I had big plans for Yogyakarta and Surabaya, but turned out these two cities’ plans did not align with mine. It all started in Bandung – I arrived at the train station early in the morning, terribly happy that I was smart enough to book a hotel right near it. However, all the seats were already sold out for the day, the only remaining ones were premium – priced at 600,000 rupiahs each. I was not ready to pay that much, and quite frankly, that is very expensive for Indonesia. I asked around and took a Grab to the bus station, where I was quite quickly led to the cashier, who spoke 0 English, but quite happily sold me a ticket to Yogyakarta for 200,000 rupiahs (now we are talking!). It seemed to be leaving at 9:00 am – and as I was handing the 200,000 rupiahs, it was already 9:05, but nobody seemed to be in a rush. Hmmm, oh well.

My ticket said seat 2A, but there were almost no people, and the passengers who were there, sat wherever they wanted. 2 red flags, and we have not even left the bus station yet! However, I was under such a good impression from Indo subway and trains, that I suspected nothing wrong and chilled in my seat.

Long story short – a what had to be an 8-hour ride, ended up at 11:00 pm at night. 11:00 pm, Karl!

The drivers (2 of them) were stopping every 15 minutes for a smoke. One extremely long stop – perhaps the passengers were supposed to get food at that time. I do not know, I had to read the drivers’ minds. That’s all you have to know about Indo bus transportation.

I was terribly tired and mentally broken, when a Grab car driver told me to walk pass the bus station as Grab drivers are not allowed to come to the pickup point. I tried to explain to him that just 5 minutes ago I saw a car do exactly that – and even if they are not “allowed”, there is literally nobody, except me, my backpack, and my suitcase, along with the terrible mood, that I have to carry (mood being much heavier than the 14 kg suitcase). Forget it, I walked. The driver was sorry for me and overall seemed nice, but I was too grumpy and mad at him to sustain a worthy conversation.

Thankfully my check in at the hostel was quite smooth. It was in a quiet neighborhood, 3 minutes away from a touristy, busy street with bars and restaurants, but the streets leading to it were too narrow for the car – so again, I walked. On my way to the room, I met a nice-looking guy – a Canadian as well, as it turned out. He was not able to purchase a ticket to Bali and was stuck in Yogya for a couple of days. As many backpackers (me including), he did not use his phone (meaning Sim card) so was unable to receive the verification codes required to use the cc for online payments. Yes, 99% of the time the website does not ask for the verification, but that 1% can really mess you up (as it happened to Rob). He was beyond happy when he figured out I am from Canada, and that I use the third-party service (Viber) to make calls back home in situations like this (they can’t call me back, however; its one way). I borrowed him my phone, which delayed my date with the bed for 1 more hour, but seeing the relief on the person’s face told me it was worth it. He was on the line with this bank for quite some time, but fortunately they figured it out.

The next morning I rented a scooter for just 80,000 rupiahs (compared to 100,000 rupiahs in Bandung) and set out to see Borobudur temple and Mount Merapi (at least that was the plan). Once I got to what Google Maps labeled as Borobudur temple, I idled at the curbside, as there seemed to be just some fenced private property – no ticket stations or anything similar. A traffic regulator guy stopped me and signalled to wait – in a couple of minutes, another guy showed up and offered to show me the ticketing office for a small tip of 20,000 rupiahs. Which was fine, I shrugged, and we drove off.

At the ticketing station it turned out I had to buy a ticket online in advance. Not only that, but the tickets were also 450,000 rupiahs each and were all sold out for the day. But a guy apparently had it all caught up – and soon I had an employee of the temple on his day off and with my 450,000 rupiahs cash in a pocket drive me through the private fenced area that I saw in the beginning, walk me through the security right to the temple’s footsteps.

Amazing, isn’t it? I even followed some random tour and got some story about the place, which is the biggest Buddhist temple in the world and one of the 7 Wonders of the World…

There was another, similar and even more spectacular temple – the Prambanan Temple. I was tight on time and money, so decided to head back to the hotel, extend my stay and do Mount Merapi tomorrow.

Haha.

Mount Merapi has been closed for years, but you can see red lava at night from the nearby hills. “Could see” because all the tours were sold out. The receptionist at my hotel suggested I do the cave tour instead, which was nothing like the lava I wanted to see but still spectacular enough.

None of it was meant to be anyway, because at 1:00 am I woke up from terrible stomach pain, and from that moment on was rushing back and forth between my room and the washroom every 15 minutes. I crawled to the nearby café for some ginger tea next morning, and then my soul flew to the pharmacy next door and brought back some pain killers and medicine for the food poisoning.

They lay me down on a bed, an English-speaking doctor was asking me questions which seemed slightly… How do I put it? He seemed almost too attentive, but the questions he asked were a bit repetitive and did not appear to be “on point” – almost like he was not experienced enough. I knew however, that I needed some antibiotics and painkillers, which thankfully I ended up getting in the end, after some hospital-injected painkillers and IV for 4 hours. For some reason, my problem which almost killed me, was funny to them – I could clearly hear giggles and see smile on their faces when I said the “d” – word, and explained how dehydrated I was. I cannot really complain as whatever they did, worked, but I feel like it worked because its generally a no-fail way to help a patient, and not because of the extreme medical genius. To prove my point – I did not feel much better after the IV, just the pain was gone, however after taking the 2 antibiotic pills, I was weak, but absolutely, 100% healthy.

Using the clarity of mind, I went online to pay my cc bill – and to much surprise, saw some charges, in AUD, from something that looked like a government… Although I did not pay anything to the Australian government, especially in that amount. I called the number at the back of the card. The lady with voice full of unenthusiasm, complete indifference personally to me and life in general, said she would transfer me to the security department. The lady of the same vibe answered. I explained that I want to know the origin of those charges, and I am not sure its fraud – before I make that conclusion, I need to know where the charges are actually coming from. She re-asked me again the same security questions as the lady before (which would be a pointless security measure if I was a real scammer) and confirmed those were the governmental charges. After that, we somehow got into a situation where she insisted that I get a callback from their team to verify my identity, I tried to explain to her that I am overseas, and my phone number works one – way, but she would not even listen. She started interrupting me, repeating as a parrot – “give me the phone number to call you”. I repeated a couple of times there is no such phone number and its not possible, but she never gave me a chance to fully explain why, and without much further conversation, just hang up on me. I tried calling the number again, which I could tell was purposefully hung up before I could even say “hi”.

Kahem, back to the cc situation. I called my bank again, where a rep’s blank emotionless voice informed me that my credit card has been blocked for security measures, and I should await for a call back from their office for it to be unblocked. I calmly explained that I am 1) overseas, 2) have no phone number to call back, the one they have on file will simply not work, 3) their credit card is my only means of survival here, I do not have any cash left or any other credit card to pay. He just as indifferently said he would check at the back office, and after 5 seconds returned to inform me that they still cannot do anything. I realized I have to change the tactics and purposefully broke down in tears, repeating all the same things again, but with so much more drama.

He went to the “back office” again, then returned, asked me the same security questions as the two ladies a day prior, and, get ready – after verifying my identity, posed a question: “Now, what do you want me to do?”. I blurted out that I would love to finally have my credit card unblocked, and was informed that it had already been done, but he wanted to know about the charges that I reported the fraud for (at the time, his voice slowly transitioned from just indifferent to almost sound like he was barely standing me). I corrected him, saying that I never reported the fraud, I wanted to know the origin of the charges (his voice softened up slightly). At that point, I asked to not touch anything anymore, we called it a day, and I hang up.

Phew. I still remember it and shiver.