Indonesia Part 2

Hello everyone :-)
After spending a month in Lombok and Sulawesi in Indonesia, it was time for our 2nd visit to Java and Sumatra.
From Mandalay, we took a flight to Kuala Lumpur. Here, we had to spend the night in order to finally fly to Semarang on Java the next morning. We arrived there in a beautiful hotel completely exhausted. Besides catching up on sleep and lying by the pool, we didn't do much in Semarang. The next morning, we took a bus to Yogyakarta. I had been here 2.5 years ago and I loved it so much that we wanted to make a stop in Yogyakarta again on this trip. The city is very cozy with many hostels and good restaurants/street beaches. In the nearby area, there are some famous Buddhist and Hindu temple complexes that we explored with a scooter. Another day, we rode the scooter along rice fields to lonely waterfalls and beautiful viewpoints. After 5 days in Java, we headed to Sumatra. Our first stop here was Bukittinggi. Here too, we rode the scooter along the rice fields and through forest sections to beautiful gorges and waterfalls. On the first evening, we visited the 'famous' clock tower of the city. The tower itself was not very impressive, but we had some nice encounters with local people. We were first approached by a group of young girls who wanted to speak with us for a school assignment (an English interview with tourists). As proof for the teacher, we took a photo with the group. Since a photo with foreigners in Asia seems to be a big thing, other visitors of the tower also took the opportunity to pose with us. One of these people was also a student and spoke very good English. We talked with him for a long time. At some point, I noticed a group of playing children watching us with interest. So I played tag with them and Merle and I became the unofficial attraction in front of the clock tower for the local visitors, who observed and photographed us continuously.
The next day, we rode the scooter to a small village. We had heard that there would be a traditional bull race here this weekend. Is there a better way to celebrate our anniversary than by watching Indonesians being pulled through the mud by two cows while biting their tails to make the cows run faster? I don't think so ;-)
Finally, we went to Lake Maninjau where we relaxed the next day.
Our next destination took us to the north of Sumatra to the region around Banda Aceh. The tsunami destroyed large parts of the region in 2004. Today, you can't see anything from it anymore. However, this terrible natural disaster still affects the people here today. The city was rebuilt with the help of many donations and aid workers - perhaps more modern than before the tsunami. But since the disaster, tourism has declined significantly and has never reached the level it had before the tsunami. The tsunami museum looks rundown, and the admission was even free for us - as a tourist in Asia, this is absolutely unusual because we usually pay more admission than the locals. In the middle of the city, about 3 km away from the coast, you can still find a huge ocean steamer that was torn inland by the tsunami and is still standing there as an exhibit.
After our cultural stop in Banda Aceh, where we consciously noticed the Sharia laws for the first time (including the obligation to wear a headscarf), we spent the next 5 days on the island of Pulau Weh, grateful for the beach, sea breeze, and bathing suits. Here, we went diving again. Since we will need an advanced diving certificate for our trip to Sipadan in Borneo at the end of our journey, I decided to get it here at the Lumba Lumba diving school. Since Merle already has her advanced diving certificate, she went on some fun dives while I had to learn theory in addition to the dives. The days flew by! Not only because the diving spots were great and we saw many animals like turtles, sharks, or huge schools of fish among the beautiful corals, but also because we liked the diving school so much with its nice atmosphere and funny people. With a heavy heart, we returned to the mainland after successfully completing the diving certificate. We flew to Medan to drive from there to the jungle and see orangutans. Unfortunately, Merle suddenly got a nasty stomach infection here. Therefore, we decided to stay in Medan for a few days until she recovered and then wait a few more days for the jungle trekking. So we went to Lake Toba first. This lake is the largest crater lake in the world with a length of about 85 km. When this volcano erupted several thousand years ago, it even caused an ice age. Today, you can relax and unwind in some resorts right on the lake. That's exactly what we did to recharge our batteries for the last 4 weeks of our journey. Full of energy, we finally went to the jungle in Bukit Lawang. Our accommodation was not like any other in the city, but about 30 minutes away in the middle of the jungle. When we arrived at the accommodation after a breathtaking ride on the scooter, we found exactly one hut. To reach it, we had to walk through a river with all our baggage, which reached up to our waist. In this river, we went swimming to cool off - Sumatra is actually as hot and humid as you imagine, especially in the jungle! The accommodation was truly one of the most beautiful ones I've ever been to. Just the two of us in the middle of the jungle right by a river. Only the owner of the hut came by three times a day to bring us food. Besides the beautiful surroundings, we especially admired the variety of animals that lived right outside our door: we saw a Thomas Leaf monkey, some monitor lizards, beautiful big butterflies, lizards, and much more. The only downside to this accommodation was that it was super loud at night. Croaking frogs, shrieking insects, and the sound of rain competed to see who could make the most noise. On one of the three days here, we went into the jungle together with the owner of the accommodation and his employee to search for orangutans. After strenuous 2 hours and with completely sweaty clothes, we found a female orangutan with an unpronounceable Indonesian name. She hung in the trees just a few meters away from us and swung from branch to branch, which was really beautiful to watch. On the way back, we were lucky again as we spotted another female orangutan with her baby. This time, we were even the only tourists who could observe the primates. The tour was definitely a very special experience, to get so close to our evolutionary relatives (orangutan means "forest person" in Indonesian) and to observe them in their natural habitat. That was a great ending to our second month in Indonesia. Because the next day, we went back to Medan from where we went to our last destination: Malaysia.

My conclusion this time is again extremely positive. Indonesia is still a special country for me. The people are incredibly friendly and genuinely kind. And the country itself is diverse and partly untouched. Tourism has not yet reached many places, and it is extremely cheap to travel and experience things here. I am very sure that this will not be the last time we came to Indonesia. But now we are looking forward to our last 3 weeks in the Malaysian part of Borneo.

Until next time.
Fabian :-)