Indonesia 2023. Day 22. The end of the road

 

All good things shall come to an end, and over the next three days I will be wrapping up my visit to beautiful Indonesia and travel half across the world to get back home and my day job.

For starters I had to say goodbye to my friend and trusty travel companion, Irvan. He has been a delight to travel with, and I feel that being a young geologist he has learnt a lot from this old dog. Here is photo of the two of us at Batur caldera; we are standing on the 1963 basaltic andesite lava flow, and I finally got him to smile for a selfie (doesn't he look uncanningly similar to that beloved Mexican actor, Cantinflas?). He has been my voice over the last three weeks, learning to anticipate my wishes and caring for me as if I were his very own grandfather. If you think about it, if her graduate advisor Gayatri is my Research Granddaughter, then Irvan is my Research Great-grandson! 

I see great potential in him as an Applied Geologist, have introduced him to the friends at BMKG as a potential future employee, and will keep reminding them that here is a good man who they should snatch while he is still available. Friends for life!

A quick morning flight brought me back from Bali to Jakarta, where the pollution haze is as bad as it can get. Poor Jakarta. Being a coastal city it should get the ocean breeze to clean up its air from time to time, but it certainly is not happening during the summer. Ah, for the clean air of Sumatra, Yogyakarta in Central Java, or Bali. However, what is bad pollution for the Jakartans might be a research project for one of my students, because I believe there is an AERONET sun photometer here and in three other locations in Indonesia.

Fakhry picked me up at the airport, as on the first day, and was in charge of babysitting me until 2 pm, when I could check in at my hotel. Where shall we go? I wanted to see something of the old Batavia (the name of Jakarta during the Dutch colonial times) so we went to Old City, where the Dutch Government House and other public buildings are located. They are nicely kept in whitewash, and there is any number of museums in them, including a history museum full of old massive furniture, a modern art museum with funky paintings and sculptures, and my very favorite, the Wayang Museum, which contains a priceless collection of the puppets that are such an art form in Indonesia (you might have seen them as shadow puppets). Malaysia and Vietnam also use this type of puppetry, and there have been near wars between the three countries to see who can claim the origin of the puppet theater. I was told by Fakhry that Indonesia has won its claim in International Court (probably at the same time that Peru won the claim to inventing Pisco Sour). Regardless of who gets the original credit, Indonesian puppets are exquisite not only in their workmanship, but also in their variety and richness of theatrical stories (a QR code lets you read the plot associated with each group). It is now lost in time, but the comedic aspect of some of the puppets suggests that they were used as a venue for political and social cartooning. It must have been a riot being in the main plaza, listening to the puppeteer lampoon the politicians and issues of the day.

From there Fakhry humored me by first having a lunch of Kerak Telor (a rice-coconut omelette that was very tasty), and then driving to a crafts market for me to see the crafts of the country. Turned out that my humble crafts market was in a fancy mall, where the artistic jewels of the country could be had for millions of rupiah at a time (a good thing in the end, because of course I wanted to buy it all). I thought long and hard about buying a jeweled kriss knife, a lethal-looking parang machete, a beautiful weave of Indonesian puppets (only 10 million rupiah), and a real puppet that was maybe half a meter high. The most fun I have had window shopping in a very long time :)

Finally we came to the hotel, and Fakhry promised he would be back at 6:15 pm to take me to the restaurant to have a business dinner with Prof. Rita (the Big Boss), and the top brass of BMKG. Twenty minutes later I was on the street, anxious to spread my wings by looking at the daily life of the people. It is a lively city, and I am glad folks here have the same obsession with food that we have in Mexico. Speaking of food, lunch was a few hours back, so as a true Indonesian I stopped at a hole in the wall for a quick bowl of indome (instant noodles with a fried egg on top), had no problem communicating with the patrón, and once again felt like I belonged in this vibrant country.

Dinner was a joyful semi-official event, with much laughter about the stories I had to tell about my lightning trip through the country. Rita did me the honor of serving  my dish, and then we set down to discuss future directions. I want to keep the relation with the STMKG educational branch of BMKG, so Dr. Suko invited me to plan a guest lecture (via Zoom) at least once a semester. Rita was very agreeable to my idea of creating a BMKG Open-File Report series, and we will give it a try with a report on the West Sumatran fault (edited by Suaidi, and hopefully with the participation of Irvan as a junior consultant) and selected calderas of Indonesia (edited by yours truly).

Finally, I got to discuss the plan of creating a book about current seismic hazard management practices in Indonesia, which has kept my friend Bob chomping at the bit. Rita would like it to be in Indonesian (with a possible translation into English), probably as an e-book with a limited printed run, and would like to have Suaidi, Daryono, and Dimas be the Indonesian editors, and Bob be the American editor. I will follow up with introductory emails next week. After business were completed we moved to the gift exchange part of the proceedings. They got from me a box of Coffee Luwak Cookies (remember, the ones in which the friendly luwak eats the coffee beans and ferments them in its gut before further processing) and a sack of Snake Fruit (I told them the airport would not allow me to bring Red Durians on board and we all had a good laugh). I got some books to whet my appetite for a future visit, and a large print of the Indonesia Geologic Map "for Mr. Bob".

The invitation to come in a couple of years to the Celebes and West Papua, and tour them with Dr. Suko, still stands!

Well, that is it. All that is left is for me to go on my crazy route back from Jakarta to Doha in Qatar (8 hours and 15 minutes flight), a 2 and a half hour layover, Doha to New York (14 hours and 15 minutes), a 9 hour layover, New York to San Francisco (6 hours and a half), and a 2 hour trip via BART and Fabymobile back home. Let's see, that adds up to 42 hours of travel. I am sure you don't want to hear me bellyache about it, so I will bring this story to a close here, while I am rested and cheerful.

Goodbye Indonesia. Terima kasih to a beautiful country and its beautiful friendly people.

Finis

Indonesia 2023. Day 21. Batur caldera and its eponymous lake

 

We saved the best for last, and with the fresh of 8 am headed north toward Batur caldera. Again we had a beautiful drive up the mountain, but this time without the Sunday throng. 

Batur is a very young caldera that went through two major phases of eruption, 30,000 and 20,000 years ago respectively. In a rare display of symmetry, the second, slightly smaller caldera is neatly nested inside the first one, and the rims of both calderas are very neatly preserved. The caldera forming eruptions ejected rhyodacitic and dacite magma. Afterward, leakage from the magma chamber led to the formation of the rather large Batur andesitic volcano inside the second caldera, and over the last two hundred years the volcano has fed several lava flows that have spilled into the moat to the east and the south (1849, 1888, 1904, 1905, 1921, 1926, 1963, and 1968). Irvan and I hiked to the 1963 flow and ascertained that it was a basaltic andesite with about 20% of phenocrysts of plagioclase and clinopyroxene. So the whole system has gone from rhyodacite through dacite through andesite through basaltic andesite as eruptions had followed each other, which suggests to me that the eruption rate has been much greater than the rate of magma regeneration. 

If you are wondering about my encyclopedic knowledge of Batur caldera, let me tell you that there is a geologic museum on site, which is a very fine specimen of good museography and audiovisual displays. Unfortunately we were the only visitors so far, since the number of tourists, both national and international, is much smaller than it was at Beratan (for which I am particularly grateful). If you ask me, Batur is much prettier than Beratan (although the latter is no slouch when it comes to scenic beauty), and I recommend that you don't miss it when you come to Bali.

We had lunch by the lakeside, at a particularly lovely spot that was only marred by the presence of abundant lalat (moscas)! I had a tasty dish of curried fish that had a wonderful flavor of roasted coriander. 

Since Bali is dominantly Hindu, roasted babi (pronounced bah-bee) is a very popular meal. Unfortunately Muslims are not cool eating babi so I have not been able to taste it. Please don't call your date "Babi", because it would be equivalent to lovingly calling her/him "my little pig".

In the afternoon we walked along the beach (check!), and went shopping for a gift for Irvan's Auntie. Hard to believe but my time in Indonesia is coming to an end :(

Indonesia 2023. Day 20. Beratan caldera and its triplet lakes

 

To further clarify my thinking about doing some limnological research on the lakes of Indonesia, my plan for the next two days is to go visit the Beratan and Batur calderas, on the northeast corner of the island. The goal today is to visit the triplet lakes of Beratan, Buyan, and Tamblingan. It is also a good excuse to escape the touristy Denpasar and head for the mountains. Our driver, Hussein, is a cheerful young man who speaks very little English, so Irvan and him kept an easy flow of conversation in Indonesian on the front seats, while I admired the landscape from the back seat. We were on a very narrow mountain road, surrounded by the traditional cloud of scooters and dodging incoming traffic, but Hussein had it all under control and slowly we worked our way to the high mountains.

I was expecting bucolic solitude at Beratan lake, but instead found a thriving tourist Mecca! Apparently I am not the only bule who thought a trip to the mountains would be a good idea; plus it is Sunday and quite a few locals decided to come spend the day in the cool of the lake. 

In my humble opinion the recreational potential of the lake itself is underutilized (although there are small paddle boats shaped like swans that would make a very fine platform for lake research), but the shores are crowded with gardens, coffee shops, Hindu temples, and vendors that are trying to use all possible gimmicks to earn a few rupiah. There is, for example, the wildlife photographer, who for a fee will let you hold one of his many critters and take your photograph. The critters include fat iguanas, large horned owls, giant bats, and a civet. It was bright daylight, so the bats were hanging upside down, cocooned under their huge leathery wings, but they would allow you to open their wings and hold them long enough to take a selfie. The civet or luwak is a smelly animal the size of a large raccoon but with a thick long tail and a very pointy nose. It has a couple of claims to fame: First, the musk of its anal glands was widely used in the manufacture of fine perfumes (think Channel 5), although Channel claims that it has been using synthetic equivalents since the year 2000. Second, although it is a carnivorous animal, it likes to eat coffee beans! This made him a pest to the coffee growers until someone had the brilliant idea of collecting the droppings, which were full of perfectly good seeds that had been stripped of their flesh by the digestive system of the civet, and then roasting them to produce "Luwek Coffee" and market it to the coffee aficionados of the world as a unique delicacy. I am sure Dennis would love to give it a try, but I am putting Luwek Coffee in the same category as roasted dog in Vietnam, or grilled tarantulas in China, and declaring it cibus non gratum. 

Beratan caldera is very young, to judge from the steepness of the caldera wall. It is slightly elongated, like Long Valley caldera in California, and developed a resurgent dome that was soon surrounded by a moat and a lake inside the moat. The resurgent dome "leaked", and a big stratovolcano was built atop it (Mount Bratan), restricting the lake to the north portion of the moat. This steep volcano suffered one flank collapse that separated Lake Beratan to the east, from the rest of the moat lake, and a later lahar split the northwestern lake into Buyan and Tamblingan lakes. So all three lakes are true triplets, born at the same time (plus they are hydraulically connected). And how do I know this? Never underestimate the power of Google Maps!

Legend tells us that a group of people reached the caldera floor, which at the time was a vast plain underlain by fertile volcanic soils. So they started planting crops that did very well indeed. Soon they started planting rice, and the soils were so productive that the people grew rich and barely had to work to make a living. So then they became bored, and the men started playing with their hoes as if they were spears, and instead of turning the soil gently they stabbed it mercilessly. Eventually something had to go wrong, one of the men stabbed a water vein, and water started bubbling out of the ground. And it bubbled and bubbled, until eventually the fertile plain was covered with water. There was much gnashing of teeth and regret, so finally Shiva took mercy on the people, and had a tree grow out of the water and plug the hole. A very holy temple was built at the site and is a major pilgrimage spot for the people of Bali.

We moved from lake to lake, and at noon had a tasty lunch at Terrace d'Lac, perched on the high rim of the caldera, where a local chef has elevated regional cuisine to international standards. We were thus ready to start on the drive back home, happy and satisfied. Little did we know that Hussein was starting down the road to Calvary. OMG, we got snarled in the biggest traffic jam north of Australia! Seems like every Sunday visitor chose this very time to head back down the mountain, so what should have taken an hour took us close to four hours. Indonesians are pretty cool and relaxed drivers, but I can tell you that nerves were frayed and some of the moves were clearly fueled by desperation.

But at the end we made it to Denpasar, had a tasty ramen noodle dinner, and hit the sack.

Indonesia 2023. Day 19. Bali

 

Imagine a spherical cow, calmly chewing its cud and facing to the left. This spherical cow has only one udder, and only one teat on that udder. Now imagine you are a tiny ant moving from the muzzle to the teat of our spherical cow, and you will have a general idea of how big the island of Bali really is. We were coming from the west, entering from the muzzle, and the big town of Denpasar is on the southeast (the udder), and within this town is the tourist paradise (the teat). In other words, there is much more to Bali than just the beach.

Right as you come into Port Gilimanuk you get confronted by a gigantic statue of Shiva, blue with rage and ready to lop off your head with the parang he holds in his hands. He is looking with uncontrolled anger to the back of another gigantic statue, this time of a white Buddha, which looks benevolently over the island and happily ignores angry Shiva. Fortunately Shiva is held back by Brahma and Vishnu, and Hindus and Buddhists can live happily together on this most beautiful island. Today was a great day to come because it is the day of one of the big celebrations of Hinduism, and every temple (and there are temples every hundred meters) is decked in golden draperies, and entire families are dressed in their finest sarongs to attend the services. In contrast with the Muslim sarong, which is sober and of sark color, the Balinese favor bright yellow for the men, and electric magenta for the women (plus other bright colors), so I feel we are being received like royalty.

Once again I have to thank BMKG for asking the Chief of Station at Gilimanuk to come pick us up at the port, and to forgo his holiday by driving us for close to 5 hours to reach Denpasar. Driving is a bit more relaxed than in other parts of Indonesia, and of course the island is beautiful with sights of the Sunda Strait to the south (big waves, so if you are a surfer you will have to bring your board), happy rice paddies in the center, and of course all sorts of interesting volcanoes along the backbone of the cow. As I said before, you find Hindu temples all across the land, which must participate in an annual contest to see who can come up with the most hideous demons to guard their doors. I am sure Balinese children wet their beds until young adulthood, chased by nightmares of Hindu demons hiding under their beds.

Eventually we made it to Denpasar, just in time for passing "The Professor" from one set of BMKG hands to another set of BMKG hands. The Denpasar Regional Center is located in the teat part of the spherical cow, so on the way in we had a good chance to see the tourist part of town, which is very pretty indeed. By the time the transfer was completed it was too late to attempt any further adventures (plus these folks need to get back to their families), so Irvan and I retired to our hotel, dropped off our luggage, and went out to explore the east side on foot. Later that evening we went to the Night Market to look at shops and have a tasty dinner.

Tomorrow we will go explore some of the lakes in the highlands.

Indonesia 2023. Day 18. The long, slow train ride to Banyuwangi

 

Remember those adventure movies where the hero crosses Asia in a rickety old train full of peasants, goats, and chickens? Well, that was not us. True, the wagon was not fancy and the backs of the seats did not recline, but there was AC and assigned seating, and the only ones with bulky packs were the bule, which like us had a hankering for adventure (but who in contrast chose to carry their whole household with them).

The train was slow, and every seat was taken, but the view out the window was serene and lovely. It was like watching the National Geographic channel for 10 hours straight. Indonesian cities are like any other crowded city in the world, but the countryside of eastern Java is particularly lovely and prosperous. It is a rice-growing region (plus a few onions and backyard vegetables), and rice has the distinction that in this climate it can be grown almost anytime of the year. Thus, you have fields that are being harvested, others that are being weeded, others that are being planted, and others that are being tilled (a particularly fun activity since the farmers are knee-deep in mud), all at the same time.

Farmers here live in neat small houses, not in hovels, and clearly every family keeps chickens, a vegetable garden, and potted flowers, which give houses a particularly happy aspect. Every now and then we rode past a mosque, and one in particular seems to have been inspired by the Taj Mahal. The small ag towns, at each of which our slow train stops to let people in and out, have well defined central parks, many of which are in full bloom. There are no real poor in rural Indonesia, for everyone seems to be engaged in doing something, so there is a general feeling of wellbeing all around us.

The volcanic landscape is also breathtaking. Although the train track follows the lowlands, there is always a neat volcano or two in sight. Being a devotee of the landscape mode of Google Maps I can do all sorts of volcanic geomorphology from my train window, recognizing calderas, post-collapse volcanism, flank collapses and their corresponding debris fields, dome fields, and small stratovolcanoes. But before you head here to do your Master’s thesis please be aware that although the geomorphology is pretty straight, getting to look at the rocks is nye impossible. If you are a botanist, however, this is the place for you. Going back to geology, I am puzzled by the paucity of cinder cones or maars, which are ubiquitous in the Cascades or the Mexican Neovolcanic Belt (and many more rhyolitic calderas than in those classic provinces). Am I seeing a fundamental and meaningful difference here?

We treated ourselves to elevenses, lunch, and afternoon tea from the food trolley,  dozed off as the mood came into us, and overall had a great trip. By the time we got to Banyuwangi at 8 pm we were ready for a change of scene, which was provided by our amigos from BMKG, who withy many smiles took us out to dinner (I am going to have to go into a diet when I get back home) and eventually to our lodgings (HALFWAY Home Stay) at a beautiful large house that has been adapted as a home stay retreat. 

Tomorrow we will cross the narrow strait between Java and Bali, for the last hurrah of our trip.

Indonesia 2023. Day 17. Merapi and Prambanan

 

Merapi volcano keeps watch over Yogyakarta, as a stern warrior that is ready to break through its gates at a moment's notice. It is a notoriously temperamental volcano, which in the past has released lava flows, small pumice flows, and numerous block-and-ash flows. It keeps an almost permanent cloud of steam issuing from its summit, and everyone uses it to navigate in a city with many turns and twists (Merapi is due north of Yogyakarta).

Irvan told me that we should start at 5 am, to make sure that we could catch the sunrise high on its shoulders, but unlike his usually punctual self he didn't show up until 6 am, slightly hungover (he doesn't drink, but must have been gallivanting with his amigotes until the wee hours of the morning). By now we are a well-coordinated scootering team, with him doing all the work and I relaxing in the back, soaking in the beauty of Indonesia. It works pretty well, for only once did we almost topple over, and only twice almost got crushed by a big bus and a big truck.

As we were working our way up the mountain, the plume of steam was interrupted by a dark pyroclastic burst, and a lava rushed down the very steep upper slopes (steeper than those of Fuji San). Cool!

We had our breakfast at a small hut up in the foothills, where we were joined by Ilham and Zul, who by now are old acquaintances. Right across the street from where we were enjoying our soupy rice and noodles there is a beautiful, airy and modern villa for sale. Two stories, each 800 square meters, ample grounds, and a basketball hoop. I was curious and found the asking price is 5 billion rupiah. I am sure we could negotiate that down to 4 billion, or US$ 250,000. Now here is my plan, we share the cost between Mellissa and Barry, Helen and Dan, Amanda and Ramón, Julie and Bob, and myself, to the tune of US$ 50,000 each, and we got us a villa on the slopes of beautiful Mount Merapi, with a million dollar view over Yogyakarta. We can also keep a couple of scooters there so we would have wheels when we come visit. What do you think? Sure, there is a bit of risk that an eruption could obliterate us in the blink of an eye, but you don't want to live forever, do you?

We were then joined by Bagas, yet another friend of Irvan, and proceeded to climb the path to Mount Merapi (or rather the first 500 meters) until we were stopped by a barrier placed there to stop boneheaded bule from walking unto a lava flow. We took the obligatory dozen selfies with the volcano in the background, and then Bagas figured that we could go around the mountain and get a lot closer from the southwest side. I like Bagas. He is a sharp young geologist who is observant and knowledgeable. His Master's thesis was doing the stratigraphy and tephrochronology of an archaeological site in the lowlands, and now he is considering going to Holland to pursue a Ph.D. in Quaternary Geology. I tried to dissuade him from the geoarchaeology pathway, and divert him toward geomorphology, but I am not sure I got the message through.

Approaching the volcano from the southwest brought us much closer, at a place where a small village was destroyed a few years back by a block-and-ash flow, the deposits of which were still very much in evidence. I took the opportunity to torture the boys and have them look carefully at the rocks to identify the type of volcanic rock present (a hornblende andesite). The gap through which the pyroclastic flow came down from the volcano was right in front of us, and is one of the areas where the volcano is being more carefully monitored by the Merapi Volcano Observatory.

After a nice cup of coffee, accompanied by large flakes of dried and salted breadfruit, Ilham and Zul said their goodbyes and returned back to the city. It seems they were worried about being exposed for too long to the sun. It was now that I noted that, in spite of it being a warm day, Irvan and Bagas were wearing long-sleeved jackets and hats. Irvan explained to me that they were protecting their delicate brown skin from UV radiation, a line that I have used myself in the past. Go figure.

We glided down the slopes of Merapi toward the lowlands, and I rode behind Irvan totally relaxed, enjoying the vibes and aromas of the Indonesian equatorial forest. Once we reached the main road, our friend Bagas turned to the right, toward Yogyakarta, and we turned to the left, toward the 9th century site of Prambanan, which in its time was the largest Hindu complex in Central Java. At the time Java was largely Hindu or Buddhist, and it was not until the 14th that Islam came to the archipelago. 

You cannot see much of the site from the road, but once you drive into the park, and pay dearly for the privilege of being bule, you enter a magical realm of tall spires and vast courts. The site had fallen apart in the 1,000 years since it was established, but in the 1930's the Dutch made a big push for excavating and reconstructing the site, which today stands as a true Cultural Patrimony of Humanity. After warning Irvan sternly about not touching anything (he is a very tactile kind of a guy), we spent a glorious hour walking slowly among the ornately carved temples, trying to imagine what they looked like when the throng moved fluidly among them. The complex was dedicated to Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu, but of course there were many statuary representations of Ganesh, tropical animals, cebu cattle, and some very busty female figures. Prambanan is definitely a bucket list item!

Lunch was typical of the region, with the ubiquitous white rice, a tasty sweet stew of hard boiled eggs and jackfruit, and a side dish of chicharrón in a red spicy sauce. I don't remember the name, but once again I can vouch for the goodness of Javan cuisine.

At 7:30 pm Gayatri and her family came to pick me up to take me and Irvan out to dinner. I met Henry, Gayatri's husband, who is a petroleum geologist and a lecturer at one of the other universities, their 17-year old daughter Naeva who turned out to be a chatty teenager who told us all about her plans to be a big cat zoologist, and their 5-year old son Denali, who immediately adopted me as grandfather and insisted on having his dinner sitting on my lap. We made for a happy dinner party, and I very much enjoyed making friends with the family.

And tomorrow we take a 12-hour train ride from Yogyakarta to Bali!

Indonesia 2023. Day 16. The Sacred Halls of GMU

 

Today was devoted to academic pursuits. In an amazing example of cosmic convergence, friendships forged over the last 40 years led to me meeting Prof. Gayatri, from GM University. She is an up and coming luminary in paleoseismology, who did her doctoral degree under the direction of Ramón Arrowsmith, from Arizona State University, who in turn learnt everything he knows about geology from me at Whittier College, 40 years ago*. So if Ramón is her "Research Father", I get to be her "Research Grandfather"! We also have a second point of convergence in that Gayatri is a good friend of my buddy Bob Anderson, and a third one in that Rita (the Director of BMKG) is a common friend as well. How is that for "a chance meeting" on the far side of the world?

* Actually, Dallas has a stronger claim than I do here, but since I am the one telling the story I will use poetic license and claim all the credit for myself.

Gayatri picked me up early in the morning at my hotel, and we spent the first hour exchanging news about old friends and driving through the beautiful Gadjah Mada University. I understand this is one of the oldest universities in Indonesia, and in many respects reminded me of my Alma Mater, the National University of Mexico (UNAM). They have schools for just about every area of study important to a developing country (medical, veterinary, science, and of course engineering, to name but a few). The schools of Forestry and Science have their own research forests in their respective backyards, Fisheries has its own research ponds, Medicine has its own hospital, and so on. The Convention Center and the Mosque are beautiful and impressive, and the campus is kept in great shape. Geology is under the umbrella of the School of Engineering, together with Civil, Mechanical, Industrial, and other engineering disciplines, and they just inaugurated their new Engineering tower with super modern classrooms and lab facilities. In the Rock Garden every big hunk of rock has been coated in epoxy "to protect the specimens from the weather", to which I would answer that they are rocks and thus quite capable to withstand rain, hail, and scorching sun; but then again, nobody asked for my opinion.

I was to talk about Earthquake Geology to the Geological Engineering students, and Gayatri was a bit anxious because classes do not start until  next week and she was afraid not enough students would come. She should have not worried because the attendance was great, with something like 60 students and a few faculty in attendance (and we all know how hard it is to convince the faculty to attend a guest lecture). My worst enemy could not accuse me of false modesty, so I will simply tell you that I did a great job and none of the students fell asleep. Gayatri was happy and so was I.

Afterward I had a good chat with the Program Coordinator for Engineering Geology, and then joined Gayatri and some of her students for lunch. I was going to take them out to a Mexican restaurant called Loca Madre but when we got there we learnt that it didn't open until the evening, so then Gayatri pulled local rank and insisted on taking me and the students to lunch at a trendy Indonesian restaurant. The group consisted of two female sophomores, Tessa and Karla, and two male seniors, Yugi and Abid, who are currently doing their final project with Gayatri, digging fault trenches in northernmost Sumatra to expose and study the West Sumatran fault near Aceh. Very pleasant young people who obviously have great admiration and respect for their young clever professor.

Irvan had a day of rest from me, but come evening he resumed his activities as my chaperone. I was going to ride in the back of the scooter, like last night, but by now have steeled my nerves to the wild flow of scooter traffic and quite enjoyed the ride. First we went to the Mexican restaurant where I wanted to take Gayatri to lunch, and with another two of Irvan's friends we had burritos for dinner (the burritos were OK but not great, and it took forever for the one kid to bring our order, one burrito at a time). From there we went to the district of Maliboro, which is the tourist street of Yogyakarta, to go window shopping, buy a couple of colorful Batik shirts, and ogle at tourist traps that sold fake kriss daggers and tiger-hunter pith helmets. It is a good thing I cannot carry anything else in my backpack or I would come back home with a regular museum of exotic stuff. 

Indonesia 2023. Day 15. Jakarta to Yogyakarta

 

Today we were going to treat ourselves to a comfortable train ride, Executive Class, from the capital in West Java to Central Java. The train departed in time, and was as comfortable as we expected, so it was easy to concentrate on the landscape unfolding as we ran along the northern coastal plain, which is a rich agricultural region that easily compares with the Sacramento Valley and produces a good portion of the rice consumed in Indonesia. Stil, Irvan tells me, Indonesia imports rice from Vietnam to meet its domestic demand. I am reminded that this is quite a populous country, with 275 million people eating rice three times a day.

One of the perks of Executive Class is the food trolley, which provided us with indumai or noodles for our elevenses, and for lunch a delicious but very spicy rice bowl with cooked dried beef, a yummy herb I had not tried before, and salsa that would put hair on your chest. Right about lunch time we crossed the low backbone chain of mountains to reach the southern coastal plain. The new geomorphology was a welcome diversion, with happy mountain streams descending from partially eroded but still lofty volcanoes. This is Irvan's home turf, so he enjoyed talking geologic nonsense and boasting of legendary hikes he has done with his buddies. The vegetation is tame and from the train we could actually see a fair amount of outcrop, so the time passed quickly.

We got to Yogyakarta at about 2:30 pm, and Irvan quickly arranged for a taxi to bring us to my hotel (he is going to spend the next three nights at the apartment he shares with his buddies, a couple of blocks from where I am staying). He assured me that he would come fetch me at 7 pm, obviously worried that I would go wandering through the city on my own (which I of course did as soon as he turned the corner). The Gajah Mada University (named after the home-grown Napoleon that consolidated many of the islands into the proto-kingdom of Indonesia in the 1300's) dominates this part of the city, which has the typical crazy scooter traffic and a pervasive student presence throughout. I am going to visit the university tomorrow, but from the periphery it looks modern and attractive.

I found a bakery where I bought myself a roll filled with durian pulp (yes, it was a little stinky), and wasted some time looking at shirts that could pass for traditional stylized flower or geometric designs. Too small for me :(    I will give it another try in Bali, where I hope the local merchants might cater to larger bule ("foreigners").

Dinner was going to be a formal affair, organized by Irvan so I could meet his housemates. They were picking me up at 7 pm, in a two-scooter fleet. I was to ride the one scooter, and Irvan was going to double up with Irham. Off we went, me trying to follow the boys through the interweaving maelstrom of scooters. I was doing pretty well, my eyes glued on Irvan's green jacket, when they narrowly missed death by swerving around a car. I was not going to defy death so blatantly, so I fell behind, my eyes always on the green jacket. Then they turned and I followed 20 m behind, only to be confronted by a sea of green jackets, which are worn by the mototaxis as a form of advertising their services. The boys were gone and I was stranded in the middle of lively evening traffic. Not to panic. I located myself in Google Maps, sent a pin to Irvan, and five minutes later the boys were back. OK, change of plans. This time I was to ride behind skinny Irvan, seriously taxing his balance powers. But he did OK, and 10 minutes later we arrived at a crowded iconic restaurant, Raminten, where we met his two other housemates. Together they could be the cast for an Indonesia version of The Big Bang Theory.

The owner and founder of Raminten, Jogia, is a movie actor who made his name acting in drag, so the first thing see when you come into the crowded lobby is a full-size, full-color statue of "her" (we of course had to take a selfie there), and a small "movie theater" where the customers can wait for their table while watching some of his old films. The decor is eclectic and fun, the food is really good, and a trip to the toilet is a must, because the toilets are in the stable, where he keeps his favorite nags and riding saddles. Even though his Queen character would be very much against the mores of Indonesian society, Jogia is a beloved actor, very conservative in his personal life, and a good friend of the reigning sultan and his father before him. Jogia is quite the businessman, and besides three or four restaurants he also owns clothing stores known for their Batik shirts. Overall a fun and slightly different night.

Indonesia 2023. Day 14. Then again, it is not over until the fat lady sings!

 

I spoke too soon, because last night I was treated to a magnificent Sate dinner by Dr. Suko, the Rector of the State School for Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics (STMKG). Sate is the Indonesian version of kebabs and grilling, which on account of being a hot activity takes place on the front yard of the restaurant, in the closest you can get to the Indonesian hell. The cooks look like so many demons, surrounded by flames that climb a meter into the air, and from time to time throw their hot skillets into water, causing big clouds of steam to increase the netherworld effect. The guests wait inside, under conditions that resemble a Turkish bath, and in contrast with the normal style of eating, where the dishes are shared among all, here you get served a mountain of lamb skewers and are friendly-like invited to tuck in; it is all for you! Oh, and you must try the goat stew ... whoosh ... another plate appears in front of you ... and try this salad ... whoosh ... and this pastry ... whoosh ... and of course you will want some rice with that ... whoosh. Because I am the honored guest I got to start before everyone else, and for 15 minutes I had to show the relish I was experiencing eating this good food, while the others benevolently watched me eat.

By some miracle I didn't get a severe indigestion and survived until the following day, when I was to be the featured speaker in front of a large number of students and instructors from the STMKG. The Rector could not be there to introduce me, so the Vice-Rector and the leader of the student body did the honors. There was a podium, and the lecture was being recorded and broadcasted to all the offices of BMKG, but I had prepared by donning an elegant Indonesian dress shirt and a formal songkok (the black formal pill hat worn by elderly statesmen) and lived up to the occasion. The students were, of course, in their formal whites and gave me their undivided attention for more than an hour. The topic was Earthquake Geology, and I thought I did a pretty good job keeping it lively and fun. I got a fair number of questions and a warm applause, and then Dr. Suko arrived, we had a couple of speeches, presentation of a plaque of thanks, lots of group photos, and a couple of interviews for the student newspaper and for the school's website. I could finally breathe in relief, but just for a minute because then Dr. Suko gave us lunch at his conference room, and we had a serious conversation about future cooperation. 

I like Dr. Suko. He is maybe in his late 50's, is relaxed and pretty cool, showers me with attention and slightly embarrassing presents (for example, when he offered something to drink and I said coffee, he jumped from his seat, called his wife to pack some of their favorite coffee, and half an hour later the driver brought a huge bag with four types of coffee, cassava chips, cashew nuts, and plantain medallions "so Irvan and I have some snacks for our train ride tomorrow". Then he got another idea, and said he wanted to show me the new campus and new building the school will move into next year. So he makes a phone call, his driver comes, and we move in great comfort through a Jakarta that magically has become more relaxed and less crowded. On the way he inquired where we were going next, and upon learning that we are going to Bali he gets on the phone and arranges for a car to be at our disposal for the three days we will be there, and for the Chief of Station in Bali to be our chaperone. Who is this guy?

We finally made it to the west part of the city, and I am looking for a small building near what has to be the new corporate office of the Bank of Indonesia. The driver pulls into the Bank's construction site and I find, to my astonishment, that the massive eight-story complex is where little STMKG will be housed from now on. The whole enormous building will be for STMKG! Then I saw the light: Dr. Suko is a very highly placed man in the BMKG structure, probably brought in as Rector because he has what it takes to bring this huge project to successful completion. I am definitely going to talk to my administration to encourage them to establish friendly relations (and maybe student and faculty exchange programs) with STMKG!

I have invited myself to go with him to the Celebes Islands and Papua in a couple of years, and he was very happy at the prospect to go adventuring with me (he worked as Chief of Station in both places a few years back). I then figured it was time to make an effort to learn Indonesian, so Dr. Suko kindly took us to a bookstore, assigned two members of his staff as chaperones, and let us there to enjoy the shopping while he went back to the office to do his thing (but he told Irvan that he will come pick us up for dinner at 7 pm). At the bookstore I bought myself a primer on the Indonesian language, and an Indonesian edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I am going to try the same approach I have followed with other languages by getting the very basics of the grammar, and then reading a book that I know very well, so I don't have to worry about understanding the plot and can concentrate on learning the vocabulary and the idiomatic expressions. I want to be able to talk to my new buddy when we go traveling together in a couple of years! 

Tomorrow we change gears, board a train, and will run the length of Java, from Jakarta to Yogyakarta, to meet a new friend, Prof. Gayatri, and talk to her students.

Indonesia 2023. Day 13. I have run out of stories to tell :(

 

Not much happening today. We drove from Anyer to Jakarta, but I slept most of the way. My host wanted to show me the National Monument and maybe visit the National Museum, but downtown was packed with vehicles, trucks, and buses, getting ready to celebrate Independence Day on August 17, so after a quick driveway we headed for the western suburbs. There is quite a festive mood around the whole capital city, with everything draped on the red and white of the national flag.

My host tells me that Indonesia celebrates a double independence, first from the Japanese occupation of World War II, and then from the Dutch who after the war thought they could just saunter back and occupy their old colony. Apparently there were two armed attempts from the Dutch, but the Indonesian Army successfully defended the islands and cemented the country's independence.

Jakarta is a handsome city with lots of modern architecture, but air pollution and traffic take much of the charm away.

We had lunch with the Rector of the STMKG, Dr. Suko, his wife, and 21-year old son, at a typical Sumatran restaurant (a bit ironically, a Padang-style restaurant). STMKG is the State College for Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics, which prepares the technical staff of BMKG. They are a fully accredited institute that offers B.Sc. degrees in the three branches, have an ROTC program, and are in other respects a regular modern college with marching band, sports teams, orchestra, and the rest. Tomorrow I will go to STMKG to give a lecture to the Geophysics students about Earthquake Geology, and I am sure there will be some speeches and lots of photo opportunities. Perhaps then I will have a new story to tell.

Indonesia 2023. Day 12. Krakatoa

 

You are probably too young to know this, but in the late 60’s there was a cheesy movie by the title “Krakatoa, East of Java”. Just comes to show how little Hollywood knows about world geography because Karakatoa (or what is left of it) is actually west of Java.

So we landed in Jakarta early in the morning, where we were once received by our friends of BMKG. This time Mr. Sandy was going to be our host, and half an hour later we were driving through the heavy morning traffic west, bound for the northwest corner of Java, 100 km away. Once there we found yet another ignimbrite, yet another caldera (this time without an intracaldera lake), and a thriving industrial complex with sand mines (the ignimbrite), two cement factories, three steel mills, and several modern petrochemical factories. I think in this case Indonesia has taken to heart the use of its main port on the Sunda Strait to create a major industrial and economic hub.

Pushing a bit to the south along the shore we arrived at the tourist enclave of Anyer, right across the Sunda Strait from the famed Krakatoa. Krakatoa was a volcanic island, like so many andesitic stratovolcanoes that had grown out of the water, and in 1883 had a big Plinian eruption that evacuated a significant amount of dacitic magma from its shallow magma chamber. The volume extracted was enough to cause the collapse of the roof of the chamber, just like it happened in Crater Lake in Oregon. But this time the collapse (and total disappearance out of sight of the island volcano) caused a sudden change in the volume of the surrounding ocean and a big tsunami wave. The tsunami flooded the west coast of Java and the east coast of Sumatra, causing great destruction. The Dutch Postmaster General, father of the famous Dutch geologist van Belemmnen, did a sterling job at documenting the devastation, and in some way became “the Father” of western tsunami science.

In the decades that followed post-caldera volcanism caused several new Krakatoa small vents to peek out of the water, which eventually resolved on the formation of Anak Krakatoa (the son of Krakatoa), which is slowly growing and surviving wave erosion by consistent Strombolian eruptions. Anak Krakatoa is a dangerous child, a bit like Ronnie, so it bears careful observation. For example, in 2018 the flank of the young volcano collapsed without any significant warning and caused a moderately destructive tsunami. Anyway, we came here to visit the Krakatoa Volcano Observatory, where we found an IT young man in residence, who was all too happy to have someone to talk with and to display reams and reams of hard-copy seismograph records (I am sure they are also in the computer, but hard-copy is more impressive). Unfortunately the atmosphere is hazy, so we couldn’t get a sight of the troubled child.

I briefly considered renting a boat (about 4,000,000 rupiah), but learnt that I could not pay with credit card. Bad tourism preparedness, for how am I going to come with 4,000,000 rupiah cash when all the stupid ATM’s will give me is 1,000,000 per day?

We are spending the night at a modest but very charming tourist hotel by the shore, and tomorrow morning will go back to Jakarta for a couple of days.

Indonesia 2023. Day 11. The Art of Making Friends

Today was a "rest" day, which I imagined I would use going to the bank to recharge my depleted cash reserves, and maybe walking through downtown to visit some public building or other, and browsing through the market stalls. It was a "get everything done" day, plus much more. But let me start at the beginning:

One of the minor annoyances I have been suffering is that banks here will only give me US$ 80 every time I use the ATM machine, instead of the US$ 300 I like to carry when I travel. That means that I have to go to the ATM almost everyday to build up my reserve, one million rupiah at a time. I also have been relying on Irvan to make some of the mobile banking payments, and by now I had a standing debt with him of four million rupiah. I wanted to get that debt settled because he is a student with limited funds in his bank. So we went to his bank (BRI) to see if I could get a cash advance on my Visa credit card. No cigar! Even at the central office of BRI they couldn't do it, and referred me back to the stupid ATM machine. I hate being without cash, but I had the four million in my pocket, so then I asked if I could deposit the money in Irvan's account and again they referred me to the &#%$ ATM. Forget banking in Indonesia :(

Breath, breath. OK I was now ready to start "shopping", which turned into a highly organized activity. "What do you need to buy?" ... aah ... "I might need new shoes" ... whoosh ... there we were at the doors of a sports store. Feeling a bit under duress I felt compelled to buy some good shoes, generally out of my normal price range. "Now I want to buy you a present", said Irvan, and ... whoosh ... we were at a store that sold traditional Indonesian clothing, where Irvan insisted on buying me a proper male sarong, and a smart Indonesian hat of the type used by older men here, and Sauidi insisted on buying me a white shirt also traditional among well dressed men. I will gladly dress formally for the two public lectures I have to give over the next week. :)

Sauidi took me on a guided tour of the beautiful central Mosque of Padang, which is a large park with all sorts of ancillary buildings around the most beautiful mosque I have ever seen. Most mosques I have seen are very Arabic in their looks, but not this one. The building you can see looks like an enormous traditional Indonesian house built with colorful woods (or colorful aluminum plates that look like wood), accompanied by a most ornate and beautiful tower. The inside was, functionally, like all mosques, but the decoration was very tasteful and conducive to prayer.

With the "rest" part of the day done, we turned to the PR aspects of the day. First we went to the local BMKG office (the meteorology center by the airport), where we met some more of the super friendly BMKG leadership team, went to another lavish and memorable lunch, and then headed to the coastal village of Tapakis, where Sauidi has proposed construction of a high-frequency radar facility for the monitoring of tsunami waves (a very interesting concept that I will have to explore with my students this fall). This was the official meeting with the Chief of the Village and his staff, to walk the area where the project would be built, explain the purpose, and get the preliminary go-ahead from them. My role was to be the face of wisdom and old age, so I donned my brand new Indonesian hat and tried to look old and respectable. The Chief had also brought an elder of his own, but I beat him by four years, and was thus the official Old Man of the party.

To Indonesians I am unfathomably old, and they wonder at the fact that I can walk at all. As we strolled along the beach, shaded by some beautiful pines the Chief had planted 10 years ago, we met this pretty woman, who I was told is a local Tik-Tok artist and model. I of course had to be introduced to me, and she jumped at the opportunity to have her photo taken with the last of the dinosaurs. As an artist she was very extroverted and charming, and I was very glad to become her Tik-Tok father figure.

We then sat under the shade to share a refreshment of coconuts and Sprite, and I found the Chief and his associates to be a very charming group, with considerable achievements on village improvement to their credit. The coastal forest has become a favorite relaxing outing for the people of Padang, of which the Chief is rightfully very proud. 

On the way back Febrit took us through a very convoluted neighborhood to a cul-de-sac where, to my utter amazement, we found a small coffee roastery, run by a charming middle-age man who brewed delicious cups of storm coffee for us, and gave us an impromptu lecture on the characteristics of the Robusta versus Arabica coffees, and how he could craft unique blends by varying the amounts of each bean (plus a three more types I don't remember) to create unique coffee-drinking experiences. Great fun, and I came out carrying a small bag of roasted beans to take with me back to "Amerika". 

We had pizza for dinner! Sauidi and I then had a nice conversation about projects in which we could cooperate at a later time, including faculty and student exchange, as well as cooperative work in tsunami monitoring. I think I am going to jump with both feet into updating myself on tsunamis in my Physical Oceanography and Geophysics classes, and maybe will be back in Indonesia in a couple of years to teach a short course and make more friends. I also hope Sauidi and some of my other friends will come visit me in California. They are such good people!

Indonesia 2023. Day 10. The lakes of Central Sumatra

 

Breakfast was at the BMKG complex in Padang Panjang, with a yummy cumin soup with small cubes of rice cake and glass noodles. Very good! Then Sauidi called our faithful Febrit to drive us south. Febrit is a quiet young man, on the thin and quiet side, with spiky hair. He is our general solution to every problem that arises, and a calm driver with nerves of steel. Reminds me a lot of Silverio.

Our expeditionary force set the goal of doing a close inspection of the very large Sinkarak Lake northeast of Padang, which we had visited before, and the much smaller twin lakes of Diatas (the "upper lake") and Dibahwa (the "lower lake"), to the south of Padang, armed with all sorts of preconceived notions.

To get to Lake Sinkarak, we skirted the eastern edge of the Kerinci Seblat National Park, which is the main habitat of the endangered Sumatran Tiger. I was looking for it, but the reclusive carnivore wisely keeps deep into the forest, away from the crazy road traffic. After watching scooters dart in between trucks playing chicken with each other I am truly amazed that we have not seen any major road accidents. One of the golden rules I teach beginning drivers is that you must avoid a head on collision at all costs, which starts by applying the brakes to give the passing car the chance to complete its move, and looking for a way out. That would get you nowhere here, where the technique seems to be to hold your ground until at the last minute the passing car swerves back in place. I am glad Irvan is traveling in the front and Febrit is such a calm driver.

I am convinced that Lake Sinkarak is a tectonic basin, and felt we should at least try to see evidence for the West Sumatra fault on the steep mountain front. We therefore trekked to a distant mosque, high in the mountains, reputed for being close to a waterfall (in the jungle waterfalls create outcrop). Unfortunately local lore says that no one should try to reach the waterfall before mid-day, because bad spirits might be liberated if disturbed too early. So we sat at the local store/tea shop, shooting the breeze with the locals. A good time to check my email, which had a message from Dennis, telling me how he had fallen off his mountain bike and cracked three ribs. Really? At 40 something he should know better than risking an injury to a body that is no longer so easy to mend. I tell you, the new generation is not endowed with my strong sense of self-preservation.

Finally noon came around and we got ready to go. The waterfall was way above us, in the depth of the jungle, so we were to make the first stage on a motorcycle. I was assigned a ratty old thing, with a skinny crazy driver, who told me to glue myself to him, hold tight and lean forward. And off we went, at neck-breaking speed, up the narrow mountain paths, sometimes at slopes that must have been close to 30 degrees. I am a pretty heavy guy, and the skinny kid had to be on his toes to keep his balance, while with the bouncing I started to slide backward, risking thumbing out of the rear of the bike and rolling down the slope and breaking my neck. But I held strong, using a hand in the back frame to stop me from sliding, and another firmly clamped on the hip of the kid to keep my balance. It was the best mountain bike ride ever.

Once we reached a suitable spot in the middle of the dense jungle, our two guides cut stocks for our use, and started another walk through the dense jungle. Fortunately it had not rained for the last few days, so we didn't have to deal with slippery mud. Maybe, just maybe, we could get a glimpse of a Sumatran tiger. It was not to be, but I was precariously tight-rope walking on the edge of a water canal, trying to keep my balance, when a monitor lizard crashed right in front of me going downhill at great speed. It was enormous, with a body the size of a large cat, and must had been no less than a meter long! It gave me quite a start.

We did find the waterfall, and confirmed that it was caused by an alternating sequence of hard quartzites, phyllites, and schists (Irvan had a good time collecting representative samples), and following a different way back we found, within 10 m, the place where the metamorphic rocks came in contact with the vertically-fractured younger volcanic rocks of the Sinkarak basin. I officially called it the fault, a story that was repeated down the vine, and half an hour later we had the official visit of the Chief and the Main Constable of the village, who marked the occasion with the traditional photographs.

Lunch was lavish, as usual, but the sautéed little fish billih (what we would call boquerón in Mexico) was the height of the experience, at least for me who had not had boquerones in an least 10 years.

We reached the twin lakes as sunset was reaching the land, enjoyed a quiet stroll along the shore (which I used to lecture my little environmentalist about the importance of litter and cigarette butts control), and with minimum hard information concluded that the lakes were not connected, and that the upper lake was probably occupying a half graben, whereas the lower lake was some sort of crate lake. Isn't science wonderful?

We made it late to Padang, but not late enough to skip a delicious dinner of grilled fish. I am going to miss these gourmet dinners in the cool nights of Sumatra.

Indonesia 2023. Day 9. Mud (and rocks) in Sipura Island

 

My disappointment at not being able to see the rocks in Sipura Island spurred my friend Sauidi to new heights. He passed the word that we needed to see the rocks, and that trickled down the vine until someone said that yes, there were rocks exposed by the waterfall. So an expedition to the waterfall was organized. It was not to be a simple affair because, being an unusual request, it had to be witnessed by a crowd of people. There were the four of us, our driver, the Director of Disaster Mitigation and a couple of the members of his staff, and four fellows from the village, who were to be our guides. 

There we were, happily driving toward the waterfall, when we were informed that to get to the waterfall we would need to trek through the jungle for three kilometers (I suspect it was less than a kilometer, but by the time we were done it felt like it had been 10 kilometers). Our lack of jungle craft showed from the very beginning, because for starters we had to climb a slippery slope of wet, slick mud. Rapidly the machetes came out from their scabbards, the villagers provided us with sturdy stocks, and a couple of fellas were assigned to help me. They were so sweet, ready to pull or push as needed, and were quite surprised when they saw how adept I was at the use of the stock as support, anchor, and fall back (I didn't fall on my butt not even once, but was the only outsider that ended with clean pants). Slowly we worked our way through the jungle, and eventually made it to the "waterfall", where the creek had created a smooth slope running over a bioturbated mudstone with Upper Miocene or Pliocene shells, many trace fossils (the tracks of burrowing animals filled with sand), and some very odd calcareous concretions that sometimes became so abundant that the rocks could be considered a "limestone". These concretions are collected from the bottom of creeks, brought to the edge of the road, and sold for foundation materials to the village.

At one of these piles we also found a clayey sandstone with fossils. I believe these are relatively young sediments (Neogene) that have been "added" to the bottom of the accretionary prism relatively recently. Irvan, who is an expert at searching the internet, found an article in Indonesian that reached pretty more the same conclusions, this time based on the rocks at Siberut Island.

The way back was a repeat of the mud bath we had on the way in, plus we all were drenched in sweat, so we made a pretty gruesome group once we came out of the jungle. We had to follow up with a return to the hotel for showers and a change of clothes, lunch, and an impromptu lesson on Spanish for Irvan and Yuan (the young geophysicist from BMKG), so they could say "Ay, que bonita señorita" to a pretty girl, as well as "Perfecto!", "Delicioso", Vámonos", and some of the other expressions I use on a daily basis.

We returned to the mainland by fast boat, which took about 4 hours, and toward the end of the trip had some very nice views of the mountainous Sumatran coast, and of the layer of smog being fed by a coal-powered plant. I didn't know this, but Indonesia has sub-bituminous coal and uses it to generate most of its power. Irvan, my little environmentalist, was horrified. We also had some spectacular views of the sunset.

For dinner Sauidi invited us to the best grilled-fish restaurant in Padang. It was truly outstanding, and now I am challenged to reconstruct some of the delicious Indonesian dishes I have had on this trip. One word of caution when I invite you to an Indonesian dinner: We eat with our fingers, only stopping now and then to rinse them in the personalized bowl of water that is part of every well set table. A bit messy, but brings a new meaning to the expression "finger-licking good!"

Indonesia 2023. Day 8. Visit to Sipura Island, Mentawai Islands

 I had it in mind that I wanted to visit Siberut Island, one of the Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra, because I believe these islands are the accretionary wedge of the Sumatra subduction zone. My wonderful host and guide, Sauidi, humored me and arranged for us to fly to Sipura Island, the island south of Siberut, where there is a little more of infrastructure.

We woke up at 5 am, drove to the airport, and boarded a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, a one propeller plane that can carry eight passengers. It was thrilling for me to follow the procedures of the Captain as he got ready for departure, the takeoff, and the climb to 10,000, which is a lot higher than the 3,000 ft I normally fly at. There was an overcast on takeoff, and I thought we would break over the cloud cover, but we didn’t, so the Cap zig-zagged between clouds as much as he could, but it was inevitable that at some point we would have to go through a cloud and feel the turbulence. Then we hit rain, which on a small plain can feel quite intimidating. The Cap and his co-pilot were cool, however, taking the weather in stride, and after 40 minutes in the air we started our descent to Sipura. I could see the runway to our right, and it seemed to me that our approach was getting too low for us to make the incoming turn safely. What I didn’t see was the other runway ahead of us so I was quite surprised when we landed with a bump.

Sauidi had arranged for a van to pick us up, and on the drive to town I looked eagerly for outcrops of blue schists, pillow lavas, wacky sandstones, or even serpentinites. Nada! Nothing to be seen but bloody vegetation. We stopped to say hello to the folks of the Disaster Relief Agency, and they assured me that not a rock was to be seen in the whole island (or in Siberut Island for that matter). What a great disappointment :(

The geomorphology of the islands, as gathered from Google Maps in my cell phone, lends some credence to the idea that they are under thrusts of rocks accreted unto the edge of the Sumatran mainland, but it would have been useful if I could have found rocks typical of an accretionary wedge. Mind you, I am not the only one who thinks these islands are the accretionary wedge, and there is evidence from microtremors that the islands are undergoing internal deformation, but the visit itself was … a bust.

Lunch was good, followed by a nap and reading time, and in the afternoon we went to the beach, where Irvan took the opportunity to quiz me about sandstone and limestone classifications.

We are staying here one more day, so either I learn to relax or I will go bonkers.