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( About Us ) Traveling around the world since November 2005. Read From The Beginning
( We've already been to... South America, Central America, Africa... ) Indonesia is next!
All images and texts are original and we ask not to reproduce them without our agreement.
©stusik_i_sharik

After a hard day of work on the river I got a call from my family. "So… What have you been doing today?" I could hear my mom typing as she spoke. "Washed elephants, chased hornbills." She wasn't surprised at all. When I told her about a week ago, I was sitting only a few hundred meters away from an erupting volcano, she didn't even flinch. It must have been hard for her to accept the lifestyle we so suddenly and irreversibly fell into, that we will never be normal, but at least now she accepts my day to day adventures as simply my regular life. She then gave the phone to my fourteen year old sister who informed me of Michal Jackson's untimely death. "You really didn't know! What planet are you on?!" Apparently not the same one she is on…




Seblat Gallery

This might be the last photo I ever take. I'm shooting Anak Krakatau volcano, but it's more like it is shooting me. I hide behind my camera and chase away thoughts that any moment now a half molten lava rock, catapulted from the depths of the majestic and deadly crater, will pulverize me and I'll die a foolish yet romantic death. Sharp pumice stone – old broken magma, digs into my backside, and now I'm on to scrutinizing my attire – white shorts are hardly an appropriate wardrobe choice for staking out a volcano. I think about the charcoal black beach surrounding the island when the red glow I do not dare take my eyes off intensifies and finally a spray of sparks and then a fountain of flaming boulders spews into the sky, makes an impressive arch, and hurls red hot fireballs right at me. My heart skips a beat as I watch them fall and roll down the slope.

We spend two hours after sunset sitting on the edge of Krakatau, the old crater, watching its child (Anak = child) grow with every eruption like a termite mound, and came back before sunrise to ooh and aah at it some more. Sunrise turned out to be the best time to truly witness Krakatau in all its raging glory. During the day the acidic thick gray smoke is an impressive sight on its own, and during the night angry red jets of fire are a striking spectacle like no other, but during that time in between there is just enough light to see both the smoke and the eruption itself.

This is not my first volcano and I hope it's not my last. I've seen the red fury with which our earth boils and smelled its vinegary breath. I've come close enough to be swallowed and walked away just in time to be back again. It's worth it.




Anak Krakatau Gallery

masha_kvashonka


vdinets

A night bus brought us to the to Kerinci National Park turnoff. The town was dead, only at the junction a roaring tiger cast in concrete was leaping over its own stand. We argued at length where to put our tents, and finally set up camp under the statue.

Surprisingly, barely anybody noticed our two little tents hidden in the tall grass surrounding the monument. We were woken up by the roar of motorbikes rushing by, and climbed out as if we were the newborn cubs of the cement tiger itself. The villagers didn't seem to be too surprised – this might have solved the puzzle of where white people come from.

A short breakfast, a ride on a tomato truck, and we were in the forest. There was nobody in the ticket office, so there was nobody to pay an entrance fee to. That was just fine with us.

Kerinci didn't disappoint. Gibbons announced their presence in the canopy as soon as we entered the forest, and I almost brought one down when it lost its grip on a branch frightened by the flash of my camera. Orange leaf monkeys let me get much closer, even though they sat relatively low and watched me tear through the jungle towards them.




We climbed all day and set up camp - one two-person tent for the four of us. Our little home was very cold but also very cozy. We didn't bring much food, but as little as there was of it, it still required cooking. That turned out to be the biggest challenge of all – every square millimeter of forest around us was soggy and virtually impossible to burn. Shurik slaved for over three hours, using, among other things, a sleeping mat as bellows, before he was able to heat up some water Vova had found in a puddle in the forest.

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When I married him on the 4th of July I did have fireworks in mind... :)

On our last day together Rick took us to Lake Maninjau for a hike full of leeches and lime green lizards. The man knows all the best spots! Even the forest trails that have small local bars to have a cold beer on the way. We stopped to see if we could find some rafflesia flowers (biggest in the world) in Bukittinggi, but the only two we found were a dead one, and a bud that would take at least 2-3 weeks to open. Bummer.




Traveling with Rick we finally could stop and soak in the local architecture. Minangkabau, the local folks, are so obsessed with bulls that even the roofs of the houses are shaped as bullhorns. According to the old legend, a Javan prince once had a quarrel with a local princess. They were to get married, but she changed her mind, so he sent in the troops. But the smart Minangkabau suggested settling the dispute with a bullfight instead. Javans agreed and sent in a huge mean fighting bull, while Minangkabau sent a tiny little calf with razor sharp knifes strapped to its teensy horns. The story gets a little vague here, but apparently the calf was so hungry it tried to suckle from its male (!) opponent and slashed his belly open. Since then the bulls here are held in high regard as the symbol of Minangkabau cleverness.



West Sumatra Gallery

We were looking for a cheap guesthouse, but found a job. Well, almost. Being joined by new travel mates always opens up doors to new ways to travel that I've never even considered. In Padang, our search for cheap accommodation was coming up with nothing but tired feet and sweat stains, so I entered a school to ask them if they knew something useful. Masha came along. "Maybe we can give them an English lesson in exchange for accommodation," she suggested. I grabbed the ball and ran with it. Soon everybody in the building knew about the two white girls who wanted to teach English. An English teacher was summoned, but before she got to us we were introduced to the principal and a physics professor. It was just as well – Ewan, the physics professor, spoke better English than the English teacher.


kindergarten children of Padang

The school day was over, and we were ready to exploit our natural gift of yakedy-yak (in three to four languages if needed) the next day, but it turned out that it would be a "teacher enrichment" day, and children wouldn't have classes. Nevertheless, Ewan took us in. He lived on the outskirts of Padang in a nice house with his wife and parents-in-law. The house was a simple Muslim home with few decorations and a prayer or two on the walls. Ewan's mother-in-law has decorated the thorny bushes outside the house with empty eggshells, and those, from afar, looked like bulbs of white flowers.

But our fraternizing with the locals didn't end there.

Expats are often the most useful people in a foreign country. While waiting for the boat from the city of Padang to Siberut Island, we stumbled upon Rick, an ex-Australian, who usually takes people to a gibbon sanctuary and arranges surfing vacations. He told us the time we had allotted for exploring Siberut was insufficient as it takes a lot of time to get around the island on the little boats using rivers as highways and costs a pretty penny. The deeper you go in, the more interesting it is, but the rivers were quite dry and the indigenous tribes in the bush are pretty fed up with tourists. We had enough of that in Africa.

I was not against seeing gibbons, and Rick looked like he needed some post-Soviet drinking buddies who wouldn't mind discussing politics over vodka - his boat mysteriously gone up in flames a few days ago, a short time after a disagreement with the local government over some touchy environmental issues. We got along great and spent two nights in Rick's guesthouse while island hopping in the day and drinking Smirnoff and beer in the evenings. This is the first and last time I'm chasing vodka with salted limes.


another unexpected though welcome guest at Rick's house

Padang Gallery

Bus to Bukitingi. Rest stop. Dinner time.
I came up to the waitress in a poorly lit eatery with plastic flowers on the tables. "Nasi goreng?" The restaurant owner stepped in immediately: "Yes? Please?"
-Do you have fried rice?
-Yes.
-Do you have fried noodles?
-Yes.
-Can I have two plates of fried noodles?
-Yes. Please.
-Terima kasih (thank you very much)
We waited but soon the waitress came back: "Sorry. No orange juice." Um... I didn't order that but whatever. "OK, I'll have a coke." The waitress brought the coke and we sipped on it waiting for our food. We waited and watched other bus passengers get, eat, and finish their meals. We waited until the bus driver came and told us to get back on the bus. And finally, we waited until next morning to get something to eat.

Thomas' leaf monkey

For my birthday I asked for a redhead. The town was full of cute guys with guitars who kept winking at me, but I had my heart set on the forestman – orangutan.

The night before took us exploring abandoned shacks, closed forest trails, and bat caves. I treaded carefully – a month of New York sidewalks left me worried more about how my shoes look than what they are stepping onto. But Bukit Lawang – home to the orangutan sanctuary - was an easy enough transition. It is one of the very few places on Sumatra that do see some bule, white tourists, and even though the main street is a wide river crossed by long narrow hanging bridges, it has enough semi-flat sidewalks not to break your ankles on.


Asian false vampire bats we found in an abandoned building at night

Walking to the sanctuary, we saw our first orangutan. It was on the other side of the river, in low light, but thanks to my new flash and flash extender (which looks monstrously impressive, though adds over half a kilo to my now 450D + 500mm setup) I was able to get him and his pineapple.



North Sumatra Gallery

( Speaking of my camera… )

Quilt of green rice field patches below us. The stewardess speaks English, but I cannot understand a word she is saying. The airport bathroom has an adjacent prayer room. My mother made us leave our wedding rings behind – they have Hebrew writing on them. We are in Indonesia. This is as far as you can go before you start going back. Twelve-hour time difference and the worst jetlag I've ever felt (I never get jetlagged!)

I'm on my guard in a new country, belonging to a brand-new continent for us, but it looks more and more like there is no reason – people are genuinely nice, curious, and generous. Bikers stop and take pictures with us on their cellphones. Hitchhiking is easy enough even though we are now four. On Sumatra we had a scheduled rendezvous with Maria Oleneva (masha_kvashonka) - the princess of the Russian hitchhiking scene. Having been traveling for the past year, on and off, with vdinets - a knight and all but pioneer of independent travel, and hitchhiking in particular, in the former Soviet Union, I wasn’t surprised how well they fit in with us.

The Russian hitchhiking community is, in a way, what I want. If there is anything I miss when traveling, it’s friends. Friends I can call up and meet up with because they live nearby. But how can one have that when one lives in the world? Well, the sense of "nearby" changes for sure – being in the same country should be nearby enough to meet up for a beer. This is what Masha has – she travels, and so do her friends. For them being on the same continent, let alone the same country, is enough reason to cross borders and thousands of kilometers to see each other.

last day in Morocco and Africa

Fes Gallety

Dades Gorge Gallery

Azrou Gallery

medicine man pouring tea at the market

Merzouga gallery

Amtoudi Gallery