All good things must come to and our sojourn in Labuan Bajo is no exception to this general truth. With many hugs and smiles we said goodbye to Maria and Viecy and proceeded to wait at the departure lounge forever. We then landed in Bali just to find out that we will have to wait for a second forever because our flight had been rescheduled until 14h00. Irvan estimates we have spent twice as much time waiting that in actual flight over the last three weeks!
Bali is a lively airport, as could be expected from one of the prime vacation spots in the world, so there is no shortage of stores to browse through. Fortunately I cannot carry anything with me, so I can indulge in as much window shopping as my heart desires.
I have four more days in Yogyakarta and then it will be time to move on to Sri Lanka. I think it is time to think what I will do there. Besides a day exploring Colombo, I could use the train to go to the mountains for four days (Kandy and Ella). Or I could rent a scooter for a week and do a circuit from Colombo to Kandy to Ella to Galle and back to Colombo. Distances are short enough that I should be able to cover each stretch in half a day, but I hear driving in Sri Lank and India is as crazy as it can possibly be. I will have to decide once I get there.
Once again we were received at the airport by a full-size BMKG delegation, and the Head of the Geophysics office (whose name escapes me right now) offered to drive us to my hotel near the university, in the heart of Yogya (that is what we locals call Yogyakarta). The airport is nearly two hours away from the city, so I gratefully accepted, and had a great time driving through a sun-bathed countryside with endless expanses of rice fields. Some of the more prosperous farmers have built little gazebos in the middle of the paddies, probably to enjoy the balmy afternoons in their old age.
As we approached Yogya I felt a little trepidation. I had booked a room in a guesthouse not far from the university, through Booking. The room and guest house looked very comfortable in the photos, but that little devil Irvan decided to dig into his social media, and casually mentioned that he hoped the construction of the hotel was completed by the time we got there, as he showed me the photo of a shack being torn apart. Damn! Have I been taken again? Irvan further added that there were no reviews available for the place, which in his social media world is equivalent to anathema. What will I find?
The Irvan-induced fears were groundless. The guesthouse is elegant and I was received with extreme friendliness and courtesy. In the first floor there is a small but fully-equipped fitness center (not that I plan to become fit in my four days here) and a lap swimming pool (a skinny pool good for only one person to take 10-m laps). The room, in the second floor is very comfortable, and opens into a welcoming lobby with a living room and library at one end. I, of course, had to check out the library, and was very surprised to find it well stocked with geology books! Most of them were in Indonesian, covering subjects as varied as geothermal energy, mineral deposits, hydrogeology, and the geology of Indonesia. I will need to ask my host if by any chance he is a member of our distinguished profession.
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