2018 S.E. Asia: Ujung Kulon, West Java, Indonesia

Our 4-day journey to possibly see Javan Rhinoceros started in Yogyakarta and included an air flight to Jakarta, a 3-hr afternoon car ride to Anyer, a 1/2 hr morning car ride to Carita, and a 4-hr motor boat ride to Handelem Island with boatmen Ndoy & Cushnadi. We didn't see the Javan Rhinoceros, as our tour guide Maman later told us they had moved south due to the November wet season.

We did see Child Krakatoa erupting many times as we stood on the beach at Anyer, and again from our Anyer room in the morning. This new island is a tower of volcanic ash, growing at 6+meter a year and rising up from the undersea caldera left from the 1883 explosion of Krakatoa. In reading about this and other volcanic activity on the planet, we learned that local folklore suggests a volcanic explosion around 500ce that created the Sunda Straight and separated Sumatra from Java, and that recent European research suggests that the 500ce start to the Dark Ages was possibly caused by the outfall from a massive volcanic explosion, possibly from Indonesia.

Bob saw some fish on his snorkel outing en route to Handeuleum Island.  On a walk in the woods on Handelem Island we saw coral torn from the ocean by the 1883 Krakatoa tsunami, and Bob later got some good shots of birds around the camp, with his new peahen pal following along.

A highlight of our Handeuleum Island night was the delicious seafood en plein aire dinner- made by the boatmen. As we were finishing dinner on our out-door bamboo platform, a gecko egg dropped down on Yolanda's pant leg. The egg surprise made up for the iffy accommodation.

We were up early for our canoe trip up the Cigenter River. Unfortunately, we didn't get to paddle. We think Manan was concerned that we would not be able to control the canoe or read the river. The dug-out canoe wood was heavy with water and bailing was frequently required. The paddle lasted about 1 1/2 hr, or so, including the quick paddle down river back to the ocean. We usually go slower when wildlife viewing, and stop when we hear something. Quite a few times, we saw a bird to photograph, but because we were not the paddlers, it was difficult communicating to stop and by then we had drifted out of sight for photography. Bob was pleased to did get a shot of a Stork-billed Kingfisher and a Blue-eared Kingfisher.

Our third night was on Peucang Island, where we were checked into a lovely beach hut, with bamboo walls that had open slits vented to the out-of-doors, a curtained bed, and out-door w/c and cold-water shower. We imagined a trip that included two nights in that lovely beach hut.

After check-in and a late lunch, we went for a 12Km hike on the mainland of West Java (Ujung Kulon). In addition to Maman, a park warden and two Environmental Studies Vocational School Students (Sri utami and Sri rahayu) were along. The students were on day two of a 15-day trip on the Islands of Ujung Kulon. The pace of the hike was set by the warden and he was always ahead, sometimes clearing fallen branches and bamboo with his machete. The students were laden with clothing and oversized boots, so often fell behind. Bob missed getting a photograph of the Small Blue Kingfisher  and Javan Surili due to the pace, but did stop a while to get great photos of Wreathed Hornbill.

At dinner, another one of the students (Riska noviana) sat with us and she and a pal (Silvi agniya) had a nice chat with Yolanda on the beach in the morning, while Bob went with Maman for a jungle walk and photographed other flora and fauna.

The return trip was a bee-line boat ride from Peucang Island to Carita and relatively quick drive to Jakarta - about 6 1/2 hours total. At one point as the boat sped through the waves, Bob saw a large swordfish leap three times along the starboard side - exciting, but no picture. The overnight in Jakarta was to enable a visit to the Indonesian textile museum.

Our tour guide Lia (Julia) was on a two-month placement as part of her her final undergrad year in arts management in Yogyakarta. She spoke about wishing to study textile conservation and that her family home was in Ponorogo, East Java. Bob told Lia about our niece Lia, whose father was born in Indonesia. Lia's 2-mo placement was helping with the current exhibition on textile embellishment. She asked to keep in touch so we exchanged contact information.

We're a bit tired with an unexpected 2-hr wait at the airport, and we've agreed to think about our final week in S.E  Asia once we'd caught up with sleep at home in the K.L. apartment. We head back to Victoria in 10 sleeps, so might do one more jungle or mangrove outing (but no more air flights). Bob also wants to do some K.L. tourist activities, such as Batu Caves and a city bus tour, and our Indian dinner out with Devan and family.

2018 S.E. Asia: Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia

November 10th in Indonesia is "Hero's Day" so we arrived to pageantry and traditional music at the Yogyakarta airport, presented by the airport employees and a proud local veterans' group. This reminded us of Canada's Veteran's Week and Remembrance Day, and later at our hotel we watched the Macron hosted Paris gathering to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the signing of the First WW Armistice between the Allies and Germany.

We added the Yogyakarta visit between two jungle experiences just in case.... and, then we read about the nearby UNESCO Borobudur Temple, the largest known Buddhist Temple globally, and we decided to visit it on our second day.

We wandered Yogyakarta back-allys the first day on our way to the Amri Gallery, showing the work of Prof. Dr . Ki H. Amri Yahya, who teaches at the Yogyakarta Univertlsity. Amri's large-scale art works were inspiring! Inadvertently, across the street was the National Museum. The Museum was closed, but in a series of anti-rooms the students from a local Leather Polytechnic had a two-day exhibition (Nov 10 - 11) of their leather materials, project designs, finished projects and two theme rooms, one with stencils and another with historical leatherwork panels with mythological characters in action. We were the students' enthusiastic focus of attention for the hour we were there, as there seemed to be only one other couple viewing the work. The students were particularly giggly about Bob's translator ap, which enabled us to read the mythological text panels in the small room containing the historical pieces. The students were curious about opportunities in Canada for leather production careers, but we were regretfully unable to help them. Walking back to the hotel, Yolanda remarked on the lack of myth in our lives, and the joy and colour they can bring to life; Bob cited myths we draw on when a conveying a lesson is needed.

Prior to Borobudur Temple, our driver Tomo took us to Merapi Volcano for a morning birding walk. Bob conferred with a New Zealand birder we encountered there that we had seen "the usual suspects" for the area. The birder told us about her upcoming volunteer work in Australia with the D.O.C. (Department Of Conservation), which we had read about in preparation for our January-April 2019 trip. The mountain air was fresh and the jungle ravines were diverse with trees, vines, towering undergrowth and a few abandoned wood structures being reclaimed by the jungle. Tomo explained that dwellings could not be built within 10 Kilometers of the volcano due to the eruption losses in 2010.

The Buddhist Borobudur Temple, from the 9th Century, prior to the spread of Islam, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and an architectural wonder. We scoured the frieze rows telling the story of Buddha on the first three terraces and soon saw themes repeating. Reconstruction of the jungle-scrambled frieze blocks was questionable in some areas, and Bob wondered about future a.i. being able to virtually re-assemble the blocks.

Some of the frieze themes were music, nature, cooking, craft production, meditation and devotional pageantry. A few unique blocks were carved with 8th Century SE Asian Archipelago out-rigger sailing vessels, and in one interesting six-losenge "cartoon" sequence a woman was preparing a fire and cooking a bird! Yolanda was pleased to find a frieze with a loom-like object being set with heddles, and another with a spun fleece and bolts of cloth. The musical instrument friezes included instruments we had seen at the airport arrival, on our street walk and in a live presentation at our hotel: string instruments, wind instruments, drums, symbols, a xylophone-like instrument, and many clapping hands.

The temple upper terrace contained filigree stupa domes with enclosed buddha figures. We absolutely enjoyed our afternoon at the site, but could have done without being directed away from the exit to a 15-minute maze of craft stalls and food carts, which further exhausted us in the heat and humidity and unfamiliar sights and scents. We arrived back at Tomo's car just as the afternoon rain commenced.

We have come to expect that almost every day we will have an unexpected experience. Yesterday's "unexpected" was arriving at an artist open space in Yogyakarta, after having walked to textile shops for some batik meterage.

A local audio electronics club were just finishing their creative installation of 20th Century Indonesian gramaphones, radios and instruments: Audio Insights was the show title. Their thoughtful show backdrop was large-scale portraits of people associated with the broadcast industry: a d.j., a songwriter, a puppeteer, a singer, and a comedian who sang his jokes via radio broadcasts woven into traditional songs without losing the rhythm. Bob was right at home. One senior fellow approached us proudly with a show poster and talked a bit about the show vision and invited us to the 8pm opening event. We had just been through a torrential rain, and were soaked to our knees, so unfortunately didn't plan to return.

We are looking forward to some unexpected experiences in the next few days in the West Java jungle Ujung Kulon.

2018 S.E. Asia: Bukit Lawang, Sumatra, Indonesia

Visit Bukit Lawang. Really - it is fantastic. Not so much the sometimes bumpy, busy 4hr drive from Medan airport, but very much the valley community, and absolutely the jungle hike.

Our brief stop in K.L. before Bukit Lawang was to re-group and re-thinking our packing for our next three Indonesian adventures: Bukit Lawang, Sumatra; Yogyakarta, Java; and Ujung Kulon, Java. We visited a K.L. sporting goods shop for wet booties (which turned out to be dry bags, another day pack, and wet booties), and we also visited "Little India" in K.L.'s Brickfields district to catch the tail end of Deepavali, festival of light and positiveness and ousting of negativity. There was just enough activity to get a sense of the colour and liveliness of this celebration. We had been hearing nightly fireworks and firecrackers for about a week, and wanted to experience a bit of the activities at street level.

At the K.L. airport in the morning, we saw scattered Deepavali coloured rice designs poetically indicating the 2018 Festival of Lights had ended.

Our Bukit Lawang day was exceptional, starting with an early morning sighting of White-crowned Hornbill in the wall of jungle across the river from our Indra Valley Inn room balcony. What a treat! We had not expected Hornbill. One arrived, then a second, and then two more, one a female. Our hike ("trek"), started at 8:30am and ended about 3:30pm, with a thrilling 1/2hr tube ride through de ep rapids that three times swamped the tubes, and put tour guide Janet overboard. After drying out, a coffee break and a walk out of the Valley community to time our walk out at 6:15am the next morning, we went for a friendly beer to exchange photos and Blog addresses with our congenial tour-mates Andrea and Jans from Berlin.

Our Bukit Lawang trip was to hopefully see Orangutan and we did, including a female with a youngster. Babies stay with their mom until about age three and so moms birth on about five-year cycles, starting as early as age five. The female we saw was about 15, so the youngster could be her third baby. Somewhat more exciting for us was another hornbill sighting - this time two Rhinoceros Hornbill! What a thrill to watch these gigantic, colourful, sculptural birds lumber about the canopy as they pluck at the mangosteen. The tour leader Loho was equally impressed, as Rhinoceros Hornbill are rarely seen. Loho was pleased that we also saw other primates (Thomas's Langur) and a jungle peacock (Great Argus) - actually a pheasant. A great day for jungle fauna!

Trekking in the jungle on rustic, muddy paths, some extremely steep, takes fortitude and a sense of humour. Our guide had both, and we eventually got there too. After Yolanda's leech incident - yuk - a couple of backwards falls into the jungle, crumbling trails and slipping into a stream (Jans), we followed the technique of the Orangutan and used vines to keep on path. It was an exhilarating day!

Indra Valley Inn and others in the Valley make this adventure complete. The rooms are surprisingly modern in a rustic way, and the food is delicious. The host of our Inn, Obiwan, made us feel at home and welcome. We would love to return to stay longer some time.

We didn't get a good sense of Medan, as we drove through the edge from and back to the airport, but we did enjoy the colourful house exteriors we passeed. We were en route as children were being delivered to school on motorbikes and packed mini-buses. Workers were in the palm orchards and on construction projects. Food stalls abounded, as we have seen all over S.E. Asia. It was market morning and people were on the go early (we left the Valley at 6:15am, so were on the road and seeing so much until our 10:30am arrival at the airport.