"The beautiful (under)water world of Indonesia"

You can travel Indonesia by two different ways, either go to Bali and get stuck on one of the beaches, or enjoy Indonesia as a whole by doing island hopping. The result is that you see incredible beautiful nature and untouched beaches. Pierre and I preferred to do it the last way!  After saying goodbye Linda in Vietnam, I said hi to Pierre. We had already some travel experience before, we have been together in India and Malaysia before.

Our journey started in the capital of Indonesia which is Jakarta, on the island of Java. Except for some historical colonial sights, nothing was going on there. Se, we moved quickly to Yogyakarta, a much better city with a friendlier vibe. After experiencing the sometimes “rude” and “obtrusive” Vietnamese, nearly all Indonesians we met were friendly to us, even without the intension to sell us something. This gave directly a pleasant feeling. When we told them we were from Belanda (Indonesian of Holland), almost everyone knew somebody in Holland, or even had been there, probably because of the history. Moreover Yogya, this city is surrounded by two major temples, which were the Prambanan (Hindu temple) and Borobudur (Buddhist temple). Our tour guide explained us a lot about these temples. 

As mentioned earlier; you can reach Bali (our next destination) easily by taking a plane, or rather do it by a more adventurous way. We took the second shot! A nearly sixteen hour minivan ride took us to Mt. Bromo, a volcano in the eastern part of Java. An active volcano with a beautiful surrounding nature. We continued our journey to an even more spectacular volcano, called the Ijen Plateau. This volcano produces blue fire, due to the volcanoes gasses. To see this “blue fire event”, we had to wake up at 1 am. After a difficult and steep hike of one hour, we reached the volcano edge (3000 meters above sea level). In the last part we had to climb by a path down to the crater. The journey was worth it, the blue fire show was fantastic. On our way back (after sunrise), we saw the view on the volcano edge. This view was amazing, because of the enormous lake in the middle of the crater. Worth the trip!

Besides the nice view, there was also a sad part of this hike. Locals are working in the volcano. They have to carry lava stones the whole way up and down again. This work is very heavy, because they carrying up to 90 kilograms on their shoulders. Notice that they only earn 90.000 Indonesian Ruphia (€6) for this terrible hard walk. Moreover, this work is very dangerous, because the workers risk of falling down the cater of getting a lung infection by the polluted gasses around there (we got a protection face mask). To illustrate, only 350 workers out of 1000 who started are still working, all other unfortunately quit or even died. No wonder that a documentary was made about this job; the ten worst jobs in the world (httppublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublic://blog/img5535.jpgblog/img5526.jpgblog/img5518.jpgblog/img5514.jpgblog/img5511.jpgblog/img5466.jpgblog/img5454.jpgblog/img5433.jpgblog/img5312.jpgblog/img5179.jpgblog/img5168.jpgblog/img5144.jpgblog/img5068.jpgblog/img5049.jpgblog/img4953.jpgblog/img4892.jpgwww.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-12301421). However, all workers were friendly to us and even seems to be happy, how is that possible?

After this exciting volcano tour, time for a bit relaxing, swimming and snorkeling around the beaches of Padangbai (on Bali) and Gili islands. To compare, Gili has my preference. Bali is in my opinion too touristic and the beaches miss the “paradise view”, which Gili actually has. The beaches in Gili island were pure white, the sea is crystal blue and there are palm trees everywhere. Gili Air was the best island (out of three). The underwater world was beautiful, I saw turtles, a squid, tropical fishes and coral in all possible colors.  With renewed energy we went to Lombok for only two days. There we rented a scooter to explore the island, nothing really new there.

We ended our journey on the island Flores, an island located eastern of Lombok. Lubuan Bajo was the city where we stayed for the last five days, and even that was not long enough. On our first day we visited Rinca Island, famous for the Komodo dragon. This animal, which looks like a mix between a salamander and dinosaur, can reach a length of three meters. Impressive to see this huge animal – which lives only in Indonesia – in the wild. A ranger was guiding us, to protect us from unexpected attacks. A bite can kill a person in less than two weeks, because of their bakeries in their mouth what works as a poison.

Another thing why Flores is famous, are the beautiful dive spots. According to the expert divers, the best dive place in the world, we agree (for so far we saw). We went snorkeling and saw a shark, several manta rays with a wide of three meters, enormous fishes and a sting ray. The highlight was definitely Batu Bolong, a rock in the middle of the ocean. Before we jumped in the sea we got a detailed briefing where to swim. Around the rock there was a strong current, once you end up there the current would take you far away. Describing Batu Bolong; it is just like jumping in a fish soup. Colorful fishes everywhere, with all kind of shapes and sizes. Moreover, the coral is still untouched (the question is for how long) and very colorful. Definitely, one of the best experiences during our Indonesia trip (due to lack of a underwater camera, see link: httpspublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublicpublic://blog/img5535.jpgblog/img5526.jpgblog/img5518.jpgblog/img5514.jpgblog/img5511.jpgblog/img5466.jpgblog/img5454.jpgblog/img5433.jpgblog/img5312.jpgblog/img5179.jpgblog/img5168.jpgblog/img5144.jpgblog/img5068.jpgblog/img5049.jpgblog/img4953.jpgblog/img4892.jpgwww.youtube.com/watch?v=dNPbRkmuOCY).

Now, time to travel alone again. After spending our last day on the beach of Kuta, I said goodbye to Pierre. A wonderful time in Indonesia, off to the totally different world of modern Singapore.