Ijen is the shit

The excitement of climbing Ijen kept me tossing and turning, and unfortunately I almost slept nothing at all when I walked down the moonlit road to find Jason at our meeting point - he had offered to give me a ride to Ijen. Jason was a godsend, because trying to get transportation at this hour of the day to the volcano was going to be killer expensive.

The climb up the mountain was all hill. Not zig zag; pure incline; Libe slope style; for 3km. It was pretty tough! Halfway up the mountain, a sulfur miner came to walk with me. I've heard about them before - the poor guys carry baskets up the mountain, down into the crater, mine chunks of sulfur, bring basket of solid sulfur rock back up the crater, and down the mountain. Twice a day. All for around $8 USD a day.

So I gladly chatted him up, and was happy when he offered to guide me down into the crater on the miner's path - way less people than the tourist path. Soon we approached the sulfurous blue flames - the only one of its kind in the world! My camera failed, so here's national geographic:

Strong sulphur fumes were coming from the flames, and the miner guy who was with me forced a gas mask on me. He then led me very close to the flames. "To take photos", he said, and demanded money. I was really upset - if he had made it clear right from the beginning, I would have happily accepted his tour and tipped him. But this was a matter of principle. When he demanded 100000rps and I gave him all the change I had (20000rps), he angrily walked away and took the gas mask with him.

So here I am, at a dangerously close location to the fumes, suddenly without a mask. A sudden gust of wind came,  and blew the entire monstrous cloud of fumes right in my face, burning my skin and all my orifices.

Now on the way up the mountain, I had already been feeling kind of sick from the weird banana bread thing I had before coming. I had tried my best to ignore it since there were no bathrooms around. Now with all this sudden high intake of sulfur in my system, I needed a bathroom. Fast. Feeling dizzy and sick from the sheer concentration of sulfur I unintentionally sucked in, I stumbled up the crater with my flashlight.

There were a lot of people at this point, slowly making their way up. I rudely pushed past everyone, and with super sayan speed, navigated the steep, jagged rocks. I had about 3/4 miles to the top.

On the way up I got yelled at by a local, so I said "I'm feeling very sick where's the closest toilet? " He didn't understand.

These European guys were kind and offered to ask their guide, so said there was none. They advised that I find a place off beaten path and wished me luck. I wished I never had to see them again.

I made it up the crater and as I backtracked I thought to myself - people climb up the mountain to go down the crater; no one is going to climb up this random side mountain peak thing that's loose and steep....right? So I frantically made my way up this wall of loose rocks to the top, which was surprisingly flat.

I did my business, sat there in a shameful bliss, saw the brightest, most beautiful shooting star in my life, and then realized - this flat terrain goes on for a while....as I followed it down it dawned on me that I had taken the tough way by climbing up.... this is actually a part of the upper rim path. I effectively took a dump on a volcano crater trail.

You're allowed to stop being friends with me if you want to after this.

So now I'm feeling weak, dizzy, extremely cold, hungry but nauseous, and tired, I was not in the best condition to hike in the pitch blackness. I react pretty strongly to sulfur and bad bananas I guess. But I was up here already and I didn't want to miss the sunrise, so I stumbled after my flashlight, around the rim of the volcano to find a good spot facing east. I found out after it got bright that this was what I had trekked. I'm glad I didn't fall into the crater.

(I was walking on that flat part at the bottom of the picture)

I couldn't make it all the way around the rim, so I found a spot to sit down with my blanket wrapped around me, facing the crater.

Watching the beautiful turquoise crater lake that I didn't know existed light up, along with the mountains behind it and the clouds rolling in, as the stream of flashlights slowly make their ways out of the crater like glowing ants - one of the most magical moments I've experienced. I set up my go pro to record, so I could fuly enjoy the experience sans-technology. Love.

Definitely one of the most beautiful places I've been to; i felt this way even in my conditions at the time.

Oh yeah, and then the European guys came up to me and asked if I "figured it out". Dammit. I hope this meant they didn't walk to that section of the trail...

I have to talk about the way down because it was SUCH a struggle. So on top of all this other stuff that was making me feel unwell, my knees have hit their breaking points - Ive had a knee problem ever since the half marathon, where if I use my legs too strenuously for too long, my knees hurt like a bitch, especially downhill. So after 10 days of walking a lot and 4 days of straight hiking, my knees were not happy when the entire trail down the mountain was steep down hill. I was so miserable that I eventually had to finish the descent backwards.

By the time I got to the top I had already decided not to return to Mt. Bromo for the food throwing Kasada festival. I was going directly to Bali to relax my body.

Jason, who was also going that direction, worked out a plan with me where he'd take me to the east coast city with the ferry over to Bali.

The ride was amazing as usual. We descended from the mountains and went through basically 3 different ecosystems!

We parted ways at the ferry dock. I hopped on the ferry, and right away met a nice coulpe from England. We got to talking, and since I hadn't decided where I was going after getting off the ferry yet, they invited me too go with them to a fancy costal beach town, Pemuteran. Sounded cool,  so I said yes. Plus, I wanted to treat myself after the hard couple of days.

Their hotel a booked, so I had to find a different one. This was such a resort-young town that everything was quite fancy and expensive. I had learned some haggling skills from the Danish girl a coulpe days ago, and put it to good use.

The
1) Can you give me a little discount
2) I'm a student
and 3) you look like a good business woman, that do you say we...

got me a standard room for 350000rps down from 500000rps. Nice. Then, because I found some black dropping-like things under the sheets, I got bumped up to this superior suite, still at 350000 (about $26usd). Winning.

It has an OUTDOOR fenced-in bathroom with a tub!

I feel like a princess.

Sempol adventures

Every once in a while in life, you have those lucky moments filled with happiness, wonder, and appreciation, and you know it's going to stay with you forever. Today this this happened as I was riding on the back of Jason's scooter from a viewpoint cafe back to the village, and we managed to go the ENTIRE way without turning on the engine - I want to say it was at least 5km! Boss. There were some moments when I was afraid we weren't going to make it, but a little leaning forward did the trick!

Today was another great day :)

I walked to the station this morning alongside uniformed children walking to school. Except my bag was 10 times bigger. As you grow up, your bag gets bigger too, I guess ;p.

I got on the Sempol bemo right away, along with two Danish girls also going to Mt.Ijen, and left with a relatively empty bus. It didn't stay that way though. The vanbus stopped every 5 minutes or so to pick up shipments for the village we're driving to, and pretty soon I was walled in by buckets of tofu, jugs of water, boxes of eggs, you name it. All-purpose bemo!

Cool experience,  although because of this, the trip took 2 hours longer than it should have. When we finally got to one of the two hotels in the village, we found it to be fully booked :( But we managed to scrape ourselves a dingy little dorm room with 6 beds for 300,000. Extremely steep price for Indonesia, but the 3 of us decided that we would do a lot for a hot water shower right now (which the room actually had!) so we took it.

Later on at night I actually found 2 Belgian guys looking for some beds, so we took them in and knocked our individual prices down! I was so glad when one guy said it was "symbiosis", because I was totally thinking it in my head but didn't want to say it.

Anyway, the 2 Danish girls and I went on a little walking adventure. The main road through the village is beautiful! Theres Mt.Ijen at the end of the road (can't believe I'm climbing that at 1am), and it's lined with charming houses and their vegetable garden front yards.

 Also we had some followers...

The girls wanted to hike Ijen by day, and I wanted to go to see a coffee plantation, and of course there was no shortage of locals trying to offer rides. We chose this ride.

Then a guy came and said he wanted a picture, with my phone. I thought he wanted a picture with all of us, but he actually wanted this (and didn't actually want the picture because, you know, it's on my phone).

Anyway, imagine being on a roller coaster ride, but without a seat belt.... you got yourself a ride on the back of a truck in the mountains of Indonesia.

I hopped off the truck along the way, and walked in the direction of the coffee plantations. Pretty soon I ran into workers on the side of the street, sorting coffee beans! I excitedly asked to take pictures and talked to the locals. Then, out from the coffee bushes emerged - Jason, the guy who gave me a lift to Bromo!!! Holy coincidence! :) I was very excited to see him.

Turns out that again, we had the same plan - walk through some coffee plantation and do some exploring. So I hopped on the back of his motorbike, and off we went.

The ride was such a thrill! The mountain, while covered with tall trees, had coffee plants EVERYWHERE under the canopy, and the windy road cuts right through it.

We stopped along the road, and cut into the coffee forest to go exploring. It was a pretty amazing time, some highlights:

1) the coffee fruit juice actually tastes deliciously sweet! Apparently the skin contains more caffeine than the beans!

2) when we were deep in the forest, we heard from villages far away the start of Muslim prayers on loud speakers. Except two separate villages were doing it at the same time. The curiously calming chants reached us simultaneously, clashing and harmonizing in colorful ways. Along with the bird songs, cricket calls, and monkey cries, it suddenly felt so...peacefully haunting. Then a third village joined in to make a trio!

3) On our trek back, Jason noticed a wild banana tree, with two very ripe looking bananas hanging from the top. So with some team work - I bent the trunk while he jumped to wack it with a stick, we got to taste the smallest, most delicious bananas ever :p.

4) When I'm with Jason, the men were so respectful, and appropriately friendly. That is all.

It was such a wonderful day.

Also just some great hostel pillow talk with one of the Belgian guys who's training to be an anesthesiologist (the one who said "symbiosis", of course). It's one of the greatest things I love about backpacking - I get to meet so many wonderful people from all around the world. Although we're all of different nationalities, I feel that a lot of us share the same sprit and connect instantly - we all have got to be the same kind of crazy to be doing this kind of thing together. It's truly amazing how much we can get to know each other, enjoy time together, and learn from one another in such a short time before going separate ways.

One of my hopes is to run into one of these people I've met on my travels in the future. It'll be a great moment :)

Now time to get a nap in before going to hike up Ijen in the dead of night to see some blue flames! Ciao!

An Unexpected Turn

I successfully got up at 3:30 this morning to begin my trek up to my sunrise spot! I made my way through the sea of tourist scammers selling hats and offering jeeps, and got on the trek with my flashlight. It was something magical, walking in the pitch blackness with the brightest sky of stars I've ever seen.

Soon after I started walking, I heard a motorbike approach from behind. So I moved to the left side (cuz they drive on the left here!) to let it pass. Of course, the bike slowed down and the driver talked to me:

"Want a lift?"

The "no thank you" rolled off my tongue before he even finished speaking.

"Ok" He said, and started his motor back up.

Hold up. Locals don't say "want a lift", it's usually "where you going? Ojek ojek?"

So I quickly said "Wait! Where are you going?"

Turns out Jason, a nice British bartender who now lives in Vancouver, had the same plan I had in mind - get as high as we can without hitting the sea of tourists who have gone up to the top viewpoint on jeeps.

So I hopped on and we went on our way, parked when the road stretch ended, and hiked up in the dark (which was so much fun, especially since everything was still fresh in my mind and I knew exactly what to expect)

The sunrise was something special. But oh so cold! Good thing I thought to bring a warm blankey, but still with that I was shivering the entire time along with the couple other rebellious souls who also refused tours and hiked up themselves.

After the sunrise I hiked down to get ready for the bus out of the village. My plan was to hike Mt.Ijen, and then come back for the Kasada (Hindu food throwing) festival Friday. Just my luck, when I went to check the bus times, guess which bus driver excitedly waved me over, yelling my name? Yup the one whose wife is my doppleganger apparently. So I quickly dodged him to go home and pack. But soon there was a knock on my door and guess who it was? The bus driver.

He talked to me for a while as I tried to pack up as fast as possible, asked to take a picture with me, and grabbed me to force a kiss on my cheek. At this point I had enough, so I shoved him and ran out the door to the bus. He came up behind me and asked me to sit in the front with him. I refused and crawled into the already full vanbus and squeezed in with some French lady. I think he got the point, and in the end he got some other driver for our bus. Ugh.

Anyway, because I'm only taking public transportation, I have to make two transfers. When we got to the first transfer bus station, I said goodbye to my fellow tourists, who warned me not to pay anyone before getting on the bus because there are scammers everywhere. So when some guy came up into the bus AFTER I got on, I did not hesitate to give him the 40,000 he asked for.

Such mistake. Very anger.

Turns out the bus operator (not the guy who asked me for money) didn't go around collecting money until after the bus left the station, and asked me to pay again - 19,000, less than half of what I paid. Now I'm not mad about losing $1.50, but at this point I was fed up with these despicable tourist scammers. Plus random guys keep coming up to sit next to me during the ride, when the freaking bus is half empty!!!!! When the first guy came, I didn't know if he wanted to talk to me or rob me, so I kept one hand on my backpack the other on my personal bag, not daring to sleep. He ended up doing nothing but smile at me, and when he finally left another dude came up. At least this guy asked "Hi miss can I sit next to you? "

"I'm sleeping." I didn't even try to be nice. I was so cranky at this point, with a whole day of travel ahead of me. This all used to be flattering, but now it's just purely uncomfortable.

Trend: I get really cranky after dealing with being forcefully kissed and with tourist scammers.

Anyway.... then things took an unexpected and nice turn - I had planned to travel all day to get to Sempol, the village below Mt.Ijen, by nightfall. But when I got to my second transfer, they told me the last bus to Sempol had left 30 minutes ago. Oops. In Indonesia they leave when they fill up.

So I went to the office for more information and alternatives. A guy came in and explained all my options along with bus timetables, and the (correct) fares in detail. I knew it was correct because his numbers match what I saw online. He recommended a very cheap close by hotel to stay at for the night, and even offered a ride when I said I would walk. Turns out, he's a tour guide, and instead of pushing his Ijen tour on me, he explained all the options and just suggested that I take his tour instead. I really appreciated that, but politely declined - no tours.

On the way to the hotel we passed by a bakso noodle shop, next to a line of fruit stands. I took a mental note - coming back later

The hotel was indeed cheap ($4), less than a third of I've been paying for, for a private room too! When I went into a local store, the nice locals started giving me advice about how to not fall for scams, and one guy even offered to take me to the station tomorrow morning and pretend that I'm a relative so I could get the local price!

I'm getting a really good impression of this city so far - not touristy at all, and with very generous and helpful people.

Because it was not touristy, as I walked through the markets to get my delicious bakso, the locals paid me no mind. It was such a refreshing change. 
I love bakso. Definitely my Indonesian fave.

After dinner it's to the fruit stands as planned - I got a whole papaya and a kilo of oranges for under $1.50! Awesome. Tonight I feast on vitamins. No more pills! Hotel didn't have a knife so I borrowed a spoon from the nice receptionist - dug it open and ate it watermelon-digging style! Quite possibly the best papaya I've had.

Now I'm sitting in a local park after an evening stroll around the neighborhood, next to children rolling around on scooters, and couples sitting holding hands. It's like a day in the life of an Indonesian. It feels really great for a change.

Mt. Bromo!

I woke up at 10, feeling reborn, to a gorgeous day. I couldn't see it last night, but wow oh wow, this is just the backyard!

So here's the deal with my Bromo trip. There are many tour companies around, who organize "the perfect experience" that has the cookie cutter schedule - arrive at Cemoro Lawang (village below mountain) at night, get up at 3am, take jeep to a summit viewpoint called Panajakan to see the sunrise over Bromo with a million other tourists, take jeep down and across the ashes to the base of Mt Bromo, climb Bromo to see the crater with a million other tourists, come down and move on to another city, all before 9am.

Now money is one thing, but this doesn't sound like an enjoyable experience to me, and through research and talking to other people who've done it I decided to do it myself - hike to a viewpoint for sunrise, cross the ocean of volcanic ash myself, and all hopefully at a more peaceful time.

So my plan for the day was this:
1) Eat a delicious breakfast
2) Scout out the trek to the viewpoint, so I know what kind of terrain and timing to expect, to plan accordingly for sunrise tomorrow
3) Cross the ash ocean to see my first volcanic crater ever!

1)
Ginger tea is a traditional drink! That was perfect for my cold so I got me some along with some noodle soup! Yum.

2) I got some information from locals about where to find the trail - I was told that there are many lower viewpoints along the way, and that to get to the top would take too long (6 hours) and that I should take a jeep (of course).
So I went on my way through the beautiful hills of farm patches. They grew all kinds of stuff. My favorite was this:

Although one thing I didn't enjoy was the constant smell of petroleum exhaust, burning trash, and volcanic ash blown up by passing vehicles. That got better once I hit the ascent though.

And the VIEW was unbelievable. I could see the three volcanoes pretty early on during the hike - the big, barren, sandy patch was the original crater, and the three mountains sticking out the middle were holes(?) that emerged later.

A decently strenuous 2 hours later, I found myself at Panajakan viewpoint!! The very summit tourists take jeeps up to, the one where hundreds of people crowd at during sunrise, and the one everyone told me was impossible to hike to - those tourist scammers!

The view was indeed spectacular. I think it feels even better especially after some hard work. And the best part? There was almost no one else there, just a couple locals selling stuff here and there.

I was so proud of myself. No so much for completing the hike, but mostly for sticking to my guts about doing it solo and successfully turning down hoards of tourist scammers daily!

3)
I got down from the summit surprisingly fast - just over 30 minutes, and headed over to the ash sea in front of Bromo (you can see in the pictures above)

There was no marked path, just domes of volcanic ash, which ended up filling up my shoes. I was trying to figure out how to bring some home, and realized that i could just go home and dump some out my shoes into a bag! Winning.

The climb was a lot harder than I had expected. Maybe because I had already hiked 10 miles. But I really struggled going up ash piles, and especially the last stretch of stairs - and I'm supposed to be good at stairs!

But it's always more rewarding and beautiful after some hard work - I was standing in a freaking crater!!!! Endless, sulphuric smoke was coming out of the center, which is connected to lava from the center of the freaking earth! It's like an earth pimple - it can decide to burst whenever and destroy EVERYTHING. Pretty fucking cool.

There was also a shrine if Ganesh, one of the Hindu gods. Turns out the local Hindus worship the volcano and come up to pray to it. I actually witnessed this happen, as they were coming up while I was still there. Also once a year they throw food and animals into the crater as sacrifice to the gods. This year it's actually going to be this Friday.... so I'm thinking about coming back! Back track a little but too cool to be missed. (Very sad, but cool) More about it here.

I sat in the crater for a long time, resting from the long day of walking, marveling at the earth's power, and smelling more and more like sulphur.

Walking back across the ash sea in a beautiful sunset, I felt like a nomad and the only person in this entire stretch of crater.

I rewarded myself for the long, hard day with a delicious and meaty mie goreng special. It's been an amazing day. Sleep now early sunrise tomorrow!

Worst day yet

And by that I actually mean worst last hour of the day. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. But it's the first time on this trip that I'm wishing I were home in my own bed instead. Which ironically, doesn't exist.

After one last delicious breakfast at the hostel, I settled in on am 11 hour bus to Cemoro Lawang, where the famous Mt. Bromo is. I had extra leg room! It was a great start to the day.

It was a beautiful clear day, which has been rare on this trip. Right as we pulled onto the highway, I saw in a distance the impressive silhouette of Mt. Merapi, the most active volcano in the country, if not the world. A couple days ago Jinder and I hired a car and had tried to go see it from the village right below, but it was so overcast that we were basically walking in clouds and saw nothing. Today I am seeing it from miles away! Lucky me. I tried to take a picture of it from the vanbus, but you can't see it too well - can you catch the smoke coming out the top? Pretty cool stuff!

The journey took us through beautiful rice fields with farmers hard at work, and small villages where women were busy spreading harvested grains out in front of their houses, probably too get some sun.

I looked out the window at this simple but difficult village life the entire ride, and the whole time I could hear my mother's voice, explaining to me what they were doing because she's been through similar experiences.

People always say that traveling gives you perspective. For some, driving through the Indonesian countryside will help them see how different the lives and conditions are here, yet how content, humble, and hard working they are daily, which will help them to really appreciate the things we've been taking for granted. For me, I've also realized how narrowly I escaped that life, how lucky I am to have such hardworking parents who in one generation, managed to bridge that gap and give me all the opportunities in the world. I simply cannot wait to start medical school, and to be the best I can be.

Enough serious talk, let's get to why I'm now sitting in bed shivering, wishing I were home instead.

So of the bus ride was longer tab advertised - 14 hours instead of 11. And that's a long time to be crammed in a van, so when I got off at the tour agency with the rest of the group, I was in no mood to put up with their bullshit. I'll explain the reason for this tomorrow, but I only paid for transportation to Cemoro Lawang, the village at the base of Mt. Bromo, and did not include lodging, guide, jeep rentals, etc. for the next day - I wanted to do all of the hiking and stuff on my own, after doing some research and talking to many people who've done it.

But this tour agency guy would not leave me alone, and kept insisting I will not be able to hike the route I wanted to hike, that it's impossible and difficult, that I should definitely buy the entrance ticket from him (it's cheaper he said), that all the hotels nearby would be booked in the village unless I go through him. All bullshit.

But he became very rude when I bluntly rejected, and started attacking my intelligence and nationality personally. But anyway, I got away and hopped back in the vanbus. At this point it was 10pm, and we had one more hour to the village.

Luckily (or so I thought at the time), I got the front seat this time and the vanbus driver started chatting me up. He gave me some good tips on hiking Bromo solo, and said he can take me to his friend's homestay right near the base of the mountain - it's cheaper than the hotels, he said. Cool. Then he also showed me a picture of his wife and said I looked like her. Little weird, but ok, should be flattered I guess.

So then he starts dropping everyone off at their hostels, until I was the last one left. I was so tired and my cold had been getting worse. It was also pretty cold in the mountains. So he really caught me off guard when he pulled up in front of the homestay, reached over and grabbed me and said "kiss kiss?"

No.

"How about you come with me tonight?"

Dude. Literally JUST showed me your wife. Not cool.

So anyway, now thankfully I'm in this homestay, probably paid too much for it but I just wanted the bus driver out the house, and it's freaking cold, probably because I'm really getting sick. I packed for the tropics so the best thing I have is a maxi skirt, so I wrapped myself in it.

Good news though: I got me a king sized bed private room. MY OWN SPACE! I could leave the light on UNTIL I SLEEP!

AND there's freaking 4G data on the edge of a fucking volcano, so that I can post this!

So yeah, I'm going to pass out now and not set an alarm. Luxury. Hopefully sleep will heal this cold. Cuz right now I can't breathe and I'm planning to hike a lot tomorrow.

Yogyakarta

Since I'm on an 11-hour bus ride, I'm going to entertain myself by writing down the things I missed due to the gamelan excitement episode. Before too many other things happen.

On my second morning, I woke up at 3 for sunrise over Semtepu(?) Hill overlooking the Borobudur temples. Borobudur is one of the largest Buddhist temples in the world. It was built in the 9th century,  abandoned around the 12-13th century, and rediscovered in the18th century by a a British colonialist who commissioned a facelift for it. As I got on the bus, I walked right into Jinder, the British guy I had met the day before, so we spent the morning exploring the temple together.

From the bottom up, Borobudur first has about 9 square levels, all lined with reliefs depicting Buddhist teachings and the story of Siddhartha's journey. Then there are 3 top circular levels lined with giant stupas  encasing giant, mediating Buddha's. The levels are supposed to represent human life all the way up to nirvana.

Just as my second visit, the temple was full to the brim with tourists - double the normal amount because it was a national holiday. But Jinder and I successfully snapped some good photos. Also he's a fantastic photographer, look:

On the way back I sat next to the van driver, and oh man, did I witness up close the terrifying journey - the two lane highway was essentially turned into 4 lanes, with lots of honking and near-collision encounters. I was kicking myself for not bringing my gopro to mount in the car. But despite all this, I managed to have a good conversation with the driver. I learned many new Indonesian words from him, and also got an invite to see a puppet show and drink rice wine with him that night. Tempting, but I declined.

One thing I have to say is, as someone who looks Indonesian but can't speak the language and acts/dresses western, I get treated very differently here than other western tourists....Jinder pointed out that I get lots of looks wherever I go. And I get approached by many men in the streets. I won't tell you what they say/do, but it's at times flattering most of the times really uncomfortable.

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Hold up. The vanbus just stopped for the bathroom, and at this public bathroom they made us take off our shoes to go in. And the floor around the toilet was completely filled with water. It was like a wading pool toilet. It was probably all from the flush bucket (instead of a flush knob, they fill a bucket with water and dump it in the toilet to create the pressure to flush), but still, it was pretty disturbing. All the western tourists came out and started rinsing their feet off in the sink outside. The locals probably had a good laugh about it!
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Anyway, after the temple I took a nap, had a quick dinner, and went to yoga with Julia, a German girl I met at the hostel. Dinner was phenomenal and yoga was much needed!

Then we ran into Jinder again, and the three of us decided to join the festivities that go on daily outside the sultan palace, on the square with the banyan trees. Legend has it that the two giant banyan trees protect the sultans palace, and anyone who can successfully walk between them while blindfolded is pure at heart and will have their wish come true.

The three of us all squeezed into an ojek:

From blocks away we could see shiny things being launched in the air and hear fireworks. It was a great funfest! We also got one of those lit up helicopter spinny things to launch in the air for a while. Then, too cheap to buy blindfolds, we took turns closing our eyes to try to walk in between two banyan trees that are spaced no less than 15m apart. Easy peasy, right? But not really. The whole square was filled with blindfolded people inching in every which way, and family and friends following along, clearing paths and laughing when they walk in the wrong direction.

It took me 3 tries, so I don't know what that means for my wish, or for my purity. Here's a picture of us pure-at-heart victors:

Okay I'll leave it there for now.