Incredible Indonesia

After 100 days of traveling, 5 countries visited, and countless hours in buses, trains, and airports, Lindsey and I are finally safe and sound, back in America. It is fantastic to be home. Get ready for a lot of pictures (which I can actually upload in a matter of seconds now!?) But first, let us journey back to the last night in our village in Namibia.

A Peace Offering?

I had just finished playing soccer with the village team for the last time, and opened the door to our hut just before the sun went down. I heard a scurry of sound by a cardboard box in the corner of our hut and immediately thought - Are you SERIOUS? A snake on the very last night? Maybe it was a going away present...... As usual, I grabbed my trusty axe handle and threw on a pair of sunglasses (incase it was a spitting cobra) and waited for the dumb snake to poke its dumb head out. A couple of minutes passed and nothing happened, so I took a timid step closer to the box and poked it with the handle. Nothing happened, so I again took another step closer so I could get a better look and ended up laughing at what I saw.

Somehow, a dove had managed to squeeze itself through a small hole in our wall (I made three small holes near the top of the walls to help air circulate from outside) and wedged itself inside of the cardboard box. So instead of a deadly snake, we had a harmless dove - a peace offering of some shorts.

Another teacher happened to come over to say goodbye right as this was happening, and I told him we had a dove stuck in our hut. He promptly went inside, grabbed the dove, broke its neck, and took it home to cook up some dove stew. I thought it was rather poetic.

Off To Indonesia - The Beginning Of The Trip

Just before we left Namibia for good.

We finished the Peace Corps and left Namibia on September 3rd, which was exceptionally sad to leave behind. We were definitely ready to leave, but when the time actually came to board the plane, it was a bit stressful when the realization hit that we wouldn’t be back anytime in the foreseeable future. With anxious minds about yet another unknown chapter in our lives, we hardly slept on our 36 hour long trip to our first destination - Indonesia. Indonesia is made up of roughly 18,000 islands, is the fourth most populated country on earth, and has the largest Muslim population in the world. It has some of the best beaches in the world, and sounded like a perfect place to begin our journey. When we landed in Jakarta, which is the capital of Indonesia and on the island of Java, we luckily had a friend waiting there to pick us up and bring us to our hotel. One of Lindsey’s friends named John Braun, who she went to church with back in high school, is now married and working in Jakarta as a teacher and offered to pick us up from the airport. He was happy to see us and eager to talk, but unfortunately we were in a zombie-state of sleep deprivation and unable to offer anything but incomprehensible fragments of incomplete thoughts. We met him, his wife and baby boy for a traditional Indonesian dinner the next day and were able to speak a little clearer, but we were definitely tired for the first days of the trip.

Karimunjawa - A Tropical Paradise 

Very few tourist know about the island of Karimunjawa, which is the main reason why it is so amazing if you are willing to go through the trouble of getting there. It is secluded, clean, and has pristine, empty beaches with untouched coral reefs only 50 feet from shore. People say it is what Bali used to be like 50 years ago before it blew up with tourism. It was totally worth it once we were there, but getting there was an adventure in itself. After several long trains and terrifying buses and taxis, we arrived at the port city which is where we needed to catch a ferry to the island. On one of the trains, we met a hilarious Polish couple that happened to be traveling the same route as us through Indonesia, so we ended up traveling the next two weeks with them. 

Normally, people take a commercial ferry to the island and the trip takes 3-4 hours. However, we unknowingly arrived on a day that the ferry didn’t run, so we found an impromptu ride with a local fisherman that happened to be heading to the island. Since we were taking a small boat, it took about 6 hours and was simply terrible. The swell grew to several yards high once we were a few miles offshore and began to toss and turn our little boat back and forth for what was the most unenjoyable boat ride I have ever endured. We were all on the verge of puking the entire time but somehow none of us did. The whole time I was thinking - This island better be worth it. It was. Once we could see Karimunjawa rising in the distance, the waves lightened up and we grew excited to spend the next week on this little piece of paradise. 

The beach that we spent almost an entire week on. It was like looking at a postcard.

Lindsey, enjoying the sunset one night. 

I'm just sipping on a fresh coconut that was sold right on the beach.

Almost no one on the island spoke English, there are no cars at all (people ride mopeds), and there were maybe 20 other tourists on the entire island. We spent our days relaxing on the beach sipping out of fresh coconuts, snorkeling with clownfish, and exploring the island on a moped we rented. Every night, there was a food market in the town plaza where the local fisherman grill their freshly caught fish and serve it with spicy rice and coconuts. Dinner was always delicious on that island.

Some of the clownfish we snorkeled with 50 feet from shore.

One of the days we rented a kayak for the entire day (for $2!) and decided it would be a good idea to paddle out to an island we could see in the distance. It didn’t look very far, but my goodness, it deceptively super far. It took us about two hours to paddle out there (we estimated it would take about 20 minutes haha), but we agreed that the water around the tiny island was the most beautiful water we have ever seen. The sand was like sugar and the crystal clear water was only about 2 feet deep for 400 yards out from the beach. We hung out for a couple of hours but when it came time to paddle back, we realized we were in trouble. The wind had picked up and was blowing directly against us and the nice calm water had turned into a wave pool of death further from shore. So instead of attempting to cross the water in an inflatable kayak, we flagged down a boat that came and picked us up and returned us safely to Karimunjawa. All I can say is that we were incredibly lucky there were boats in the area......

When we finally started getting close to that tiny island.

Lindsey, relaxing in the warm water with Karimunjawa in the distance.

Yogyakarta 

Yogyakarta is a very popular destination in Java because it provides easy access to two of the biggest and best preserved temples in Indonesia. We stayed there for a few days walking around the city, drinking crappucinnos, and exploring the two amazing temples. Wait Tim..... did you just say crappucinnos? Yes, but it is also known as civet cat coffee and is the most expensive coffee in the world. 

Civet cats look like a mix between a cat and a raccoon and they eat only the freshest coffee berries they can find on coffee plantations. Since they can’t digest the actual coffee bean, they crap them out - only after its anal glands have gifted the beans with a highly desired “musky smoothness”, which is tasted in the resultant roasted coffee. Yum. In the USA, a single cup of this coffee can easily cost $75. In Indonesia where it is actually made, it only cost us about $2 for a cup. It sounds gross, but we all agreed that it was the best coffee we had ever tasted.

Borobudur - the biggest Buddhist temple in the world.

Lindsey and I with our Polish friends. We always had to wear wraps around our waists to cover up our scandalous legs. 

On of the many Buddhas at the top of the temple.

Prambanan - the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia that is over 150 feet tall.

Mount Bromo

Indonesia has around 130 active volcanoes and we got to see a few of them in Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park. The park is said to have some of the best viewing of volcanoes and is rated as one of the best places in the world to watch the sunrise. Therefore, our first morning began at 4 AM when we were picked up by a four wheel drive jeep that took us up a rough and windy trail to the viewing point for this world renown sunrise. The bad part was that it was freezing cold at the top of the viewing point and neither of us had shoes on, just sandals. We actually didn’t even bring a pair of shoes with us from Namibia because they take up too much space! So, our feet were freezing and the wind was howling as we waited for the sunrise which made it difficult to enjoy, but it was still worth it. The view was beautiful when the sun eventually creeped its way up.

The view from the sunrise point overlooking several volcanoes. Mount Bromo is the "small" one of the left.

After the sunrise, we trekked through volcanic sand (a fine powder that kicked up dust with each step, probably something like moon dust?) up to the rim of Mount Bromo, which continuously belches white, sulfurous smoke out of the crater’s top. It wreaked of sulfur on the edge of the volcano's rim as we looked down on the white smoke. I would imagine there are very few places on earth were you could literally jump down into a volcano if you so desired. 

The sulfurous smoke of Mount Bromo.

Lindsey and I, standing on the rim of Mount Bromo.

Mount Bromo erupted in 2004, 2010, and 2011, so we were happy it did not erupt when we were there. Obviously, the chances of that actually happening are very low as it is a monitored volcano, but when we went to sleep at night I would always think - What if?

Bukit Lawang

After a few days of hiking around Mount Bromo, we flew to the island of Sumatra and drove deep into the rain forest to a town called Bukit Lawang in search of the elusive orangutan. 

The funky monkey.

We booked a two day jungle trek through our hotel, where we slept in the jungle and had two guides leading the way. The weather ended up being beautiful and clear those two days, which was strange because it usually rained on and off throughout the day. Before we left, our guides gave Lindsey and I special shoes that were basically waterproof soccer cleats so we could trek up and down the mountains in the mud. If we would not have had those, we would have slipped in the mud a lot. 

After a few hours of trekking, we started to run into all sorts of monkeys, and even a few snakes. I assumed my snake days would be over once we left Namibia, but no, they were waiting for me in Indonesia and Thailand as well. We saw four spitting cobras (one was literally over 10 feet long) in our time in Sumatra. But, I saved our guides from stepping on a few of them as they were busy looking in the trees for the orangutans and not paying attention to the ground. Silly guides.

The Gibbons Monkey. These guys can swing like crazy from branch to branch.

The first two orangutans we saw. 

Another male orangutan.

After a pretty intense hike down the side of a mountain, we swam in a turquoise colored river next to our campsite before the sun went down. Our guides cooked up some delicious food, and we all sat and talked in a makeshift shelter made of sticks and large plastics sheets. It poured throughout the majority of the night, but we surprisingly stayed dry inside the plastic-stick-house.

Lindsey with some friends from the Netherlands that also went on the hike with us. Our shelter is behind them.

 We spent about a week in Bukit Lawang and explored several caves, swam in the river almost everyday, and played a serious amount of cards while it was pouring down rain.

Some people tubing down the river in Bukit Lawang. Lindsey and I also tubed but sadly didn't have a camera with us.

The Indonesian Culture

While we only saw a very small portion of Indonesia, the food was absolutely delicious and the people were some of the nicest we have ever encountered. We met a man on Karimunjawa that invited us into his home everyday for coffee and snacks. Random people would freely give us food on buses and trains, and locals constantly thanked us for coming to visit their country. Little kids would yell, “HELLO” and wave vigorously, as opposed to Namibia where everyone would yell, “Mukuwa” (or something like it depending on the language) which means white person. I never understood why they yell out “white person” in Africa rather than say “hello” or greet you by name, but they would literally just stare at us and continuously yell “white person” until we were out of sight. So, it was nice to be greeted with an actual hello, instead of having a common noun yelled at us.

Smoking vs. Drinking

This doesn’t really have anything to do with our travels, I just thought it was interesting. Since Indonesia is strictly a Muslim country, people do not drink. Alcohol is heavily taxed, so drinking is also expensive - at least compared to the USA and Namibia. I realize now that I will probably make a lot of comparisons to Namibia on this blog haha. In Namibia, you can buy a 750ml bottle of beer for about 90 cents in a grocery store, which is incredibly cheap. Hence, alcoholism is rampant in Namibia but almost no one smokes because smoking is much more expensive. In Indonesia however, it seemed like every single male we saw was always smoking. According to Google, 63% of the male population smokes. Most of the men that we talked to had the shakiest hands I have ever seen (I assume it is caused from nicotine) to give you an example. So while Namibia drinks, Southeast Asia smokes.

Indonesia was such a fun adventure and was the perfect place to go after Namibia. We needed some relaxation time on the beaches of Karimunjawa. The next stop was Thailand.....