Indonesia - hiking Mount Klabat

Jungle paradises are hot and sticky. Our 4000 foot high trek up an ancient volcano was no exception. At the top guys were videoing themselves wringing sweat out of their shirts. It was a hard, steep hike. The heat and humidity really weighed heavy especially on the out of shape and ill prepared folks. We spent a lot of time catching bugs and counting epiphytes in trees. On the way down we spent time learning about the crops in the farming area at the base of the mountain. A lot of stuff is intercropped, or grown together. There were Coconuts, Taro, Tapioca, Coffee, Cinnamon, Banana, Corn, wild Cucumber and several others. I can hardly wait to get out on the Island tomorrow and go snorkeling. We will spend three days there and I should be able to dive twice a day. I hope to snorkel whenever I'm not diving.

Indonesia - Tangkoko Nature Preserve

After waiting and waiting and waiting for our Indonesian drivers to come, we loaded up the vans and headed across the island to the real jungle area. Along the way we stopped at a rice farm so our driver could take a picture with the "whities." Acres and acres of muddy rice paddies spread across the valley. The home area had large flat paved areas where the rice is dried. Then it is carried into a building I didn't see and the husk is removed somehow. The roads are crazy here. Traffic seems disorderly and chaotic but in reality it is well timed and flowing. People just take more risks. Sometimes it doesn't turn out so well, as we saw when we came across a truck on its side. People were a little more careful in the mountains where the roads were winding and steep. The drops off the side were very long, and the road was only one lane wide most of the time. The sides of the mountains were covered in coconut palms. I hear that half of the jungle in Indonesia has been destroyed for the cultivation of coconut oil to sell in America.

After two hours bumping, winding, and sweating we arrived at "Mama Roos" (meaning Rose) bungalows. We ate a traditional meal of rice, vegetables with quail eggs, tempeh and tofu, perkedel (basically a deep fried paddy made from potatoes and onions) and the strangest water bottles.

After lunch we prepared to hike through the jungle. We were instructed to wear long pants with socks over the ankles to keep out the bugs. I decided to try it in shorts and see what the difference was. We hiked over five hours in the jungle. It was a lot like some places in Florida, but the plants and animals are totally different. The heat and humidity was the same though. I love the warmth. We saw two troops of Macaque monkeys. They wandered all around us. The kids were playing in the little trees, bending them down and hanging from them. Further on we saw a red knobed hornbill. They have no micro hooks in the fibers of their feathers that allows the feather to interlock. That means that the air flows through a lot easier and they make a noisy whooshing sound when they fly. We also saw a rather shy marsupial called a Cuscus. It was like a big possum, very dark in color with hair on it's prehensile tail. The climax of our walk was a huge strangler fig tree. It had totally destroyed it's host and you could climb inside like a jungle gym. I climbed about 60 feet high on the inside of the tree. On the way back we hiked in the dark. At a certain tree we stopped and saw Tarsiers. Those little buggers are really small. Supper, worship, and a shower were all in order. The shower and toilet arrangement was quite strange. All the showers in Indonesia have a bucket with a scoop. In some situations it's so you can mix scalding hot water with cold water and then dip it over yourself. In the Tangkoko bungalows it was because there was often not enough water pressure to get water out of the shower head. So it came from a lower faucet into the bucket. The toilet was flushed by pouring water into it.

In the morning we woke up to roosters crowing and a massive critter banging around in the wall next to my bed. Ivan, Seth, and I started planning our next trip here as a way to wake up. At 6:30 we went for a bird walk and saw several different types of birds. All of them were unique and different than what I've seen before. We had to describe and ID at least 6 of these for our assignment here. I think I want some binoculars now. It's frustrating to share three pairs with 20 people. On our walk we met a local man and his two kids. He knew a lot of the birds in English and helped us ID them. Matthew Wilson gave the little boy, probably 4 years old, his binoculars to play with. The little guy loved it, and wouldn't give it back. We all laughed when he decided he needed to use the bathroom. He needed no privacy, and seemed quite proud of his show.

At breakfast I was pleasantly surprised to see that they fry eggs here the way I like to have them fried. I also figured out how to properly eat langsat fruit. For church we walked down to the beach. On the way we found a flying lizard, and we spent some time catching butterflys. The beach is black volcanic sand. There were dozens of boats out past the surf. They were platforms for night fishing. We saw them through the trees all lit up as we walked out of the jungle the night before. We sat together under the shade and several different people led out in discussions on the adult Sabbath school lesson. Even in outdoor church I had a hard time sitting still, so I analyzed the wave patterns and saw a rip current that was consistent enough to be worried about. When I got tired of that I noticed that the beach was alive with little hermit crabs. Ok, they wernt little, they were tiny. The smallest I saw were a few millimeters long. The discussion was rewarding, and the spiritual food filling, but as soon as we were done I raced for the water with my mask. Ivan was the only other one who had brought a mask. We were told that this beach was dead, and there would be nothing to see. As soon as I hit the water I saw an explosion of life. The sound of coral eating fish rang in my ears, and bright colored fish darted everywhere. The reef was incredibly shallow, and soon others in our group were stubbing toes and scraping their legs. With a mask on I could see what I was doing and avoid getting hurt, but when I took it off to loan it to a friend I kicked a coral and cut my ankle. After awhile we got moved down the beach to the place that had no coral. Dr. Snyder was surprised I had found a reef. I looked around at our new spot a few minutes walk down the beach and found the edge of the reef. So now the group could play in the water without getting hurt, and I could snorkel. I was pretty stoked. I shared my mask around with several people. It was way too cool to not let others see it. That way I was able to soak up some sun, and see some really cool fish. After while we came back on shore and built bible scenes from debris and then we went around and tried to guess what everyone else had done. After that I went for another swim and spent a lot more time under the water trying to interact with more fish.

We hiked back to the bungalows and on the way we walked through the troupe of black crested Macaques again. One little guy in a tree above us almost peed on one of the guys. After lunch we drove back to Klabat University.

Over all it has been a really good day, and the trees here are pretty sweet. I have a great daypack thanks to dad. Yes mom, I cleaned my cut with some betadine based antiseptic. I had no negative side effects of wearing shorts instead of long pants and socks. You just have to watch yourself so you don't get stung by anything. I was worried about chigger like bugs, but I didn't get any.

Indonesia - Exploring Manado

I began the description of our open market visit in the last blog post. The market was small. It seemed big and due to its labyrinth nature was kind of easy to get lost in. All the aisles were at right angles so it was easy to mentally keep track of where you were. Some of the market was open air, some was inside. The smaller pedestrian only aisles had tarps strung across to provide shade. The bigger streets were crowded with cars, scooters, and horse drawn carts. The horses were small a stocky. I didn't see them carry anything. I think they were there mostly to carry people. My camera stopped working in the market, so now I am carrying my phone for taking pictures.

When ever we walk any where we can almost always hear people yelling "boolay" which means "whitey." We are the only white people I've seen.

Before we left the place we were staying, Dr. Snyder handed everyone a small plastic person toy. We had to give it to someone while we were at the market. The market place dealings were very different from Africa. In Africa the vendors were obnoxious, trying to sell to everyone. If you even acknowledged them they would harass you further. It was not impolite to ignore anyone you didn't want to do business with. Here in Indonesia people would say hi, and then point to their wares. You could smile and say hi, wave, and walk on. It was nicer than Africa, but it took me awhile to get used to. In the pastry and sweet foods section of the market I met a man who said his name was 'Kristyan', at least that is what it sounded like. I think it may have been 'Christian.' We talked about how his product was made. It was a dark brown, rice pudding mixed with thin slices of roasted almond. A spoonful was then placed in a palm heart leaf, and wrapped up. The ends of the palm leaf were used to tie it together on both ends. It was fun to work through the language barrier. He would often call on someone near by for the English word for something. In our 5 minutes of conversation we maybe used 5 English words. Only 2 or 3 of which came from him. I haven't picked up much of the language yet. I keep forgetting the words. Before we left I gave him my plastic toy.

After the market we went back to the University where we are staying and waited to go to the mall. We got a little bit of local currency, 300 thousand Rupiah, which is about 23 dollars. The hour drive to the mall was filled with watching the crazy Indonesian driving scooters shooting in and out of traffic and horns blowing. First thing we did when we got to the mall was to get lunch. The food court was on the fifth level of the mall. I ordered fried noodles. They came with a deep fried egg on top and Krupuk, which is puffed cassava chips. After lunch a couple of us guys helped carry cases of water to our vans, and then we walked to the ocean while everyone shopped. We could see trumpet fish, angle fish, and sheep's head, there were colorful crabs and some weird critter I couldn't see very well. After looking at the ocean we checked out the mall.

After the mall we went to a small shopping area that sold traditional clothing. When we left there we accidentally left the leader, Dr. Snyder, and didn't realize until a ways down the road. We went back to pick him up and then visited a Chinese temple.

We arrived back on campus right at dark. Supper was really good again. We had worship, a debriefing discussion and then headed to bed. Although I had to walk across campus to get enough wifi to upload this post.

Indonesia - Arrival in Manado

The skies were mostly cloudy between Singapore and Manado. Even though I had a window seat I didn't see a whole lot of stuff. I did however see a vapor trail on the inboard portion of the wing as we took off. It was really cool to see what the airflow over the wing actually looked like. As we decended beneath the clouds on our approach to Manado, we could see tall green mountains buttressed by smaller hills. There are tons of palm trees. Lots of tall palms make up the forest around the airport. It had recently rained and the grass had standing water in some places. The second most profuse thing besides the palms trees was cattle egrets. The big white birds were wandering all over the place and even had to fly out of the way of the airplane. We stopped on the taxiway due to some "foreign objects." I really wish I knew what they were. I was too tired to be totally alert to take in all the sites and sounds as we traveled from the airport to the University Klabat campus. They drive on the left side of the road here, and there are tons of scooters and motorcycles. Most of them are the Honda look alike brand.

In the evening we walked around and drew plants in our notebooks. Then we ate supper and went to bed. The showers are gross, and the water stinks. I slept like a rock though, only waking up once. There is no AC so you gotta be comfortable with the heat and humidity. I like it here.

In the morning we went to see the local open air market. The meat selling section was the craziest. You had to really be careful to avoid the spray from people chopping stuff up. There were chickens, fish, pigs, dogs, rats, and bats. You could buy many different types of fruit and vegetables. A lot of the vegetables were familiar. Most of the fruit was not.

It is hard to get Internet here. Leaving for the mall now.

Indonesia - Tokyo to Singapore

The fact that we are going literally halfway around the world began to sink in on this flight. We have come so far, and still have so far to go. The six hour flight from Tokyo to Singapore is followed by a six hour layover before a four hour flight to Manado. We walked through a portion of the airport as a group to get an orientation to the layout. There is lots of things to do in the Singapore airport like shopping and even a butterfly garden and cactus garden. After a walk we headed to Subway. It took roughly 2.5 minutes to make each sandwich. We had 25 people in our group. After eating there was more touring. We found a sunflower garden, several orchid gardens with ponds containing choi and archer fish, and an entertainment center with places to play video games and watch movies. Hundreds of stores line the concourses, and if you walk past a store you were interested in, don't worry because there will be two or three others within a ten minute walk. After finding our gate we split up. Some went to sleep, others went to find the pool, some went to get foot massages, others just went exploring.