Probolingo

We arrived in Probolingo and took a bemo (blue public minibus) to the train station to see when the next train was.  It wasn’t until late that night so we opted to stay in Probolingo.  Another bemo, full of school children, picked us up to take us to our hotel.  They were all so curious about us but could not communicate with us because they didn’t speak English.  The driver spoke a little bit of English but he kept talking to the children in Indonesian I had the feeling they were laughing a lot at our expense but all in a good humour.  I couldn’t wait to get to our hotel room to shower and wash all the ash off.  After that we went to get some food and then went for a walk around the town.  We were pretty tired so we didn’t go too far, but right away we experienced the friendliness of the locals.  Everyone was yelling out to us “Hello Mister!!” all the time.  People just wanted to say hello and not sell us anything.   I don’t think they get a lot of tourists there.  The funniest were the kids.  They would come up to us and say “Hello Mister, my name is.”  And we would say “What’s your name?” and they would answer “I don’t speak English”.  Obviously the “my name is” phrase was taught to them without explaining its meaning.  This is something we would come across the rest of Indonesia, and it made us laugh every time.  The next morning we caught a train to Yogjakarta (read: jog-jakarta), and as in the Thai trains, the cockroaches came out and Andrew had to kill them all!  I was grossed out and tried not to think about them.