Breakfast in the hotel was from 6 til 10 and with the a wide variety
of asian cuisine to chose from I had plenty of noodles, rice, chicken
and assorted vegetables piled on my plate ready to fill myself up for
the day ahead.
The hotel gives out vouchers that can be exchanged for the breakfast,
I assume to stop just anyone wandering in and helping themselves, and
is similar to what I saw back in Jakarta and a few other places. I
have no idea what other countries do to their milk, or perhaps
reversely what the UK does to its milk, but it often seems to taste
very differently, making a bowl of cereal a horrid experience and even
ruining an otherwise perfect cup of tea.
I remember last night that I asked the taxi driver what kind of hotel
the Sahib was, for him to say it was for domestic business travellers
and not really for international guests and so it was no surprise to
find myself the only westerner in the place. What I hadn't appreciated
fully was that as it was for domestic business travellers the tour
information would all be in Indonesian and while there was a tour desk
all the offers were for parties of 4 or more and they had no maps of
the city, asuming that no body would need one and that the taxi
drivers ( which every businessman uses ) would know exactly how to get
to wherever a function or meeting was being held.
So for me, it was not going to be as easy as I had hoped and when I
checked a few websites on surabaya then only wanted to show where was
good to stay or to eat which reinforced in my mind that Surabaya,
despite being the Indonesian island of Java's second largest city,
does not have a lot on offer for the international tourist.
A wider map of the entire area did show that the island had a few
dormant volcanoes to the south and some smaller islands just off the
north coast that on a longer trip here might be interesting to visit
but for the few days that I have it would take longer to get there and
back than I would have to enjoy, especially as I would still have to
find what to do and where to stay once I reached them.
So for me it was more a case of asking the receptionist which was the
nearest shopping mall was and then using that as a guide to get me to
a commercial districts and going from there. Thankfully the rain
stayed away for the day however it was still very overcast and cloudy
so taking photos would still not be ideal, but then still being near
the end of the rainy season it was much better than it could have
been.
With the population significantly less than it was in Jakarta, finding
space to walk on the pavements was not a big problem, but avoiding the
rubble, uncovered drain holes and tuk tuk drivers was still proved to
be dangerous to the unobservant.
As I walked through the day I found myself drawing more and more
looks, and considering that I was not wearing anything too special I
concluded that it must be because I am white, and although at first
the phenomenon had a novelty charm it quickly wore off and soon became
quite uneering to know that every face that passed me gave me far more
attention than I normally warrant.
Groups of school girls would giggle as I passed, most taxi drivers or
cyclist for hire would call out to me long after I had shook my head
and moved on and at one point I almost caused some guy to collide with
a lampost as his eyes were fixated on me and not on where he was
walking.
The first mall that I reached was almost a relief and it was weird
that here within meters of locals stall sellers far below the poverty
line was modern designer shops and restaurants where one meal would be
more than the average workers weekly wage. It was a fairly small mall,
without a cinema or more than a few stories high and so soon enough I
had exhausted its character and moved on to the next one.
A little further down the road and I spotted another and this one
looked much bigger, more promising and so once more I ventured forth
and popped into a few stores to see what it was like. The mall was in
three parts and the design was fairly unique as the land and the
layout was not level so although you could use the lift or esculators
to go from one level to the next, you could also do it just by doing a
larger circuit all the while gently ascending or descending with
perhaps just a few steps thrown in here or there.
Finding a movie to watch killed a few hours and afterwards I just did
a bit of food and cosmetic shopping before retracing my route back to
the hotel, on the way on the lookout for anything I had missed the
first time round, my bag of goodies including a large bottle of coke,
sweets, crisps and chocolate all coming to no more than £3 uk money,
stocking up on late night movie snacks so as to not pay heavy hotel
costs.
Near the hotel I saw a place that said it was a mixed hairdressers,
spa and foot massage place and having nothing better to do and not
being in too much of a rust to get back I decided to go in and get a
reflexology massage.
I think that anyone who goes into a place like this when it is empty
should be prepared for anything as the guy who worked there was either
bored, gay or loved his job way too much as I have never had a foot
massage where the masseuse works his way up your entire leg. Still
being fully clothed, except having removed my socks, I was fairly
confortable that he would not try anything untoward, but by the middle
of the massage he was almost up to my belt line and if could have
understood english I would have had a few words for him, but as he
didnt I just wanted him to get it over and done with so I could leave.
Then all of a sudden he grabbed hold of one of my arms and started
working his way up my shoulders, which has got to be about as far away
from the foot on a persons body as you can possibly be and once he got
near my neck I had to call it off, using my hands to physcially
prevent him going any further. The price for this most unusual 'foot'
massage was 60,000.
The only other thing of any interest before I returned to my hotel was
to note that the place had plenty of mosquitos around, and I asked one
of the females who worked there and spoke English if they were just a
pest in the rainy season or all year round and the answer was that
they are a constant pain.
I also asked her what locals do during the evenings and weekends and
she said just go home and sleep, but this didnt really help me much so
I continued on to wonder what was there to see in Surabaya and her
instant reply was nothing!
Giving up on the line of questions I just headed on back to the hotel
where I just munched on my horde of goodies while watching reruns of
US shows and old movies before I did a big of blogging and then sleep.
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