Desert Island Diving

On the north side of Lombok Island, Indonesia, is a trio of little desert islands in the South China Sea. The rain clouds from Lombok rarely make it across the strait. Here, the skinny cows tear at the dry grass under the watchful cones of Mount Rinjani on Lombok, and Mount Agung on Bali. This is a diver's paradise. Colourful corals, shimmering fish, and fantastic underwater visibility have made these little beach islands the hottest spot on the Indonesian tourist circuit: these are the Gilis.

Once my surf-induced sunburn was soothed enough to permit travel, Dan and I took a private van (public transport is available, but difficult) from Kuta Lombok to the ferry port at Bangsal, on the north coast. Bangsal is the worst. Endless touts and misinformation reign free, coupled with an unreliable ferry schedule, can frustrate even the most zen traveler. We managed to buy a ticket from the wrong outlet for a boat that wouldn't be sailing that day. Eventually, we joined forces with an Italian family and paid to have a boat take us to Gili Air, a kilometre or less away, because at some point, it is worth $4 each to give in and speed up the process.


Also I dislike Bangsal because it is the source of the unfortunate large volume of garbage that spoils the otherwise beautiful sea around the Gilis. Bangsal, you suck.

We'd planned to either move from Gili Air to Gili Trawangan (the party island of the three), or, more ambitiously, all the way to Ubud, on Bali - but the planned two dives turned into a more satisfying five, and three nights became six. The islands aren't off the beaten path - they're full of tourists, but the pace of life is relaxed, and the children aren't the smooth-talking, guilt-tripping bracelet sellers that they are in Kuta. So we stayed.

The day we arrived, we stopped for lunch at the Karang hotel, and struck up conversation with the managers/dive masters of the attached Karang Divers, Dante and Alex By the next morning, we'd decided to dive with this shop. They seemed enthusiastic, friendly and experienced, and (the benefit of going with a new shop) the equipment looked top notch.






We talked over potential sites, and ended up going to:
- Shark Point, where we got to put our new deep diving skills to use. No sharks, sadly, but lots of turtles.
- Halik Reef, very popular with snorkelers. Its a semi-wall with beautiful coral and lots and lots of fish. 
- Sunset, which features rare hundred-year-old coral growth (so pretty!) and where I SAW MY FIRST SHARK! (outside of an aquarium, clearly.) We had a good long look at a white-tipped reef shark as he circled around and away from us. Quite small (4-5 feet) and not dangerous, but still a shark. Lots of turtles on this dive as well.
- Hans Reef, which has lots of colourful coral at the shallow end, and a sandy deep section.
- And finally, our first night dive in the harbour area. Really neat to try diving by flashlight. At times, it was disorienting, but by no means scary.

After five dives, including our first night dive, I am happy confirm all of our first impressions - thanks, guys, for a great week!

I was sad to leave Indonesia - it charmed me, with its cheerful, generous people, its tasty food (mie goreng, how I miss you!) and its stunning landscapes. I know I'll be back - there's so much left to explore!

S.

Lombok - Kuta

By the time we made it to Kuta Lombok, we were exhausted. We'd travelled for 28 hours across thousands of kilometres, the equator and a time zone. We nearly missed our first flight because our shared taxi from Toba left late. We ran into the airport literally fifteen minutes before the flight left, expecting to be refused... thankfully Indonesian airlines are much kinder about these things than their Canadian counterparts.

Then our connecting flight from Jakarta to Bali was denied landing, so we had to wait for two hours back on south Java. It was the end of the ASEAN conference and we think it was someone important leaving, possibly Barrack Obama. When we DID land, it was 2 am, so after searching in vain for a hotel, we took a taxi to the ferry port an hour away and caught the 4 am ferry to Lombok.

There were wide, cushioned benches for the four hour crossing - I've never slept so deeply in a public (and dirty) place!

We took a shuttle to Kuta Lombok, found a room easily and collapsed onto the bed.

Kuta, in fact southern Lombok in general, is gorgeous. The coast is a series of curved bays with white sand linings, guarded by steep, green hills. The waves sweep in unhindered from the Indian Ocean, crashing against dark, craggy rocks at the mouth of each bay.

We spent a fantastic day touring around in the hills to the west of Kuta on a rented scooter, ogling the beaches and drinking in the peace of the coastal back roads. Between beach turn-offs, it's just tiny villages and wallowing water buffaloes.

We took advantage of the surf situation and signed up for a lesson - the waves are huge and we'd never surfed a reef break, so we were nervous of going without an expert.

What I learned: reef breaks and big waves are hard! I caught a few waves and stood up comfortably, but mostly I got tossed around by the waves. The second half, after a rejuvenating cookie break on our little fishing boat, was much more successful.

Tragically, although the surfing went well, I got the worst sunburn ever. Ever. It hurts thinking about it!

S.

Sumatra - Volcanoes

To pick the story back up, Dan and I and Jo and Janosch took public transportation - the infamous bemo - from the jungles around the Tangkahan elephant sanctuary, through dirty, congested Medan and southwest to the Karo Highlands, to a town called Berastagi.

Here, as I wrote in the last post, we met Irana and her family on our first day in Berastagi. On the second morning, Dan, Janosch and I decided to brave the misty, chilly weather and climb Gunung Sibayak, the smaller of two nearby volcanoes.

The climb up was reasonably easy: at first, our path was up a steep, but wide road, winding up the mountainside from the bemo stop that sits at the base. Most of the way up, the road ends with a wide tarmac (where buses stay, during the high season, maybe?) and there isn't much clue as to where the path picks up. Fortunately, another guest at our hostel had given us the secret: off to the left, behind an empty and rather forlorn concrete pool (why this is here, I just don't know) is a small path that leads up the loose, chalky embankment and into the jungle.


The jungle path was steep and full of slippery tree roots, but was clear and even had occasional concrete stairs. As we climbed through the palms, the smell of rotten eggs, of sulfur, became stronger and stronger - at first, we thought the scent was carried by the clear, rushing streams, but then we emerged onto a treeless, rocky stretch, and we saw the steam.

Just a bit farther up was a set of fumaroles - volcanic vents, gushing out endless clouds of hot steam, stinking of sulfur. After years and years, they've left neon yellow stains and a white film over the rocks.

After the fumaroles, we saw the crater - not, as I was hoping, a smoking hole leading to boiling lava and certain death, but rather a blocked crater. The sharp edges swoop down to a bowl filled with shallow and dirty looking water, where people have rearranged rocks to spell out names. The sides of the crater are maybe a hundred metres or less where we approached, but opposite, the black rock soars right up to Sibayak's summit, several hundred metres above us.

We scrambled up the thin, craggy path to the summit (2212m above sea level) and then after a rest and a chat with some hikers from Medan, we started down.

The route down also featured concrete steps - lots of them - but they've now eroded so that the middle is a deep pool. So basically we hopped from concrete ledge to concrete ledge down the mountainside. When the steps gave up, it was muddy and full of those slippery tree roots. Down is always so much harder than up!

At the bottom, we waded (literally) through a bamboo plantation - interesting to see the men slicing the timber into strips for weaving right on site. We skipped the hot spring at the bottom and grabbed a bemo home.

The next day, we left Berastagi for Lake Toba, to the southwest. We took a series of bemos (one of which was terrifying - I can handle the average speedy Sumatran driver, but this was the scariest ride we've had yet!) and a ferry, and landed in Tuk-tuk, on a little jutting peninsula off the main island in the lake.

Toba is the world's largest volcanic lake: as in, the lake is a volcano crater. It is absolutely massive. One tiny stretch of the lake took us a half hour to cross by ferry.

We spent four nights on the island, called Samosir, in a laid-back hostel. I'm sure that if we hadn't had a flight booked, we'd have been there far longer. It's the kind of time-free, easy-going place that draws you in and lets you linger. We met lots of new friends at the hostel to drink and chat with. We rented a scooter for a day and drove all the way around the island (water buffalo and waving children everywhere! Amazing.) and tried all the local delicacies.

At the end of our time in Tuk-tuk, it was also time to leave Sumatra, and I was a bit heartbroken. It was (and still is, as I write this over a month later) the best place we've had the privilege to visit in our travels. We'll be back!

S.

Sumatra - New Friends

Although it was Sumatra's incredible wildlife that first drew us to the island, it ended up being the people we met - locals and fellow tourists - that really stole our hearts.

We met Jo and Janosh in the back of a van on the bumpy ride from Bukit Lawang to Tangkahan. Crushed together into an almost nonexistant backseat, Jo and I started chatting about everything imaginable to pass the time. We ended up traveling for over a week together after leaving Tangkahan, and it was an absolute pleasure. It's pretty special to meet people in the middle of a jungle who you'd be happy to befriend in real life! Thanks, you two, for the company, the conversations and for an excellent time!

In the highland town of Berastagi, we met more friends - this time, a local family.

I felt like I was coming down with a cold, so Dan and I decided to take a day off to rest and do some errands around town. We had lunch at a little bakso (meatball soup) restaurant on the main street - this is where we met Irana.

Irana is an English teacher. She has a classroom in her home and gives classes and private lessons. She was in Berastagi with her two sons, leaving Sunday morning church service when her youngest son, Joey, spotted my bright blue rain jacket as Dan and I walked up the street. They ducked into a store and came out a few minutes later, and there we were again, heading into the restaurant. So they decided they would strike up a conversation.

We found that in Sumatra, everyone wanted to practice their English. There aren't as many tourists here as the more southerly islands - Bali or Lombok or Java - and so the locals don't bother with trying to sell you things. When they yell, "Hey Mister! What's your name?" they actually want to know, especially the young people. They're friendly and as curious to learn about our lives as we are to learn about theirs.

On this particular day we were interviewed by two roving groups of students for an English class project (and posed in about a hundred photographs). One group approached us while we were talking to Irana, who ended up helping them tra

nslate their questions and our answers.

By the end of the whole affair, which commandeered the back of the bakso joint for the better part of a half hour, Irana offered to take us back to her home in nearby Kabanjahe, to talk more and to meet her family.

We took the bus to Kabanjahe and walked to the home that Irana and her sons, Joey and Gideon, share with her sister, Datna, and their mother, who introduced herself to us only as 'Mama.' Datna met us at the door and ushered us with a wide grin into the classroom, its green-painted walls plastered with student projects and photos and English vocabulary lists. We all sat cross-legged on the floor. Datna teaches public school and speaks English fluently as well, so we slipped into an easy conversation that lasted out the afternoon.

While we talked, the sisters brought out a bowl of leaves and tobacco and introduced us to a Karo social custom : sirih (pronounced Seeree), also known as betel nut.

According to the internet, chewing the betel nut is a custom throughout quite a lot of Southeast Asia, but this is the only place where we've seen it in action. You take a wide, flexible betel leaf and add calcium paste and the ground up betel nut. You fold it up into a neat little package and chew it, spitting the crimson saliva into a communal bucket.

When it's good and chewed, you take a wad of loose tobacco and dab it at your gum line to soak up the excess saliva. Between the betel nut, which is a mild stimulant, and the tobacco, I was buzzed. The Karo people, the predominant tribe in this area of Sumatra, use it as social lubricant. It works - it made us all very talkative. And it numbed my sore throat! Bingo!

Irana showed us photographs of the Karo people around the time that the Dutch began exploring Sumatra - pictures of the houses on stilts with great swooping roofs, of the proud-looking tribal chief staring into the camera, wearing a European-style jacket but still a sarong and traditional headdress. Datna showed us a video of her wedding dance, less than a year ago. We admired her clothes: a long-sleeved shirt of red lace, and innumerable sarongs and scarves, beautifully patterned, culminating in the folded headscarf.

By this time, a few of Datna's students had shown up to meet us and to practice speaking with us - friendly teenagers. They were delighted - as we were - when Datna left for a few minutes and then reappeared with a pile of scarves and that beautiful red shirt in her arms - dress up time!

Within a few minutes, they had us dressed to the nines, me in the red shirt and a soft sarong and headscarf, Dan in a sarong and headscarf. They buzzed around us, tucking and wrapping and laughing.

We posed for photos outside the front door - and caused a traffic jam as everyone in the neighbourhood slowed down to wave and snap pictures.

I can't say for sure, but we might be married as far as Karo custom goes!

Datna and Irana's mother came home in the evening - an energetic, graceful woman who took it upon herself to teach me Batak dancing and who, through her daughters' translations, told us about her childhood in what is now a preserved ethnic village near Berastagi. Later, we all had dinner - rice and vegetables and fish. Absolutely delicious!

Irana and Datna and Mama, thank you SO much for your hospitality, for opening up your home to us and giving us such an incredible experience! We could not have asked for a better lesson on Karo culture and we'll be sure to keep in touch with you!

S.