Time sure does fly when you’re having fun especially when that fun involves 2 trips home to Australia, one trip to Tiger Island, one trip to Krakatau and a visit from 2 friends!

The trips home to Australia were lovely and it was great to catch up with everyone, particularly on the first trip home for Misch and Tim’s wedding. Christmas was also great, with 5 days down the coast with Mum and Poc, swimming, getting sunburnt, playing golf and generally relaxing! But I was also very happy to come home to Jakarta after 2 weeks in Canberra for Christmas, and slowly our small but very close Jakarta family have also all returned to the Big Durian (Jakarta’s very appropriate nickname). Sadly we will be saying goodbye to quite a few people in the next couple of months with Miri from AusAID heading back to Australia this weekend to begin training for her post in East Timor, followed closely in February and March by Heids, Ali , Drew and Sam who are either going home to finish up their study or because their AYAD assignments are finishing. Of course there will be an influx of new AYADs and VIDAs in April so the flow of people in and out of here continues – so many hellos and goodbyes!

Back to my many trips: between trips home to Australia a large bunch of us went out to Tiger Island in the Thousand Islands north of Jakarta for the weekend for Jess’s birthday. What an amazing weekend! Tiger Island is about 2 hours north of Jakarta by speed boat and although you start out in disgusting water full of rubbish (we had to stop a few times to clean rubbish out of the propeller), at some point you cross this magic line where the water becomes beautifully clean and very tempting! The island itself was tiny: you could walk from one side to the other in about 2 minutes and has been developed just enough to make it comfortable without ruining its natural beauty and serenity. There are a few cabins, indoor and outdoor dining areas, seaside huts that are just frames with roofs, mattresses and mosquito nets and one amazing hut on the western side which was the one that I stayed in. Again it was very simple, just a frame with a roof and wooden floor, and then roll down bamboo shades for the walls. It had about 6 beds in it, just mattresses with mosquito nets but it was right on the water’s edge with the most stunning view over the ocean. It had a deck attached with day beds that were lovely day or night and you could jump straight into the green, amazing water straight off the deck. This deck was a favourite place to be for most of the trip. Most of the weekend was spent doing very little: sunbathing, swimming, eating, drinking, sleeping in hammocks. The staff on the island cooked us a delicious seafood dinner on the Saturday night which we ate out on the deck next to the serve yourself bar after we had spent the afternoon at Sunset Hut watching the sunset and drinking gin and tonics. Such a tough life we lead! There was also an even smaller island about 100 metres away which you could swim to or paddle across and it was actually even more beautiful than Tiger Island. It was completely uninhabited and had a white sand beach that I could have spent forever on and beautiful mangrove pools of water. It was very hard to get back on the boat on Sunday and leave this peaceful oasis for the noise and grime of Jakarta. But we did, with everyone a bit happier, a bit redder or browner (depending on thoroughness of sunscreen application) and a bit more in love with this wondrous country.

And now to Us vs Nature, the trip that was Krakatau. At this point I am sure you are thinking how can I possibly top that trip to Tiger Island? Believe it or not I can. Going to Krakatau is one the best things I have got to do here so far and something that I could do many many more times. My friends from home, Merry and Jase, came over for a 3 week holiday here after Christmas including 5 wonderful days with me in Jakarta and Krakatau. They were my first (hopefully of many) visitors here so it was pretty exciting for me! One of my Jakarta friends, Ali, also joined us for our Krakatau trip. Merry and Jase got a proper introduction to Jakarta and its many frustrations/wonders on the Friday afternoon when we set off to Carita, on the west coast of Java. What should have been a 3 hour trip was, of course, many more – around 5 I think. I quite enjoy driving around here even in traffic but I can understand how annoying it is for those who aren’t used to it! We spent the night in Carita were all up bright early to meet our wonderful guide, Samsul, and his crew and then get on the boat! Krakatau is in the Sunda Straits, about 1 ½ hours from the west coast of Java by speed boat and is in fact closer to Sumatra than Java. For those that don’t know, Big Krakatau (now Rakata Island) exploded in the 1880s with the world’s biggest natural explosion ever – ash from the explosion made it all the way to California! The explosion was so big that Krakatau actually blew itself out if that makes sense and has been dormant ever since. Then in the 1920s a new island began to emerge from the sea: Anak Krakatau or Krakatau’s child. This volcano is still active today and regularly has little explosions.

Anyway our first stop was Panjang Island where Sam took us for a ‘create your own path with a machete’ trek deep into the jungle. It was so beautiful there, very green and peaceful with no unnatural sounds except for the regular ‘thwack’ of Sam’s machete as it cleared our path. Our final destination was a Japanese bunker from World War Two where we drank fresh coconut milk straight from the coconut – so tasty and refreshing! Then it was back to the beach, coming out of the jungle at a slightly different point to where we entered. While Sam prayed, we had a lovely swim in crystal clear water what was unique because the sand was black not white. The black sand made for some of the most stunningly coloured water I have ever seen, a sort of blue that wasn’t the blue of deep ocean, but a deep tropical blue with hints of green in it. Very hard to describe if you haven’t seen it yourself. After some lunch on the beach we sailed off to Anak Krakatau where we landed on a beach with the blackest sand that I have ever seen. While our wonderful boat captain and cook started setting up our camp there for the night, Sam led the 4 of us on the very steep and very tiring but very worth it trek up to the first crater of Anak Krakatau. We got to the bottom of the path and looked up to see this sheer wall of black rock and gravel in front of us, challenging us to take it on while the top crater taunted us from even further above (you can’t climb to the top crater). It didn’t actually take very long to climb up but it did involve a lot of huffing and puffing and stopping for photos along the way. Once we got up there the view was stunning with the peak on one side and panoramic views of the surrounding islands everywhere else. After taking hundreds of different photos of the same things we headed back down over the edge to begin our descent. It looked much scarier than it was in the end, and we had some great boulder rolling competitions to see who could theirs the furthest (much harder than it looked because most of the boulders were not very round!). after another refreshing swim we set up our tents and made preparations for the ominous looking storm and then ate the best dinner of fresh bbq fish and squid! We spent the evening lying on the beach in our ponchos watching the lightening storm, and once the rain became too much Sam taught us how to play dominos which was quite fun, mostly because Sam would laugh so evilly every time he knew was about to win! We headed off early to bed, spent 2 hours sweltering with 2 of us each in 1 person tents before the storm hit properly. It was at this point that we discovered that the tents basically weren’t at all waterproof. Somehow, despite the fact that we were sleeping in puddles, Ali and I actually managed to get some sleep.

On the Sunday we sailed around Anak Krakatau to have a proper look at the top crater (so much steam, was sooo cool!) and then continued on to Rakata (Big Krakatau) for some more trekking. The difference between Big and Anak Krakatau is striking – Anak is all black and steamy and angry, while Rakata is completely green, covered in lush jungle and positively inviting by comparison despite the sheer cliffs on one side. We landed on a large beach and set off another trek that involved much less cutting into the jungle and far less overall damage to our bodies. This time we got to see 100 year old charcoal and enjoy the beautiful trees and greenness around us. Then we spent a few hours swimming back on the beach and relaxing. Here we also discovered that monitor lizards can swim! The conversation went something like this: Ali and I were on the boat, Me: is that a log or a monitor lizard? Ali: I think it’s a log. Me: yeah I agree. Three minutes later…we hear screams and splashing from Merry. Me: guess it wasn’t a log…haha! They’re surprisingly good swimmers although they look far too much like snakes when they’re in the water for my liking. But apparently they aren’t dangerous so we shouldn’t have been worried! We ate lunch on the beach (so good, fresh bbq chicken and prawns) and then spent the afternoon snorkelling around Rakata. It was such good snorkelling with crystal clear water, lots of beautiful coral and so MANY fish! Ali and I found a tree trunk that had fallen into the water onto the edge of the reef and all the coral had just grown around it and onto it. Eventually Sam told us that it was time to head off which we did very reluctantly, but did have a lovely trip back on the boat because we got to see all these flying fish!
Merry and Jase headed off to Yogya the next day after we had a quick tour of the Grand Mosque and it was very sad saying goodbye to them. Since then it has been back to work and reality but also a bit of fun here and there. This weekend is the annual Australia vs India cricket match in honour of Australia Day and India’s national day which both fall on 26 January. We’ve also started planning a trip to Kalimantan to visit the orangutans in February and another trip down the Embassy cottages at Anyer. Sadly Jimmy and I are moving out of our lovely little flat next week as Jimmy has decided to live in a kos for the rest of his time here while I am moving upstairs with Tully and Heids. Work is good and we are going to have a very busy year with everything that we have planned and I am also about to start studying again (my Masters eep!) so will be a very busy lady (as usual) this year.

I continue to love living here and find it very hard to even contemplate leaving here at the end of the year even though it is so far away! And I am so looking forward to all the visitors that are heading my way this year, I can’t wait to show you why I love this place so much!