Creepy Picture Hunting at Hotel Tugu Malang

Hotel tour isn't really my thing, unless it's an unique one, like this Hotel Tugu in Malang. It's indeed a must-visit place for those who love old-fashioned furniture and antiques, especially the one influenced by Javanese-Chinese mixed culture, usually called Babah Peranakan. The Hotel itself wasn't too attractive from the outside, but jaw dropping and narcissism triggering at the inside. Since I'm not antiques expert, yet not a detail reviewer, I can only say its collections are indigenous and remarkable, each sections gives different feeling, each corners are unique. I LOVE THIS PLACE!!! There, I shout it out.

Apparently Hotel Tugu is also well known for its creepy stories, the most notable one is the picture of Oei Hui Lan (Madame Wellington Koo), daughter of Oei Tiong Ham -a former sugar baron- one of the richest man in South East Asia. The first visit to the hotel, we were just wandering around taking pictures whilst admiring the atmosphere, enjoy being drawn back to hundred years ago. Then it's Wempi -our Malang CS friend- asked if we saw those enormous picture of Oei Hui Lan, but we didn't, so we went back the next day to hunt for it. Wempi told us some stories bout the picture, either the urban legend one and the personal experiences.

After strolling the whole hotel's public area, we still couldn't find the picture, that's when we started to get more and more curious. Right after we gave up and about to leave the hotel, we saw a huge wooden board leaning on the wall. It's back side of a photo frame. We tried our best to peep on the photo, including taking picture using mobile phone cos it's not possible to view the photo with those limited angle. After several random snaps, we were sure THIS IS IT!! It's 100% the picture we're looking for.

I dunno if they hang it back already, or move it to other place, or still let it be there flipped against the wall. A conspiracy theory was created, that due to lots of visitors got freaked out or possessed after seeing those picture, hotel management decided not to showing it off again :p It's a superstitious theory, but make sense tho. Who's not freak out seeing huge picture of a long hair woman wearing long white robe, standing with reflection of her hair at the mirror behind her?? I will too *goosebumps*

There's one interesting dining room with super long table and a big picture of two girls smoking called Tirta Gangga, part of The Silk Road Pavilion. It's a nice big room with an open end, connected to beautiful Kubilai Khan Chamber. The lights are dimmed in those room, and reddish shades give spooky sensation. I tried to take pictures of that room, but due to low light exposure, it's blur without tripod, then I tried to turn on the flash light, but somehow it couldn't work properly there, wondering if we had tripod, will I get a good picture of that room? @__@ In other hand, it's a very gorgeous hotel, and I'd love to visit the rest of Hotel Tugu, which located at Blitar, Bali and Lombok. Hope it's all as beautiful as this one at Malang :)

Tirta Gangga room (courtesy of Hotel Tugu Official Website), even their picture is still not that sharp ehh




*Lots of interior pictures taken, but most of it are narcissistic pictures, please forgive us :p

Chillin' in Malang

After two tiring days without sleeping and covered with dust...sands precisely, we're heading to Malang hoping for a nice rest. We had no idea at all bout Malang, the only thing I knew was the weather is nice over there :p It's Devi, Malang CS moderator that came to the rescue, she recommended a nice affordable hotel-Helios. We paid IDR 85.000 for a decent and basic twin room, this hotel also arranges special jeep tour to Bromo. If I'm going to see Bromo again next time, I guess I'd love to go with this tour, the jeep passes through Bukit Teletubbies (Teletubbies Hill), savana that look so nice, and a waterfall!! what more can you ask, eh?

It felt heavenly to have such a nice hot water shower and rolled over spotless clean linen bed, the plan to do nothing and go nowhere was changed in minutes, feeling clean and fresh literally charged up our spirit, you'll get it if you ever felt dusty, sweaty and sticky when there's no other thing in the world you ever want but hitting the shower.

And it's time for afternoon strolling of Malang for make benefit glorious Warung Bakso Bakar of Pak Man. As a big fan of any MSG soups, me and Shanty would do anything to find the so-called most famous bakso bakar in Malang, but pathetic thing is we didn't even try any of Bakso Malang which is typically served in lots of shapes and variations. Warung Pak Man itself is a humble stall with lots of achievement proves hanging on the wall, from MURI (Indonesia Record Museum), newspaper scraps to pictures of celebrities ever drop in. They have both sweet and spicy bakso, the sweat one is mediocre,and the spicy one is drop dead spicy for my taste bud, we ended up mixed both bakso to get the perfect one anyway. The noodle soup itself is scrumptious tho it looks not so convincing, and it's all you can eat!! We did regret only took one bowl for sharing. Me and Shanty walked out grumbling 'we should have two bowls each instead' LOL


It was Devi, our savior again, arranged a small gathering for us. It's always a great feeling for being part of family in places you never expected before, and found out that actually Malang CS community has ton of things in common with one we have in Medan, is a nice surprise. Martha and Wempi joined our little hangout that night at a cozy cafe named Illy, they should open one in Medan! I meant it!! Lucky us, we were there during weekend, and there's a morning bazaar on Sunday. Lots of foodies to be tried, tho our bellies weren't too cooperative to try them all, from Nasi Jagung (Java always has the best Tempe and Tahu, guess it's the soybean that matters), Botok (weird fermented soybean with mushroom), plenty of fruity kripik (how come they make kripik out of any kind of fruits, even guava and dragon fruit) and last but not least 'Krupuk goreng pasir' (Krupuk fried with sands that tastes so good, not oily and cheap! pfftt.. I have the tendency to eagerly mention something cheap :p




Notice the huge bag of Krupuk Shanty's holding that only IDR 3.000 :p

With Malang Couchsurfers, in front of the famous Toko OEN

I'll pin Malang for my personal most livable town in Indonesia (so far), not only the nice weather, good foods, cozy cafes, laid back lifestyle and walkable. It's also relatively near to gorgeous places, either beaches, volcanoes, highlands & countrysides, you name it! Also it's not far from big buzzin' Surabaya to fly to other parts of the world. So LUCKY you, peeps that living there. [Still wondering why it should be named 'Malang' which literally means 'UNLUCKY' in Bahasa] What a contradiction!!

Rumah si Sampoerna

I usually don't buy those things called 'must visit' cos when it comes to my trip, well...it's mine, it's totally up to myself where to go, what to do or what to eat. But I take and give recommendations tho, and House of Sampoerna is the one most recommended to be visited in Surabaya. Not only it's a great place with nice atmosphere, it's also FREE!!! :D You only need to be more than 18+ years old to get inside, and they also have city sightseeing tour everyday, check out the schedule here:
http://houseofsampoerna.museum/e_sht_main.htm

The main attraction is the making of hand-rolling cigarettes using traditional equipment at a speed of more than 325 sticks per hour. I felt like viewing fast-forwarded movie, but LIVE!! And it's not only museum displaying anything related to Sampoerna tobacco company, but there are also art gallery, gift shop where you can post your own postcards and an art deco cafe :)

Bromo After Eruption

Got back from Ijen, we're supposed to go with sulfur truck, but we missed it, and the only option left was taking ojek/motorcycle to Sempol to catch minivan to Bondowoso. But (again) we're cheapshit, so we asked around to get free ride. Unfortunately there's only several jeeps and cars there, and all of their destinations were not the one we're heading to. We finally got a ride from a minivan full of Medanese aunties. The first time we asked them for a ride, a younger lady said the van was full with straight face, so we gave up and we did bargain for ojek rides cos no more cars we could ask for favor, but later on an older one in their group said we could fit in if we want, of course we wanted to!! And it was the bumpiest ride I've ever been, the road from Paltuding down to Banyuwangi was extremely damaged, I felt sorry for the minivan, it's obviously not meant for those track. I should salute the minivan too for not broken down, I was worried the tires will be detached.

Another excuse to travel while still young, two of the oldest aunties didn't join the hiking to the crater, they waited in the car for hours. See what we would miss if we didn't start to travel earlier?? Don't remind me cos I didn't travel too when I was younger :( but it's never too late anyway :)

We stopped to have late lunch at Banyuwangi and joined them till Ketapang cos they're on their way to Bali. We made it to catch bus to Probolinggo, but we arrived there at almost 10 PM. The minivan heading to Cemoro Lawang (where the guesthouses and jeep rentals are) are available at any time, but they will only depart if the passengers were enough. What a bad luck, we waited until 2 AM but still no other passengers and we had to chartered the minivan by paying 6 persons tariff :( We had no other options since we've booked jeep to see sunrise with a guide and have to be there before 4 AM. The most irritating thing was when we arrived at the meeting point, the moron guide said he sold our seats to other tourists already. We met this guide when he tried to approach us at Bondowoso, then we met him again on the way to Ijen, at there he said that he's guiding 2 foreigners and they're heading to Bromo afterward, so we could join their jeep for sunrise hunting. We thought that would be perfect, we don't have to bother bout jeep anymore, guess it was a mistake trusting him. it's true that we haven't paid any money in advance, but we kept on updating him bout our situation when we're waiting for the minivan. I was officially didn't sleep at all for 24 hours and exhausted, so I guess I have the rights to raise my voice to the highest pitch tone, especially when it's almost 4AM when we found out about that. Some tourists were already about to do the tour, while we're still standing there disappointed, desperately looking for another option since we already gave our all to be there. Some glove sellers heard my furious voice and offered to find other jeep, we got it eventually.

Bromo itself is always spectacular as I remember, a picture perfect, you don't need to have fancy camera to catch its beauty, an obsolete one will also give you an appropriate postcard picture. But after the eruption, the former viewing point can't be accessed anymore and they make a new one. To get there, we need to walk a lil bit (or horse riding) then climb several stairs,and that's pretty tiring (I'm lame I know). The new viewing point is not high enough, so we can see the cluster of volcanoes clearly without any cloud (the cloud is my all time fave view), yet the sunrise is covered by a hill. I prefer the previous one of course :|

After freezing sunrise hunting, we headed to "Lautan Pasir" literally means sea of sands to get to Bromo crater that still active. Once again we need to walk pretty long and another stairs (horses are ready for a slob with money, I'm slob without money so I didn't go to see the crater, Shanty did). We finished the sunrise tour by 8 AM and we headed to Malang for a rest, a good one, I hit the sack again after more than 40 hours on the road without sleeping.

IJEN Crater Took My Breath Away

Saying goodbye is never easy, even with people we just met the day before. Bu Supri made us some early breakfast before we left at 4.30 AM. She arranged two motorcycle drivers to get us to the crater, it started the awkward moment when it comes to money. We didn't ask how much we should pay them since Bu Supri said they are her relatives (typical Indonesia manners, we don't talk bout money in order to be polite). At the end of the trip they tried to charge us a huge amount of money, we were a lil bit disappointed, but managed to bargain. We ended up paying a reasonable price tho, but still the disappointment are still there.

It's another freezing ride, long bumpy and tiring when the sun was still hiding, but right after it greeted us good morning, the world is never be such a nice place, fresh morning breeze with jaw dropping misty mountains view, the bumpy road cuts across dense forest, and a hidden waterfall completed our ride. We made several stops and got to Paltuding after 3 hours riding. We started to hike at 8 AM, and reached the summit the next two hours.

The early hike was boring, but when getting closer to the summit the view got better and lots of sulfur miners. Those sulfur miners were not the one I meant with better view, since it's pretty sad thing to see people carrying two big baskets of sulfur on their shoulder that weight from 70 kg to 100 Kg, climb up 200 meters to the crater rim and another kilometer down the mountain, twice a day. Knowing they got relatively low payment for doing such tough job, and exposed to noxious fumes, will irritate you. Knowing that there's nothing you can do to help it but only taking their pictures, will irritate you even more.

Like all pictures of Ijen you saw on travel magazines or your friend's Facebook albums, right after you take the last turn of those 3 km hike, it's like the crater playing peek-a-boo with you, the turquoise caldera will really drop your jaw and blow your mind the first second you see it. It pays off definitely!! We arrived there around 10 AM and not much tourists again, cos most of them hiked way earlier than us. Thick fumes covered the whole crater and we had to struggle to breath there, using wet cloth to cover our nose and mouth,but still it's hard to open your eyes. Just in seconds the whole crater was covered in fumes, but the next minutes the fumes were gone and the turquoise crater emerged again. That's the very moment you'll gasp with awe. It's officially and literally took my breath away.

Hitched to Sukosari - on the way to Ijen Crater

Our first night after landed at Surabaya was nice, Shanty's long time cyber friend -Jun picked us up at the airport, took us to grab some lips smacking pecel and dropped us at our host's place. We joined Surabaya Couchsurfing gathering that night at a very nice apartment that made Shanty urged to do number two there, she believes that by doing that, she'll have those kind of apartment too one day :D

We left Surabaya the next morning to catch bus to Ijen Crater. We've been told that first we need to take bus to Probolinggo (3 hours from Surabaya), then continue with another bus to Bondowoso (another 3 hours). Since we started at 9AM, apparently that's not early enough to catch minivan/Elf to Sempol (3 hours more before taking 1 hour Ojek/motorcycle taxi to Paltuding/hiking starting point), the last Elf is at 12PM and we arrived at Bondowoso at 3PM. We were in big dilemma, if we stay overnight at Bondowoso, means we're 4 hours more to get to Paltuding and we might be arrived there too late the next day. Early hike is mostly recommended!!

A nice old man gave us ride from Bondowoso bus terminal to a junction named Gardu Atak, we could have just take ojek ride directly to Paltuding at that time, but cos we're too stingy, we tried to hitchhike, and luckily a lady stopped and gave us ride to Sukosari, a village an hour from Bondowoso, we thought well that's not bad, we can try to catch another ride again to get closer to Paltuding, so we hopped on. After some talks, the lady ended up offering us to stay at her place since it's getting dark soon and it's not safe to travel those bumpy road at nighttime. How come you resist nice offering like that, right? It's one of the most touching feeling I ever felt once we arrived at her house. An old lady (the oldest you could ever imagine; humped back with whole gray hair and no teeth) haste toward us, to greet and shook our hands with big grin on her wrinkled face. I suddenly knew how it feels to be a president or celebrity, even they might never get this kind of greeting anyway. The warmest welcome I've ever got in my life :')

She happens to be our host, Bu Supri's maid, she only speaks Maduranese, and has super power, she could do the dishes in total darkness, I was about to help, before realized I could barely see anything, then I gave up :(

Patrick and Bu Supri's granddaughter
Bu Supri seems to be a respectable lady in those village, she has three huge houses next to each other, the first one is used to be her daughter in law's physician clinic (those clinic bed scared Shanty a lil bit and made her wondered how if we wake up the next morning with no kidney, or maybe even already dead mutilated, guess she watched too many thrillers). The rooms are in the first house, but we need to get to the second house for bathroom, and third house for kitchen. With three houses, they don't even have proper dining room, so we ate outside, but that's just even better cos the weather was just so fine, chill but not too cold, just perfect :) I'd always remember the chilli we had those night as one of the best I've ever got, it's literally only chillies grinded with salt. Or is it just because the tasty chicken we had, or...may be the nice windy afternoon, may be those warm hearted humans I'm eating with, may be...

East Java, Here We Come!!

Down from team of 10+ to 2, advance booking of Airasia tickets finally took its toll on us. Booked almost one year earlier, ended up only two people did the trip - me and my partner in crime, Shanty. We've been traveled together as long as I could remember, but it's actually only the second time we did it 'just the two of us' way, the first was our West Sumatra trip, the rest are along with other friends, either her friends, or mine. And this one ain't coming easily, I decided to go two days before departure date, she was on to go the morning of the D-day. It's a full circle, our first trip was right after we both resigned from our job, and this one is right before she leaves Medan to pursue her new career. We never know when will we have the chance to travel together again like this, but we made promise to do it soon, we pin Sulawesi - Toraja as our next year destination. It's not about being skeptical, but promises usually remain promises, most of our trips were ones we never really planned for, but hey ain't life always like that? :)

One thing I discovered from this trip; Well when traveling aboard, no chance people can know that I'm Indonesian by the first guess (there's only one French guy guessed it right so far, he might be a shrink anyway) sometime people were still scratching their heads when I said Indonesia :( In the other hand, when traveling in Indonesia, many times people thought that I'm not Indonesia too, c'mon!! I look like most of any Chinese Indonesians. I used to be confused if people greeted me in English here, but after several talks with people along the way, I'm kinda finally get it. If I wander around at malls or cities, mostly people will know that I'm local, but once in the buses, trains, or stations with my backpack, they are tend to think that I'm foreigner, according to them it's not a common idea for local girls to travel independently (thanks to low budget airlines and internet, bunch of independent female travelers are on their ways), even some locals I've talked to, still frowned when I said "No, I'm not visiting any families here, No I'm not doing any business here, just travel, that's all" And when they asked where will you guys stay tonight? and we answered "Dunno yet" That's when they frowned even deeper.

Literally we don't even need to ask people what bus should we take, which direction should we go, or so on, cos they will ask us first. Sometimes you don't even have to ask for a lift, they will offer free seats at their cars when they see you walking desperately. That's the beauty of traveling in Indonesia. And I can't get enough of it :D

Patrick Star and Friends

Beautiful people Patrick met during his lonely trip.


Couchsurfers to Ampawa Floating Market



Dorm Roomies at Bangkok - Wei Fu and Martha, plus Meena and Adrian




Monik and Steve at Ho Chi Minh City

Cute Kiddos >__<



Sue Choi at Angkor Wat

Gale at cafe near Russian Market, Phnom Penh

Mae, the happy go lucky tuktuk driver


Tole at Popular Guesthouse


Malyn :)