Surabaya - Trawas, August 19-20

Cities I've never been in, two hours apart yet worlds of difference between: Surabaya's scorching, punishing heat to Trawas' shivering chill. Enter cozy bed, nicely parquetted floors, warmth trapped inside the folding glass door. Board games, barbecue, free-flowing food; if we were guilty of any deadly sins it was surely gotta be gluttony. I'm sure we'd be forgiven though, we're yet to start the journey. This was the inaugural feast.

Baluran, August 20

Six hours trip on the road. Perhaps it was early days excitement, we didn't sleep much on the way. We chatted, bought snacks, played silly games, made math problems out of car plates. The mundane became interesting: mistyped billboards, hilarious truck arts, and wiggly road markings easily became talking point. Self-navigating our way through the phone apps and watching where the green boards' arrows were pointing. It was one of the easiest six-hour road trip I had, truthfully.
Six hours and we made it there.

It was another day of scorching heat - with a mix of dry wind gently brushing the skin, though. The animals were having a lazy day in Baluran - aside of deers, peacocks, birds, monkeys and chickens we didn't see much of them. Nevertheless we were blown away by the savannah, the vast, dry land, the solitary trees, the evergreen. The scenes were picturesque.
It was a scene so feral, so wild, so inhumane. The emptiness, it felt almost surreal, almost as if it had never been touched by mankind before. Strange, foreign, intriguing. Most importantly captivating.
The beach was also nice - most beaches are nice, though. We didn't spend a long time there - mostly because we looked like a bunch of misfits leaving home their beach gears, instead coming there all long jeans and hiking shoes. The only thing we did at the beach was confirm that indeed, men do not have much power at this land - we lost a battle with a group of monkeys. Us a group of seven, versus monkeys. They had been eyeing up our lunch, wickedly lured us to bring our lunch to their territory, and successfully robbed us of it. It was genuinely scary. Monkeys 1, human 0. What human superiority?

As the sun was setting and the day was getting progressively darker we made our way out of Baluran. Two friends joined in, braving the night on their motorbike. Next stop would be Ijen.
But not before a few bites first.