Indonesia

Aug 9

This post is a bit delayed because it was overwhelming to put the first month into words that would accurately capture the magic of Indonesia, and do justice to all the wonder this beautiful country holds. Neither of us are writers, so how would we appropriately describe the awe? What do we want everyone reading the blogs to know and how much do we want to commit to each country. Well we just had to start, so where do we begin? Indonesia was such an amazing kick-off to our year-long global adventure. We could spend a year just traveling around Indonesia, and still wouldn’t feel like we saw it all. Going into the year we knew we didn’t want to change lodging too often, but you never know the right amount of time in each place. Some places feel seen after a couple days wandering around, and others you could explore for a week and still feel like you missed key parts. We will probably never figure out the perfect amount of time in each place, but the fewer the number of times we have to repack all of Jake’s shoes into our five bags, the more relaxed we will be! We chose to visit 4 different Indonesian islands: Bali, Gili T, Komodo and Sumatra. We could have changed lodging on Komodo less, and spent more time in Bali, but overall we did a pretty good job (3.5/5) if we do say so ourselves.

Bali - Uluwatu and Ubud

Uluwatu

Our first stop was Bali, specifically Uluwatu, a village on the Southwestern tip of the Bukit Peninsula. We stayed at a casual hotel with views of the water from the roofdeck, and a 10 minute walk to the best beach in the world, Dreamland Beach. Becca visited this beach with Riley in 2019, and it was exactly as she remembered. Anyone who knows Becca well, knows she isn’t very Eat, Pray, Love, but even she thinks there is another level of energy coming from that beach and its powerful waves. We spent the next four days practicing more of a routine than we did in our lives back in the States. We woke up early every morning, yes even Becca, special thanks to the jet lag, and watched the sunrise overlooking the ocean from a nearby breakfast restaurant, Saltwood. After our morning smoothie we would walk around town, building up our daily step goals, and would spend the afternoon at Dreamland beach. There was a Warung, which are the local restaurants, right on the beach, and we could get $7 Mi Goreng, a local noodle dish. Life was good!

One night we ventured over to the majestic Uluwatu Temple. We went right before sunset with the intent of going to the Kecak Dance that is hosted there, but after a bit of waiting in the ticket line, we decided it wasn’t for us. The rest of the temple, however, was great! We walked all around the temple and the grounds. The grounds are home to a few monkeys that mischievous as can be. We saw a them steal a couple pair of sunglasses and someone else said they also stolen some phones! Following the theft some of the monkeys enjoyed close time with each other, they must have been celebrating their achievement!

All too soon it was our last day in Uluwatu. While disappointing to leave such an amazing place, we know this wouldn’t be our last time, and we had all of the excitement thinking about the next 11 months and 3 weeks - if we could love the first place this much it was a dream to think about how much we could love other parts of the world. Our last day began with a beach walk - something we always do, usually more than once, on beach vacations, but this was the first day we made time. We tried to drift down the beach, in the water, one of the days prior, but instead of being brought down the beach we were pulled out to where the surfers were waiting for their gnarly waves, and had to use our childhood swimming skills to get back into shore, so we weren’t going to try that again. The morning walk was peaceful. We watched the high tide rush up onto the sand, and saw the sun beams glisten onto the crashing waves and it rose to greet the new day. After the walk we figured we should check-out at least one other area beach, just to confirm that Dreamland Beach was, in fact, the best. Well we should have just gone with our gut, but always good to know for sure. We will keep it short, but the other beach was much smaller, was not free, did not have soft sand, and had a lot of rocks in the water, no thanks! We enjoyed Uluwatu so much we wrote down a few names of lodging to look at for a month in the future. Who knows, maybe one day we will be able to live and work traveling and staying by the beach!

Ubud

After our time in Uluwatu and its beautiful Dreamland Beach, we headed north to Ubud which is in central Bali. We stayed in this amazing small hotel that backed up to a field of rice paddies and jungle. It was such a peaceful place and you could not tell that you were in the city of Ubud. One of our favorite activities while exploring new places is doing cooking classes, and we found a great one on a local farm. It was a 4 hour experience where picked our fresh produce, learned about the farm and its community, and learned how to make 4 different Balinese dishes.

We also did a wonderful guided bike tour around the Ubud area, through rice terraces and local villages. The day began with a local breakfast overlooking the rice fields before going to a coffee farm where we were able to taste a variety of different coffees and teas. Jake even tasted the famous Luwak Coffee, which while he did think it was good, is not going to replace his traditional coffee production preference. The last stop before we started our bike tour was to a viewing of Mt. Batur and its scenic lake at the base. It was beautiful to visit some of the scenic and natural parts of the area! Mt. Batur is a active volcano and it was very interesting to see the striking contrast between the black lava field and the green jungle. Our bikeride consisted of a mostly downhill ride, and a stop at a local family compound. The compound was full of history and fun facts. We also learned about the set-up of the family compounds. There are multiple buildings placed in certain areas, and at certain heights for specific reasons. The grandparents always stay in the elder house, which is the building highest in elevation, there is a family temple, a worship area, houses for other generations, and of course a kitchen. The compounds cannot be sold as it is believed the souls of the ancestors reside in the family temple. We also learned that Hinduism is the primary religion in Bali, even though Islam is the predominant religion in most of Indonesia. It was interesting to hear how their differing religious beliefs changed the approach to housing and living areas.

We kept one day free for wandering around on our own, something we aren’t always good at doing on vacations, so need to get more used to living abroad for a year. Our first stop was the Campuhan Ridge Walk - about a 45 minute walk from our hotel to the start, and another 2 km down the trail and back. Another highlight of Ubud was the coconut ice cream! It was a refreshing way to cool down after exploring in the heat of the day, and a must on the way from the Ridge Walk to lunch at Bebek Joni. Bebek means duck, and there are a few restaurants where you can eat crispy duck, a $7 delicacy, surrounded by rice fields.

We could have used more time in Ubud, but now we have things to look forward to when we come back!

Gili Trawangan (Gili T)

From Ubud, our next stop was to Gili Trawangan. This is a very small island, with no cars allowed, so going in we knew we would only need a day or two to explore. We took a ferry from Bali for a few hours and arrived at Gili T (as the locals call it). We were able to get bikes from our hotel and use them to explore the entirety of the island as it only takes 30-45 minutes to bike around the perimeter of the island. The beach outside of our hotel had some of the clearest water we had ever seen and it was very peaceful to float in the water and look at all of the surrounding islands in the distance. After enjoying the beach, we headed up to to to turtle point for snorkeling and lunch. We had the best seaside lunch consisting of delicious $3 fish n’ chips. When we say seaside, we really mean seatop as the waves crashed up through the wooden deck. It was a fantastic little place, and the staff were even willing to watch our stuff while we jumped off the dock to snorkel with the sea turtles. While we enjoyed Gili T, we think two days was plenty of time there, and were excited for our next adventure in Komodo!!

Komodo

It’s not all dragons and fairytales…but, if you’re lucky, you will see 9 Komodo Dragons!

From Gili T, we took a ferry back to Bali and hopped on a short plane ride to Komodo, or more specifically the town of Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores. While in the Komodo area we stayed at 4 different locations to help us explore the area better including one small dive resort on its own island. Looking back we stayed in too many different places because every few days we had to pack up to move to the next, but it was a good learning experience for our travels.

The Komodo Dive Resort was located on its own island and was home to a local reef. We spent 4 nights in a little villa on top of the hill with amazing panoramic views! The only downside was the 139 stairs up and down we had to take to get to the villa, but totally worth it! Being famous for diving, we knew we had to partake in at least a couple dive days! We did two dive days with the shop on the resort island, but the dives weren’t as magnificent as we expected based on the legendary Komodo diving we heard about. However, we can’t forget that we saw 28 sea turtles across the two days, and that is our favorite animal to see underwater! One of the diving areas in the National Park is in Northern Komodo, and you have to be Advanced Open Water certified to dive up there. Jake already was, but Becca was not, and figured it would be a great time to gain some more knowledge. She found a dive shop in the main town, where we would be spending the rest of our time in Komodo, and signed up for the 2 day certification, but more about that later.

The Komodo National Park is well known for it’s namesake, the Komodo Dragon, which live on a three of the islands in the park. We saw them on both the islands of Rinca and Komodo (yes, Komodo is the name of the National Park and one of the islands). On Rinca we did a full-day tour that just happened to be private and it was such a fun experience. We visited the Rinca Village which is surrounded by a fence to keep most of the Komodo Dragons away from the locals, though the first two dragons we saw were inside the fence so not sure how much that helps. The houses are raised above the ground with steep stairs to get inside which also helps provide protection from the dragons. We saw 5 dragons around Rinca village and they were quite lively sneaking around looking for food. We saw a local ‘animal pop’ dance which is performed by villagers and is a representation of how the local animals live. It was especially impressive to watch the monkey dancer jump from tree to tree. Later on in the Rinca tour day, we did some coral planting at a nearby island as part of a restoration project. The restoration just entails zip tying a fresh live coral to a small concrete block with vertical brace to hold the coral. After we had the coral attached we swam out and placed it in the reef they are growing. For only having started this coral planting a few years ago, it was really impressive to see the growth some of the older plantings had already gained.

Another day trip that we took brought us to Komodo Island as well as a few other islands including Padar Island. Padar is known for a short hike (30 minutes and 800 stairs) up to a viewpoint where one can see three different beaches, one with black sand, one with pink sand, and one with white sand. It was beautiful to see and was well worth the climb. The dragons we saw on Komodo were the opposite of the ones we saw on Rinca. Instead of lively and walking around, the 4 dragons were napping and relaxing in the shade. The guides allowed us to get fairly close to them, and if not for seeing some small head and eye movement, we could have sworn they were fake dragons.

While Komodo is known for it’s dragons, the diving is also incredible, or that’s what we were told but needed to experience for ourselves. It’s hard to find reefs we enjoy as much as the ones we frequent off Cozumel. After being a bit disappointed at the sites the dive resort brought us to, Jake was weary about joining Becca on her training dive days, but it was definitely the right decision to add the extra two days! The reefs were probably the healthiest we have ever dove, full of colorful corals and the most natural marine life we had ever seen. We dove a couple of pinnacle dive sites which were very similar to wall dives, except around one center pinnacle. One of the pinnacles was above water level and the other was around 15’ below the surface. These were incredible dive sites as the coral went from 100’ deep to the top with thousands of fish and other majestic reef life from top to bottom. We went to our new favorite dive site in the world, Batu Bolong, where we were lucky enough to see more sea turtles, sharks, a barracuda, and a manta ray! The manta ray especially was a very lucky sighting! Another exciting dive location that we went to was called “The Shotgun”. The shotgun is situated in a channel between two islands that are close together. When the current goes through this narrow channel, it speeds up considerably. You are shot through channel and at small crest you can grab hold of a rock or hook on with a reef hook and turn to face the current. It took all you could hold to the reef and not get pulled away. Becca is now Advanced Open Water certified, so she can now technically/officially chase the sea turtles to 130’, even if she leaves Jake in her bubbles. It was a series of incredible dives and we are excited to go diving there again in the future!

Sumatra

Our last stop in Indonesia for the time being! One of the highlights of the month was our time in Bukit Lawang, a small village along the Bahorok River in Northern Sumatra, and is the gateway to Gunung Leuser National Park, renowned as a key sanctuary for the endangered Sumatran Orangutans. We learned that until 1973 people were allowed to have Orangutans as pets in their homes. It’s hard to imagine keeping a pet inside that is at home atop the treetops. We did a 2-day Jungle Trek through the Gunung Leuser National Park. The meaning of Bukit Lawang is “door to the hill” and they are not lying about the hills. The trek was challenging as we went straight up and straight down numerous steep hills along the route. The trails up the jungle hills could better be described as scrambling while using roots as foot holds and vines and trees as handholds, yes, vines like in Tarzan. As the approached the descent, the trail became even steeper, and there was typically rope installed so you could brace yourself and/or walk backwards semi-rappelling down the hill. Luckily for us it did not rain during the day as with those conditions it would have been extremely difficult to keep your footing while repelling downhill for an hour.

On the trek as a whole we saw 5 orangutans, 5 black gibbons, and quite a few different species of monkeys and birds. The first orangutan was just hanging out by itself, swinging from branch to branch. Jake learned it’s quite difficult to get the best photos through the jungle as the autofocus doesn’t know which layer of the jungle you want a photo of, but he still got some good shots. The second pair of orangutans was a male and a female. At first the female orangutan was by itself in a tree, but then the male started swinging that way! The last two orangutans that we were lucky enough to see were at our camp for the night. A mother orangutan came down to our camp to show off her baby and it was adorable! We even saw the baby independently hanging onto a vine! We had hoped to see more orangutans, but were glad we at least got to see the 5 we did! The next morning we did a short hike to a waterfall, and swam in the pool at the bottom. Jungle rivers are quite a bit warmer than snowmelt fed rivers, so it was very nice and refreshing. Afterwards we packed up camp, had some lunch and headed back to Bukit Lawang. Instead of hiking our way back we took a “Jungle Taxi” otherwise known as some inner-tubes tied together. Let me tell you, that is the way to travel! We made great time and had a lot of fun with the small rapids along the river. We had decided to give ourselves an extra day in Bukit Lawang after our hike and we definitely made the right decision! We enjoyed a serene massage and then relaxed next to the river listening to the sounds of the jungle. We also saw quite a few big lizards floating down the river and swimming to the other side of the bank. I guess they saw the jungle taxis and thought it was a good way to travel! Bukit Lawang and our Jungle Trek were such an incredible end to our month in Indonesia!

We almost forgot to mention we learned the Jungle Trek song! It’s to the tune of Jingle Bells and goes a little something like this…

(Jingle Bells Chorus)
Jungle Trek, jungle trek in Bukit Lawang
See the monkey, see the bird, see orangutan

Walking in jungle, seeing animal, walking together in Bukit Lawang
Singing together, rafting together, everything together in Bukit Lawang

(Jingle Bells Chorus)
Jungle trek, jungle trek in Bukit Lawang
See the monkey, see the bird, see orangutan
Jungle trek, jungle trek in Bukit Lawang
See the monkey, see the bird, see orangutan

Walking in jungle, see the animal, walking together in Bukit Lawang
Singing together, being together, everything together in Bukit Lawang

(Jingle Bells Chorus)
Jungle trek, jungle trek, in Bukit Lawang
See the monkey, see the bird, see orangutan
Jungle trek, jungle trek, in Bukit Lawang
See the monkey, see the TIGER, everybody RUN