Bandung

Yesterday we arrived in Bandung. After a stressful few hours walking around to different ATMs and having our cards rejected, we were finally directed to a hotel by a friendly policeman. We walked to the hotel thinking how lucky it was that we had taken some US dollars otherwise we would have been stuck in the mountains! When we got to the hotel, we were told they didn't exchange money however a very friendly owner agreed to change 25 dollars for us at a good rate! We could now afford the bus.

We took an economy bus again and once again met some really friendly locals. On the bus journey we met an Indonesian lady called Erika, who had a degree in English. As she wanted to practice her English and we wanted to learn about Indonesia, we quickly became friends. After talking for a few hours we both got off and she directed us towards 'Braga' where we would find a hotel. We were not expecting to find a hostel as good as the one we ended up finding. For around £6 we finally stayed in our first place with a hot shower, air conditioning, good WiFi and clean rooms. For the next few hours we sat in the lobby feeling very relieved to find such a great place.

We have spent most of our time thus far wandering the streets and exploring the city. Tomorrow we have planned to meet Erika again at local volcano crater 'kawah putih'. To demonstrate how friendly Indonesian people are, she is leaving at 6am and riding her scooter for 3 hours just to meet us there!! It is funny when you think both of us have friends that we have known for years, who are closer than that and we rarely see them.