After three days of big city traffic and shopping malls we ventured outside of Jakarta. A 2.5-hour drive through rice terraces and tea plantations (and golf courses) took us to the volcano called "Overturned Boat". There we visited two craters, one was dormant and the other was active. Interestingly enough people were allowed inside the active crater, but not the dormant one. In any case, both looked the same to me. To get into the crater we walked for 1km through a misty jungle covered with ferns and tall tall trees to get to the boiling and sulphur-smelling grounds of the active "Domas" crater. The path to the crater looked like a haunted place with all the mist covering the jungle and making it almost invisible. Once in the crater, tourists were buying eggs, which they boiled in the bubbly pools to prove that the water coming from inside the earth was really hot. In the picture, I'm next to one of the pools that spit steam like a little geyser. The crater seemed like the moon covered in steam.
We then had lunch at a very nice restaurant in the nearby city of Bandung, which is known for its outlet malls. So guess what, yet again, we ended up browsing clothes in a mall, but this one had really cheap stuff. Importantly, I bought an umbrella to replace the one that was destroyed in our last tropical storm back in Kuala Lumpur. The new one looks sturdy enough to provide shelter in the certainly numerous tropical rains we will encounter in the future.
After shopping, we drove back to Jakarta. Tomorrow morning we are flying to Yogyakarta.
Mercedes
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