I have to have a berth or I cannot get to sleep.

Ban Phe, it seems, sucks the will to blog even about places I've already been to and enjoyed.

Well after visiting the two big temple complexes in central Java, I visited the Sultan's Palace. Central Java still has a Sultan, and he still lives at the palace, which means that you can't actually go inside any of the buildings. Here is a picture, taken from as close as I could get, of a hall of some sort.



I visited a market, and another market, and a batik place, and a Muslim hospital where a new friend's nephew was recovering from... "How do you say it in English? Blood fever?"

Wai-wai-wait, I thought. What kind of bizarre medeival illness will I take with me from this hospital? I went anyway, and it turned out it was Dengue fever. Oh. Dengue fever. I can deal with that.

(The first month in Thailand my TEFL class and I were all deathly afraid of Dengue. One fella thought he had contracted it but it turned out to be not-Dengue. The symptoms were described to me as "you feel like you will absolutely die, for about two weeks, and then you get better.")

Luckily, I did not come out of it with Dengue.

Other highlights of my Fabulous! Nine! Days! On! Java! (You really must go, you really must. I just can't write much about it right now in this Internet cafe...) include the bicycle rickshaw! I felt ickily colonial being escorted in a carriage behind a motorbike in Cambodia. But in Yogyakarta, the rickshaw drivers propel you through the streets by the strength of their worldly bodies. I took one trip on one, to the train station when I left, and all I could think the whole time was "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."



That's my bicycle rickshaw guy. He's cool. Then I took the night train to Jakarta, which is not suited to photographs. The trains on Java do not have berths and I had to try to sleep in a (very comfortable, Executif) seat. In the morning went to the airport.

Look, it's the airport!


And a handful of the 13 thousand Indonesian islands I didn't visit on my trip!


And then I was back in Thailand.

off the rails

My second day in Indonesia I woke up *really* early because it had taken a good hour to reach the train station when I bought my ticket. There was the sunrise, through my dirty window.



And this time, since it was so early, it only took 20 minutes to get to Stasiun Gambir.



I got on my train. It's an 8-hour train ride from Jakarta to Yogyakarta, and I chose to make the trip (at least the "to" part) during the day because it's supposed to have great views. The window of my train car was the dirtiest window I've ever encountered, but the views were very pretty.





It's a holiday here in Indonesia, and I hadn't made reservations ahead of time for a place in Yogya. Most of the guesthouses in the Malioboro area had "full" signs out front, and those that didn't just told me when I asked. My taxi driver was fantastic though and took me to the other backpacker area across town and tried a couple of guesthouses until I found a room. It will do. It doesn't have a hot shower, but it has two double beds and a twin, and it cost less than the guesthouse where I wanted to stay in the first place.

I didn't sleep very well, though. My windows don't close completely because I have a fan room. The first Muslim prayer call is before dawn, at about 4:30 in the morning. I awoke to that, and then slowly realized that there was a managerie of caged birds down the hall, which called from then on. Most of them just screech, but at least one says "wow-wow."

So I got up, and had some gado-gado!



Gado-gado is a big pile of steamed cabbage, green beans, sprouts, potatoes (and tofu, here) served with PEANUT SAUCE! The peanut sauce is in the gravy boat there. In Thailand I've only ever seen peanut sauce with satay, and I've only once seen non-meaty satay. Hooray, I say, for peanut sauce.

on the train to Bangkok

My last night in Pai, a Japanese artist called Harajuku Matisse made me beautiful.



I slept in a bamboo hut under a functional mosquito net, and awoke early for the rollercoaster of a bus ride back to Chiang Mai where I bid farewell to miss Elle, who stayed in Chiang Mai before a different adventure. It was a long weekend of travel, and I took a few seconds of video as my train approached Bangkok in the morning.



Hualamphang station greeted me, and didn't feel quite as underdressed as before. I'm comfortable in my dirty backpacker uniform.





The second-class night trains are like the one in Some Like it Hot with curtains and ladders. This train was not as luxurious as the one I took up to Chiang Mai, but I think that next time I'm going all out and bringing a maribou-trimmed dressing gown just like Marilyn.

When I arrived in Ban Phe I was tired and dirty and the skies were grey and melancholy. In the morning, my other travel companion Jamie left for a teaching job a few hours away. The cast of characters here is different, and the settings are a little different. Today I explored some of the places I had never been before (a park, the Rayong aquarium) and some that I had missed (I had some quality time with the ocean and ate street food for dinner at the evening market) and I think this place will be home, at least for awhile.

hitchin' on a twilight train

I arrived in Chiang Mai this morning after taking the overnight train from Bangkok. My only other train experience was Tacoma to Portland, so this was a glorious adventure for which I was sorely underdressed. As I approached the platform and saw the train waiting, I squealed with glee and regretted not bringing white gloves, a jaunty hat and a tailored dress in my backpack. Instead, I wore a $5 dress from Cambodia and a pair of decomposing flip-flops. It was still glorious.

I won the coin-toss for the bottom bunk and was grateful for a window. I didn't sleep very well, but our fourteen-hour train ride offered interesting views, the opportunity to use a squat toilet on the train, and a satisfactory ipod soundtrack (including "Murder Train A-Coming" by Dethklok and "Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat" but not including "The Gambler" or "Midnight Train to Georgia.") My book was equally appropriate (Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux.)

I can confidently say that I am in love with trains.

I also have a few pictures to share from my adventures in Cambodia. The staff photographer hasn't had the chance to upload her pictures yet, but these give the general idea.

Woke up at 4 am to get this:


I felt ickily colonial on this part of the trip. It was very National Geographic.


Elephant convoy at the gate to Angkor Thom:


Expect more and better pictures when I'm not at an Internet cafe. It might be a week and a half, or just a few days, or maybe longer. I must soon acquire new flip flops though, before this pair rots off of my feet.