Indonesia Wrap Up

Well I'm finally home from a long trip to Indonesia and suffering from severe jet lag. They say it takes one day per time difference hour so that means I'll feel better in 2 weeks :(

The last portion of the trip was filled with lots of driving and sitting on a boat. Our trip to Ujong Kulon National Park on Peucang Island in the Western most part of Java was advertised as a 2.5 hour boat ride, but ended up being a 6.5+ hour boat ride (each way) due to the type of boat we were on (Traditional vs. Speedboat) and the churning waters, wind and whitecaps of the Indian Ocean. Had we known this we probably would not have traveled that far for a such a short time on the island. We basically got one 3 hour trek through the jungle where we saw more garbage (flip flop cemeteries, bottles, styrofoam...) than wildlife. There was a very nice beach at one point in the trek but we didn't get much time there. Our late afternoon trek did bring us to a herd of buffalo and a dozen or so peacocks but the effort to get to Ujong Kulon vs what we saw and experienced was definitely not worth the time. A Jakarta TV station was filming on the island so it would be interesting to see what kind of angle they have on the story. The fact that most of the wildlife we saw (hmmmm...maybe ALL of the "wild" life we saw in Indonesia) was being fed by humans, makes this not quite the type of adventure I like to experience. Need I say I was a bit disappointed in the human vs wildlife conundrum? Too many people on these islands have pushed the wildlife away. The disregard for clean air and blatant pollution will be Indonesia's demise. How can we stop this nonsense?

I have thousands of photos to download and edit so stay tuned for the visual part of the story and hopefully I'll find more time for reflective type posts about specific sites we visited. Overall the people were very friendly and many strangers stopped us to chat in English, others wanted their photos taken with me (tall, blonde woman really stands out in Asia!).

I'm glad I experienced the wonders of this country but I don't think a return trip is in my future except maybe for Papau New Guinea. If someone can show me a Sumatran tiger in the wild I might reconsider.

Anyone else have any good travel experiences in Indonesia?

CJ