the lcct was packed with people.. as always. but being the 1st of feb.. airasia launched their first trip to s'pore. and the big bos was there. i shouldve brought my resume, along w/ my itinerary. hehe! my backpack was weighed at 7.1kg.. not bad ei? hehe!
my supposedly allrite flight was badly ruined by a group of pakcik2 gomen yg gatal.. when they're not talking politics.. its their dirty jobs behind their wives' back. at 1 point.. one of the pakcik (w/ a strong utara accent) was tellin the other om om (pakcik in indonesian) how he managed to fib his way w/ his wife when he came home late smelling of a woman's perfume.. "tadi ada orang semboq perfume kat mall.. kita mana nak tau tu perfume laki ka pompuan. dah tu.. lepaih la aku" followed by gatal laughs from the other om om. gile bodo la bini die to actually fall for that! and a few other things which just pisses me off. and they were like so loud.. and gatal.. and obscene.. and when they weren't talking.. they were snoring. like real snores!
arriving at the airport.. we took the shutter bus to bungurasih terminal bis.. to catch the very next bis (bus in indonesian) to probolinggo. came this om who sat rite next to us. and kept looking an smilin at us. we were like.. oh no.. not another om om. but turned out to be th nicest guy! our guardian angel was from Malang.. and on his way to the terminal to take a bus home. knowing we've never set foot in surabaya.. he offered to accompany us. not only that.. he took the same bus as we did (to probolinggo).. eventhough going to Malang would be off a totally different bus. he said he wanted to make sure we were safe. cheesy, i know. but he didnt even let us pay for his ticket. i learnt that he was in the navy like abah and has been working in the airport for almost 20 years. so he sees many wisata (tourists) gets ripped off.. and wouldnt want it to happen to us.
we reached probolinggo at about 4pm..tired.. hungry.. and had to take a mini van up to cemaralawang.. as there are no other transportation up to the village (being late). we paid Rp300,000 for the whole mini van.. only to be told by the driver (as soon as we';re outside the terminal) that he needs to pick up 2 more tourists. 1st day dah kena kapak. sigh..we couldnt wait to ask the other tourists how much did they pay for that trip (apparently also Rp300,000!!).
the trip up to cemaralawang was really tiring.. but scenic.. and cold! and it started to rain really heavily and scary.
upon arriving at cemara indah, we hooked up w/ other tourists.. to see how many others got ripped of. hehe. you see.. we were supposed to pay another Rp300,000 for jeep for the next morning sunrise programme. but we somehow bumped into Karin, a tourist from Holland who said she paid only Rp150,000 for the entire jeep (which,she paid in probolinggo). she got into a heated argument w/ the staffs of the resort.. and said that they were trying to rip us off. being tired.. and cold.. and mainly hungry (we didnt eat anythin but our big breakfast in mcd lcct).. we couldnt be bothered to butt in.
the other tourists who were in our mini van is a couple from the UK.. law grads.. taking time off to travel before they start working. we also met some from surabaya.. which, only this girl named dewi was really friendly. her friend & dewi's boyfriend, i think, were really snobbish.
we settled in our tiny room and snuggled in our carpet look a like selimut *grin* and called it a day.
n m really glad we did the budget in the spread sheet. cos it makes our job so much easier. you see this is what happen when a QS goes on a trip with a banker.. cost cost cost! *LOL*
in total.. on the first day we spent :
Bus from Surabaya Airport to Bungurasih Terminal: Rp30,000
Bus from Bungurasih to Probolinggo : Rp20,000
Mini Van to Cemara Lawang : Rp100,000
Food : Rp20,000
TOTAL : Rp130,000
Wee!! we were totally within budget! i will be loading in on the actual cost of the 11 day trips. cos as we were doing our costing.. it was so difficult to get em from many2 sources.. i hope my ramblings will help many who are thinking of doing this java backpacking..
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