There was a small Mosque across the street. I heard something coming from the speakers there and my watch said 4:18AM. There were no blankets on the beds and the room had mosquitos. I noticed Indonesian homes (or at least this one) are mostly open to the air with no screens. Only the bedrooms have some screens. Bedrooms are also permanently open to the air and also have high ceilings to help deal with the heat and have some natural circulation.
Since I’m in Indonesia, it means poor Internet access. There is nothing in the hostel and the net cafes will not allow me to use my own computer. Plus the speeds here are really slow. So I’d say this country comes in 2nd to Cambodia for worst Internet access.
Since there isn’t anything much in the city of Surabaya, I decided to head to Mt. Bromo. So first I had to take a taxi to the bus station (there are metered taxis here at least). At the station they had a strange deal where you had to pay some money to get into the area next to the buses first. I got on and about 3 hours later, they dropped me off at a travel agency (instead of the bus station, strangely enough!).
On the bus ride, I noticed Indonesian kids like flying kites. Almost every kid I saw had a small kite twirling around in the sky.
Next I got on a minibus to the top of the mountain. It took a while to leave since they had to make sure they had enough people. And they had about 26 men, women, and children in this van at one point, including the conductor hanging on from the outside!
The ride took me up through some mountains. I noticed many farms on the sides of some very steep hills. It got cooler and cooler. This will be a nice break from the hot weather.
On arrival, there are a few choices for accommodation. The first one looked at was pretty bad. Narrow bed, no electrical outlets in the room. I went to a second place and had a bigger bed and better view out the window. Still no electricity though! But I took it anyway. There was a light on the ceiling and a switch on the wall. I attempted to take the switch off the wall and connect to the wires (using a metal piece on my watch band as a screwdriver), but there wasn’t enough current since it was still going through the light. I’d have to short out the light to make it work. That was too dangerous, so I gave up. It is really simple here. No showers, no flush toilets. They say you can dump some cold water on yourself if you want a bath.