The End of the Holiday

First of all we would like to apologise about the lack of updates to the blog especially pictures. Good, reasonably fast, internet connections have been hard to come by in Indonesia especially travelling in the more remote areas.

We have now come almost to the end of the adventure and are back in Jakarta on our last evening. We fly home tomorrow. Our travels have included the beautiful island of Bali, a tourist spot but where it is easy to get away from the crowds. We didn’t go to Kuta or Seminyak which are the real tourist hotspot, clubs, discos and nightlife, but instead opted to stay in Sanur, a much more laid back part of the island. We did take in a lot of the sights of Bali, temples, mountains and views as well as the dances. From Bali we flew to Labaun Bajo on Flores before catching the dive boat and spending the days underwater in Komodo National Park. A really nice part of the holiday, challenging dives with large fish as well as millions of small fish and wonderful corals. We went to several islands and met up with the fabled Dragons.
After a night back in Bali the next flight was to Yogyakarta on Java to see Borobodur and Prambanan which are amazing world heritage sights. We stayed for 4 days before driving north across Java to Semerang,( not the best place in the world, a bit like Slough,) before flying to Pangkalan Bun on Kalimantan (Borneo). This was very different to the rest of the trip in that we were in the rain forest primarily to see the Orang Utans. Once again we were staying on a boat, this time sleeping on the deck under a mosquito net. It was a great experience as all night you could hear the animals calling and screeching in the forest. We saw plenty of Orang Utans as well as Gibbons, Proboscis Monkeys and the mischievous Macaques trying to get onto the boats for food.
The next flight was back to Jakarta before a bus ride to Carita on the far west coast of Java. The bus journey was terrible, over 3 hours with what we are sure is the world’s worst driver, to say he was crazy is an understatement. He owned the road so he just bulldozed everyone else off. Not a nice experience.
Carita is a sleepy village for 5 days a week then weekends it is full of Jakartans having good clean fun. We arrived on a Saturday to find the place full of coaches and the beach packed. There was lots going on, sack races, people being buried in the sand and throwing each other in the sea. Very different to UK and all without alcohol as this is a Muslim country. Come 3 pm Sunday everyone went, leaving just a handful of people here, very strange.
The main reason to go to Carita is to catch the boat to Krakatoa about 90 minutes away by fast speedboat. It has been hazy here so the small island group (all that remains from the 1883 explosion) was not visible until we were almost there. 3 Islands form a circle with the new one in the centre. This is Anak Krakatoa, Anak being Child. This island first appeared some 80 years ago and has been growing ever since. We knew it was very active at the moment but as we sped into the bay behind the other islands it just looked peaceful and like a dormant volcano, no smoke, sound or anything. Suddenly it erupted but not from the top where we thought, but from a large vent in its side. Huge plumes of ash rolled upwards with large boulders visible raining down on the island and the sea. We then motored round to the safe side of the island before climbing half way up the volcano on bare ash and rocks to watch it from there. It was even more impressive if a little scary.
That was the last part of the trip and an exciting climax to a wonderful honeymoon, as we are now back in Jakarta packing for the flight back to normality.
Some more pictures have been added to the Indonesia section of pictures

If anyone does want to keep reading or seeing pictures I am sure that as soon as we are home and given a little time to edit some pictures and video, then we will post them on here.

Mike & Jan