wanted to eat something else except Greek food 😀 It was good and full and I slept right away from 8pm until 8am the next day! 😀
The next day, we went out strolling the city, enjoying the day and walking for hours just to pass the day. It was nice day, clear blue sky, hot with fresh breeze 🙂
Then…Camping! We went for a night camp on the beach of South Evia, where we had very less people, blue sky, pebble sand, beautiful landscape, clear turquoise water that I spotted sea cucumbers, starfish,small fish, clams, then clear black sky with millions of stars, watching shooting stars 😀
We swam a lot, water was perfect. It was Saturday when we went to South Evia, and Sunday, there were even less people 😀 A night on the beach was great and relaxing! It was a nice ride as well, passing the bridge that connects Athens to Xalkida.
It was the last night we spent in Athens, a quite night with World Cup match, we had to sleep early that night as our flight back to Cyprus is 8 am, it meant that we need to wake up at 6 am 🙂
That’s the last day of our Indonesia – Greece trip 🙂 It was beautiful journey to discover something new, family, friends, adventure 🙂 The flight from Athens to Larnaca, Cyprus is very short, 1 hour and few minutes only. We’re home! 🙂
We’re finally home!! And we were greeted by these hungry guys!!
We’re really home! I missed it! The smell of the house, garden, landscape view, and peaceful village and of course, soundless!!! 🙂 That’s the end of 2014 trip!! Time to get back to work 😀 Summer breaks means working days for me to prepare for Autumn/Winter new collections! 😀
Hope you enjoy the trip! xx