Em & Tola's Travel Blog: Day 11 - Travelling through Indonesia (Lombok->Surabaya)

Day 11 - Travelling through Indonesia (Lombok->Surabaya)

2:25 PM | Posted by Tola

Last dinner on Gili Trawangan

Wednesday it was time to leave the paradise that is called the Gili Islands. At 7 o'clock in the morning we got on our first boat and waved goodbye to the calm beach life. Around 25 hours later, we arrived at Surabaya on east Java, the second biggest city in Indonesia with around 10 million inhabitants. A very different place than the Gilis that had less than 200 people living on them.

Bali

The symbol of Surabaya, a shark and a crocodile chasing each other

Surabaya is a fast pace, dirty, crowded and loud city where we decided to recover before heading south to Malang and Batu. It is the city where the Indonesians started their struggle for independence from the Dutch, so there were big war monuments everywhere. The Indonesians call the city "The city of Heroes". During our two day stay in Surabaya we left the area where we lived once, to go to the city zoo where Emily's dad, Peter, got chased by an elephant around 50 years ago. It is famous for being the first zoo than was able to breed orangutangs in captivity. And sure enough, the one orangutang we saw gave us quite the show begging for peanuts and waving to us.

Aside from the orangutang, the zoo was not very impressive. But it was great to see the animals that where from Indonesia (komodos, tigers from Sumatra, etc.). It did give us a taste of what is to come...