Gunung Gede

After arriving in Jakarta on my way home to the US, I had a couple of days to kill. Feeling oppressed by the Jakarta heat and smog, I high-tailed my way to Cibodas, a small village on Puncak Pass, in the Sunda region of Java. The main attraction here? Cold! On the side of a mountain (Gunung Gede, a volcano and national park) the temperature is chill enough to require long sleeves and blankets at night. I had forgotten what cold feels like.

After convincing a couple of Indonesians to give me a lift from Bogor to Cibodas, I found myself a hostel (I was the only guest - mid-week is slow in this tourist town) and walked the 2 km down the hill to a small town, where I wandered and finally found a nice restaurant to sip on some mango juice.

On the way back up the mountain (after an unfortunate incident with some monkeys who very aptly stole my sweet dessert as I was drinking juice) I started talking to a young Indonesian man on his way home after praying at a mosque. He kindly invited me to his home, where I got to meet his wife and younger brothers. After some small talk, he decided that since I had no religion this was a good opportunity to try and convert me to Islam. Suddenly, my shaky language skills became shakier - I haven't learned important religious words like "hell" and "salvation". I finally managed to politely excuse myself from the house, and crashed into bed.

The next morning I got up and started hiking up the mountain. The national park actually contains two peaks - Mount Gede and Mount Pangrango. I decided to hike Mount Gede (2,958 m asl). I walked past gorgeous waterfalls, ran into a random birder from France, enjoyed the steaming hot springs, and finally scaled a terribly eroded mountaintop to sit above the crater and enjoy myself, before practically jogging down in order to get home before dark (which didn't happen, but thankfully I ran into the birder on the way down and we walked back by the light of his headlamp.

Photos!

Water Quality Field Work

Neli and I picked up our newly-purchased motorbike in Ketapang (we had it shipped from Pontianak) and met our Gunung Palung counterpart Roni before almost immediately heading to the field to begin our 2 week field campaign. Our goals were twofold: 1) Install rainbuckets (for measuring rainfall) in all villages, and 2) Choose water quality sample sites, including taking preliminary water quality measurements.

Just so you don't die of nervousness (did they manage?) we suceeded in both tasks, but everyone was exhausted by the demanding travel schedule, rainy weather, and huge amounts of equipment we had to carry. This was Neli's first time driving a motorbike in the backwoods for any length of time, and I did lots of walking behind the bike, especially when we had to climb steep slopes in wet weather.

Highlights of this trip included:
1) A day in which I counted a total of 10 leech bites, one of which didn't stop bleeding for ~12 hours
2) Getting mad biceps due to holding myself on the back of a bucking motorbike for hours each day.
3) Bonding (awww...) with Neli and Roni and Tono (who joined the group after ~1 week travel)
4) Acting like a goofy monkey, climbing houses to install the rainfall catchers
5) Learning to make a mean Indomie (the Indonesian version of Ramen)
6) On my day off, learning to ride a motorbike by driving for 6 hours, but forgetting sunscreen, the result of which was a gorgeous farmers' tan for the next month.
7) Watching part of the national park being cut down and burned for shifting rice garden cultivation (yes, this was depressing).

To put words to my stories, I've posted some photos here. Enjoy!

Water Quality

I'm off to the field tomorrow to start water quality measurements - I'll be back to a computer in about 2 weeks.

Planet Fit

As you probably know, I keep myself sane in Pontianak by going to the gym on a daily basis. Since I'm there so often, I've made friends with a few of the students and instructors - a fabulous break from work and the world of science!

When I'm at the gym I either run or attend class. While running I try to watch whatever TV shows are available - I particularly like Chinese films, which tend to be smart, funny, and violent all at the same time. These films are subtitled in Indonesian, which I think helps my reading skills - although I have no idea what the actors are saying, since the shows are originally in Chinese! Yesterday I was watching TV at the gym and my favorite commercial yet in Indonesia came on.

Usually Indonesia commercials are very predictable - they are about anti-mosquito spray, or milk for children, or sugar-free additives for adults who don't want to get fat, or noodles, or face whitener. This commercial was advertising a website which proposed to help Indonesians get Green Cards in America. The text was fairly boring: "Live! Work! Play!". But the imagery was outstanding - a large-busted blonde woman in a bright red one-piece exiting a swimming pool...with the video panning to the woman's chest. It seemed so out-of-the-ordinary for Islamic Indonesia, I laughed so hard I had to stop running!

Buying a Motorbike

Today I bought a motorbike. A new, blue, Yamaha. Model Vega R. You can see a photo of a similar bike here. Price tag was about $1,300. I know this sounds a bit crazy, but it will be super-useful for field work - both because mobility is nice, and because transportation is very expensive if we hire villagers to drive us around. The shopping process was mildly entertaining - we checked out Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki before deciding on the Yamaha (which is cheap, durable, and can be repaired easily because most people in Ketapang drive either Yamaha or Honda). Now I need to learn how to drive the bike...