As soon as we disembarked the ferry on the Java side, we knew that we're in a different Indonesia. Bali is very friendly, fairly developed and mostly hindu religion. Java is not that friendly, much less developped ad mostly muslim. It's unbelievable how 1km wide channel can make such a huge difference in reality. Even the houses on Java look very different - on Bali most of the are extremely nice and very decorated, on Java they just look like a run-down version of common houses you see in europe.
Finally you notice difference in dealing with people. On Bali you do have to haggle, but in the end you don't feel like they try to strip you naked. In Java, you do get the feeling of being percepted as just one big walking wallet. Perfect example - our very first bemo (little "bus") from the ferry to Banyuwangi was (according to the guide book) supposed to be about 5,000R. As soon as we got off the boat, we got surrounded by bunch of guys trying to drag us to their bemo and when we asked about the price, they said 100.000R. We just laughed and left. On the street we found a guy who agreed to take us there for 10.000R, but as we got there and were about to get off, he started asking for 20.000R instead. It's $1 difference, so I don't really give a sh*t, but we made a deal. Then he started screaming, people started to gather around us and it was just mess. So I threw him the 10.000R we agreed on and walked away... So the whole stay on Java we felt like we had to be constantly on guard, never believe anyone and it just spoiled the whole thing.
As we were planning on going to Indonesia, we knew we had to take into consideration the fact that Ramadan (biggest muslim celebration) is happening during that time. We thought we were very smart since we spent the Ramadan day on Bali and only then moved onto Java. What we didn't know was that one week after Ramadan is pretty much equivalent to our christmas/new years week. Everybody (and I mean everybody) travels around, everything is closed, hotels and busses are full, prices are trippled, sights are crowded, etc... This was the first time during the whole 5 months we were travelling that we had to worry about finding a place to eat and sleep.
On final note, you do notice when you travel through a muslim country. I'm not talking about just about women having their heads covered. When you really notice is at 4am, when you get waken up by somebody yelling god knows what into a megaphone next door. Funny thing though - all the muslims around us were sound asleep and we were the only ones actually up and involuntarily listening to the words of Allah...