Sumatra Island

Your body jolts as the plane hits the ground; you have arrived in Indonesia. You look out the window, and besides the flashing lights of the airport, darkness shrouds the country. Indonesia has over 17,000 islands, and you’ve just landed on the island of Sumatra. Because it has been a long day of layovers, you groggily walk through immigration to get your passport stamped, then you take a bus 3.5 hours late into the night. You arrive and fall into your bed, drifting off to sleep, eager for the adventure ahead of you.

After a quick breakfast, you meet the trekking guide named Felix, and he smiles widely as takes you into the mysterious forest. A minute after you step into the trees, Felix points out a yellow, white, and black snake coiled around a tree. You continue walking for a few more minutes before you spot your first Orangutan. It is a young male hanging in a tree high above you. You borrow Felix’s binoculars and take a look at the creature. It’s your first time seeing an Orangutan; you had no idea how bright orange their hair is. After studying it for a few more minutes, you continue hiking until you find an Orangutan mother and her baby, much closer this time. Their expressions and manners are quite human – the baby scratches his stomach and kisses his mother, while the mother picks insects off of her son’s back. These creatures amaze you, and you want to continue watching them. Felix smiles again and says there is more to see ahead.

You walk into a group of other tourists who are watching a large, brown bird called the Great Argus. The bird is three or four feet long, and has shades of brown and beige feathers. Everyone, including you, are waiting for the bird to open up its feathers like a peacock. You sit and wait almost patiently. After what feels like hours, the bird screeches a loud “WOW WOW” and splays its back feathers into a beautiful array of subtle patterns. The grandeur and pride of this bird delights you; you decide it was worth the wait.

You hike for the rest of the day, seeing four different species of monkeys: a Silver Leaf monkey, Pig Tailed Macaque, a Long Tail Macaque, and of course more Orangutans. You arrive at the campsite and right in front of you is another Orangutan mother and her baby. You watch them for over an hour; you could watch them all day. They come a little too close, and Felix makes himself big and tells them to keep their distance. They willingly comply. You learn that the guide is actually protecting the Orangutans from us; because they are endangered, it is important to keep our distance and allow them to be wild. As we continue to observe them, they drift away from us, transferring from tree limb to tree limb.

At the camp, you meet two women from France; you notice they have blood on their socks. “What happened? Are you okay?” you ask in concern. They tell you that they discovered leeches on their legs and feet. You jump up and find privacy, looking over every square inch of your body. Your friend finds some on his leg, you find one near your wrist. The strangest surprise is that you cannot feel the leech at all as your friend rips it off of you, blood dripping from your arm and from the leech. You find more leeches on your raincoat. A chill runs down your spine and you hope you don’t find any more.

You throw on your swimsuit and hike to the nearby river, spotting a couple Monitor lizards fighting. The water is cold, so you don’t wade in too deep. Walking back to the camp, you eat a delicious curry dinner, then settle into your sleeping pad, falling asleep to the sound of the river and cicadas.

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Java Island

After flying two hours from Sumatra Island, you land in Jakarta, which is the capital city in Indonesia on Java Island. You go to a museum and learn that Indonesia is a combination of Sundanese, Mandarin, Dutch, Sanskrit, Arabic, Portuguese, and Javanese cultures. The country has a diverse background of Hinduism, Catholicism, Islam, and Buddhism. There are over 400 languages and the trading posts connected them to many countries.

As you walk through the city, you see mosques and churches. You also note some Dutch and Chinese architecture. On the street, you buy a fruit you’ve never seen before called snake fruit. The outside looks like scales of a snake, and you peel it off to find a white, fleshy fruit inside that tastes like honeydew. It’s delicious! For dinner, you eat a vegetable soup with kembeng flower squids.

The next morning, you pack up your bags and take a five hour train ride into the island. It feels like a magical train ride; you pass rows and rows of bright green rice fields full of workers hunched over intent on their task. You see swarms of motorbikes waiting for the train to pass. Banana leaf trees hang morosely, adding even more to the quintessentially south-east Asian scene. You arrive in Yogyakarta, a small town close to the beautiful Buddhist temple called Borobudur.

The next morning, you hop on a motorbike with a friend. As your friend drives, you hold on for dear life as cars and other motorbikes zip past you in every direction. Your friend is a good driver, but neither of you are used to the chaos of driving in Indonesia. You find parking and walk into the Borobudur temple complex. Walking down a white path, you see the temple looming in front of you. This structure is the largest Buddhist temple in the world, and you now see why: the nine intricate levels expand, almost dwarfing the land and sky around it. There are 1500 stupas (or hallow cone-like structures) on the temple. You learn that the Buddha was the son of a king and went through the stages of enlightenment, and there are separate stories on each of the nine levels of the temple. Before you step onto the structure, you put special shoes on to protect the temple from dirt and harm. As you climb the steps to the highest level, someone says, “Be ready to be happy! You are entering nirvana!”

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Flores Island, Kelar Island, Padar Island, & Komodo Island

“SHARK!!” Your brain screams, sirens going off in your head as your heart beats out of your chest. You’re alone in the water, snorkeling near Kelar Island. As you swim away and closer to land, you spot the shark from the corner of your eye. It’s small and black, darting further away from you deeper into the ocean. You kick your flippers as hard as you can, pushing against the current toward the island. As the water becomes more shallow, you push your body upright and awkwardly walk on the sandy beach toward your group, taking a big breath of relief.

Everyone is jealous when they hear that they missed seeing a shark, but you are just happy that you are on land. You take a small boat back to your bigger boat. You relax and nap on the boat as it cruises to Manjarite Island. Once you arrive, you jump off the side of the boat and use your snorkeling mask to see the darkness below. As you swim, you see a turtle and squid, among many intricate corrals and colorful fish. The ocean is alive, bursting with so many creatures and vivid colors. It looks like an underwater metropolis, something out of a futuristic movie. You swim up to the pink beaches and admire its vivid color made from red microscopic organisms on coral reefs. This place is otherworldly.

After a full day of snorkeling, you watch the sunset and watch hundreds if not thousands of bats leaving another island. They flew over you, creating an eery, spotted sky. They were silent and graceful. As the sky darkens, the stars explode around you. You ask the boat captain if you can sleep on the bow of the boat. You gather blankets and settle in for the night. You lose track of how many shooting stars you see. The wind howls around you from so many directions, sometimes warm, sometimes chilly. Sometimes you smell the gas from the boat, then sometimes you smell the crisp, fresh, thick air of the ocean. You see the Milky Way clearly, the boat rocking you back and forth. You have deep thoughts as you look at the sky, everything in your life is put into perspective as you stare, tears filling your eyes with happiness. You drift off to sleep, and every so often, you adjust your blankets and open your eyes to the magic above you. Your eyes grow wide as you delight in the millions of stars above you.

The next morning before sunrise, you are wakened to the sound of the boat’s crew pulling the two anchors up, up, up. The ropes are thick and heavy; it takes three men to pull them. As they pull the rope up onto the boat, you realize how deep the water is as the rope piles up, coiling around you. The mystery of the ocean amazes you. Watching the moon rise, the boat charges toward Padar Island, where you will hike to the very top and overlook the island and ocean, showing the expansion and beautiful, unique shape of the island.

Later that same day, you alight onto Komodo island, and two island guides warn you to stay with the group. They remind you that Komodo dragons are fast and dangerous, and if you make noise, step away from the group, or walk off the path, you could die. One guide leads us down the path, and the other is at the end of our line, protecting the whole group. Both guides hold large walking sticks that double as weapons. As you walk the one mile loop, you see 9 Komodo dragons! They are massive! You can’t believe how large, thick, and fast they are. You watch two Komodos sitting at a watering hole start fighting; their reflexes are instantaneous and they gracefully and quickly throw their weight around.

Later that day, the boat returns you to Flores Island, and you take a dip in your hostel’s pool. The view from the pool is jaw-dropping. Indonesia is truly paradise.

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Bali Island

You take a deep breath as you walk down the street in Ubud, a small city on Bali Island. You just finished a yoga class, and now you’re walking back to your hostel, enjoying the Bali vibe and exploring the city. There’s gorgeous architecture with Chinese and Hindu influence all around you. While the western and central islands of Indonesia are mostly Muslim and the eastern islands are Catholic, Bali is uniquely Hindu. You note the small little offerings in the front of every home and shop for the Hindu gods. The gates of homes, shops, and temples have ornate designs of gods, covered in vines and other foliage. Old walls hug the street, moss and greens hanging from the trees. You walk across a bridge over a lush valley, creek, and old stone staircase inching to the bottom. You walk from boutique shop to boutique shop, making sure to take off your shoes before you enter, respecting the cleanliness of the space. Bali is your last island in Indonesia. You don’t want to leave.