Traveling

So, two nights in Bondowoso, with day two spent climbing Gunung Ijen, then one night in Jember.  That was a pretty swanky place with a private balcony overlooking a small courtyard one story below, and walled in all around and up one story above, palm trees and koi fish ponds with water streaming from fountains.  Very nice furniture, glassed in shower and separate bathtub.

Yesterday we arrived in Banuwangi, and today we walked outside the hotel compound (this too is a pretty special place), and down to the shore to see what we could see.  Of course, few tourists venture this way, and we were greeted with smiling halo's, that's Bahasa Indonesia for hello, and "asli dari mana" - where are you originally from.  And as usual the great surprise when we say we're from America, when it is assumed that we must be from Holland or Australia.  Probably for the reason that we are speaking Indonesian, and secondly, most of America thinks Osama is still lurking behind every tree in every Islamic country, so there are no, American tourists here, none.

And tomorrow morning we get on a 45 minute ferry ride across the strait to Gilimanuk, Bali, where we'll hopefully meet Ketut, the son of the hotel owner to give us a one and a half hour ride to the hotel in Lovina Beach, on the northern side of the island, away from the south and east where most tourists go, where Osama lurks.