Hotel Jam-Jaman

This means literally pay by the hour hotel, which we found out to our horror during our stay in Semarang!

Desparately trying to get to Borneo, we decided to take a 5 hour bus trip to the north coast to try to either get a flight or a ferry. The bus was an interesting experience, every second stop or so, a "musician" jumps on board and starts playing an awful tune on some form of primitive banjo. Then the hat goes round and you are expected to give payment "from the heart" according to our indonesian friend that we made on the journey. Obviously being western it was percieved that our hearts should be slightly larger than anyone elses. Which was fine except we had no change!

It turns out that Indonseians find it hilarious when a westerner says to them "I have no money". I think we should possibly avoid the use of the phrase in the future.

On arrival in Semarang (late at night) we walked the streets lookin for somewhere to stay, unfortunately all the places recommended by the lonely planet were "full" or else unwilling to accept us. We kept getting directed to this decent enough looking hotel accross the way, so eventually we gave up and decided to go there. The receptionist asked if we wanted "Indonesian Woman" which we thought was a little strange and we politely declined.

This is where we made our first mistake - we neglected to check the room before accepting it! Handing our money over, only when we got into the room did we think something suspicious was going on. Only then did we realise we were in Hotel Jam-Jaman.

This was the biggest hole I have ever been in. The sheets were brown and crusty, the whole place stank and the toilet didnt work. Luckily I had a sleeping bag liner and was able to hide within this, unfortunately Pete had no such luck and had to snuggle up into his delightful bedding!

Following our Semarang ordeal we went to the travel agent and promptly discovered that we couldnt get any flights or boats from here to Borneo either. Deciding to alter our oplans we thought it best to go to Denpasar (Bali) and head oward from there. This of course (by the rules of sods law) meant that we had to get a 5 hour bus back to the city that we had just come from. Altogether not such a good experience!

Still trying to upload photos, I think I managed to upload four in an hour yesterday - loads more to come...