Above: Jembatan Merah, or red bridge in Surabaya where there was a fierce battle in the war for independence.
How easy would it be to get from Pasuruan to Surabaya? In theory it takes about an hour … not!
Pasuruan is big enough to be unmanageable on foot … but small enough not to have taxis. So I hopped into a minibus … it is a van, but not just any van … but a SMALL van. There were 15 of us in it including the driver and my knees were outside the door … oh, there was no door, just the exit then.
I changed to a big bus bound for Surabaya. I sat next to this man whose phone was loaded with pictures of women. He was keen to match-make. Oh dear! I should have pretended not to understand Indonesian right from the beginning.
We then caught in a traffic jam. Supposedly there was a detour as the gas company drilled into a mud-volcano which swamped the area a few years back displacing 25,000 people. The guide book says 100,000 cubic metres of mud is still released daily!
It was hot and sweaty … the hotel had recommended this bus as the better ones leave from another terminal far far away.
From the bus, it was a long taxi-ride across Surabaya (a city of 4 million people in the greater area) to the long-awaited “luxury” of my Ibis Hotel Rajawali! Not many people equate the Ibis brand to luxury but not me! I expected 2-star comfort (like their branch in Jakarta) but was surprised by the spacious rooms and 3-star comfort.
It was a well-earned and deserved treat after the hard work from the previous days! Little did I know that I’d get a bout of tummy trouble from eating-in at this respectable hotel rather than from the stalls I’ve patronised in the last week or so.