Raja Ampat, a New Promising Underwater Tourism

With its 17,000 islands spread out across its territorial water, Indonesia possesses high potential underwater activities and tourism surrounding some of the islands. On top of the already famous Bunaken underwater tourism in North Sulawesi, one of the newcomers with promising development is Raja Ampat.

Raja Ampat, a newly developed paradise, is located in a remote area far from modern lives. It consists of four islands namely Waigeo, Misool, Salawati, and Batanta and some other islets around the seawater at the north coast off-shore of Kepala Burung (literally means Bird Head) of West Papua.

The name of Raja Ampat (four kings) is related to the local myth that in the dawn of time the region was reigned by four kings resided in four main islands who born out of seven primordial eggs. It is interesting to note that the numbers may be correlated to the four pillars and seven heavens frequently mentioned in many myths and religions around the world. 

Its underwater beauty attracts experts to make research on marine fauna and flora. In 2001, those from International Conservation and National Oceanography Institute have examined more than 550 kinds of coral reefs, 1,000 kinds of coral fishes, 700 kinds of mollusks.

The spectacular thing marking the uniqueness of this area is the fact that more than 75% of all coral reefs in the world can be found here. For scuba diving, it is nice because the seawater is clean and warm while marine fauna and flora are lots.

This is the reason why the area is considered as one of the top ten sites in the world for scuba diving. Various kinds of fishes are nice to examine, and besides, there are a lot of tamed manta rays searching around their pray inside the seawater.

From the prehistoric point of view, pictorial signs and sketches of human hands inside the caves of some islets can be found here. It is estimated that the sketches and signs have been 50,000 years old. These inheritances can be the early indication to trace the human circulation around islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean.

To conserve the unique of coral reefs and marine mammals such as dugongs and dolphins, in 1993 the government has issued a decree stipulating that seawater covering the area of 60 thousand hectares around small islets of Mansuar, Yeben, and Batang Pele became the protected one.

Despite its beauty, there are some hindrances the tourists have to face when visiting the site. The first one is related to transportation, board, and lodging. For the visitors coming from Jakarta, they have to take six-hour flight with the destination to Sorong after a transit in Bali.  

From Sorong, there are some travel bureaus which can offer you various boats and routes to sail around the sea water or to land at a certain island and examine the vegetation of the island. However, you have to make sure that the boat can withstand the big waves.

The second problem is for board and lodging if you want to have a comfortable one. For this you can take Sorido Bay Resort or Kri Eco Resort, a traditional resort constructed on poles above the seawater. There are also some motels in Saonek, Mansuar and Yenwaupnor islets. Or if you like to have an outdoor life and want to be more economical you can construct a tent on shore of an island. The best time to go there is on October and November when the seawater is relatively calm. 

Welcome to Raja Ampat, one among the best underwater paradises in the world. 

Once a Year Massive People Exodus

Indonesia is a unique country having a tradition for people to ask for pardon to each other on the celebration of Eid-al-Fitr, the Moslem’s most venerated day, especially from the younger to the elders. As most of the big cities residents originated from the hinterland, they have to travel back to their native hometowns or villages as most of their parents and relatives live there. Under such tradition, a massive exodus takes place once a year from big cities to the countrysides.

The following figures talk by themselves. Most people started moving out since the third day before the D-day. The statistic indicates that around 27 million people made an exodus to their home town in 2009 and the number increases by 10 percent annually. The final figure for this year is not yet available, but we can estimate that more than 30 million people had moved around. The people movements within and crossing out of Java were around 16 million categorized by the modes of transportation: land transport 5,5; ferry 3,3; railway 3,1; airplane 2,5 and marine 1,6 million.

During the peak season, the travelers increased their journey-hours up to three to four times of the normal time. The government has taken extraordinary efforts to improve the transport infrastructure to minimize road congestion. Some roads’ sections had been widened by adding the number of lanes, cutting the elevation to flatten out some climbs, putting in operation some additional bridges parallel to the existing ones. The number of police personnel on duties was increased spread out in various regional districts to handle the traffics. In addition, the government took the responsibility to keep enough fuel stocks to meet the fuel demand hike during the season.

Even though the potential train passengers increased significantly, to increase the passenger convenience the railway management "bravely" imposed for long distance routes a stringent regulation limiting the number of passengers in accordance with the seats available. For that reason, the number of intercity buses was increased to around 35,000, some of which to handle travelers who were not able to get the train tickets.

It is common to see motorcycle drivers bringing with them the whole family including small children. As the travel distance they took might reach 500 to 1000 km, the police forbade such practice and in certain routes parallel to the coast motorcycle passengers with children were asked to bring their motorcycle in the boat provided by the government for free. In addition, the police in cooperating with gas stations and mosques provided some modest rest points along the roads for motorcycle passengers.

Under such massive exodus, human casualties due to traffic accidents could not be avoided. The number of casualties prior and after Eid-Fitr increased to around 4400 this year as compared to 2,400 last year, of which 630 died 1,070 heavily injured and 2,700 lightly injured. With the aim to reduce the accident and monitor the flow of the vehicles, the government had set 230 CCTVs in various critical points.

This year Eid-al-Fitr celebration fell on August 31 which was determined based on the traditional lunar astronomical observation as against the astronomical computation. This arose controversy as the government stipulated the date only in the last minutes. Million of people had already prepared to celebrate the venerated day on August 30 in concordance with the public holiday stated in the calendar by cooking big meals for the visiting relatives or ordering meals through catering enterprises for groups who organized a big gathering.

After Eid-al-Fitr prayer people are used to enjoying the big meal together with the whole family. Following the government stipulation, however, as fasting continued for another day most festive meals were untouched and became rotten. In addition, the lengthy deliberation that the government held to get the final conclusion made people difficult to conduct “tarawih”, a night prayer performed during the fasting period, as the date was finally stipulated only late in the evening.

Whatever method the government would take to determine the date of Eid-al-Fitr, it should be the most pragmatic one. Most people still rely on whatever the government decision and the long delay of such a decision would cause widespread confusion across the country as millions of families and business people should be ready to promptly change their plans.

Isles for Sale

Indonesia is an archipelagic state consisting of more than 17,000 islands spread out along the equator at 5,000 kilometers long and 1,800 kilometers wide. Many of those are small isles which some traditionally become private properties handed down from generation to generation.

Some private property companies who economically manage those isles have bought them from locals. Matter becomes worse as those companies, with or without the local government cooperation, resell those isles to foreigners.  

This might happen as Law No. 27/ 2007 (article 13) allowing local governments to manage the isles under their jurisdiction is easily misinterpreted. Some people or companies deduce it too far as though they might have rights to sell the isles as stipulated in the article.

Even long before the law was stipulated, in some areas several isles had been sold already. As early as the 1960s an isle and small coastal area in Lembata was sold by East Flores regent to a foreigner who converted it into a nice resort. Most locals were happy, albeit the prohibition for them to enter as they might have a chance to be hired as the resort employees. 

Since 2002, the isle sales become common transactions in Batam, converted proprietorship of Petong, Abang, and Segayang to some foreigners. Some isles in Mentawai, West Sumatra were sold online for around 3 million dollars each. However, the local government hurriedly denied the sales saying that it was only a joint-venture exploiting the isles’ touristic potentials.

Similar online transactions offered seven isles in Karimun Jawa, off the coast of Central Java, followed by the sale of two isles in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, which was then converted to become an exclusive resort. Other sales to mention are Tatawa in East Nusa Tenggara; Panjang and Meriah in West Nusa Tenggara; Bengkoang, Galeang, Kembang, Kumbang, Katang, Small and Big Krakals in Central Java.

On top of the Isles’ sale for resort or private proprietorship, some foreigners bought certain isles including Galang Baru in Riau Province for the use of, whether it was legal or not, dumping dangerous chemical waste. Other sales were Penempan, Pengalap, Tanjungrame, Segayang and Galang and Sebaik isles for sand mining, the products of which were exported for Singapore's coastal reclamation which is now totally put in halt. 

 

Some foreigners keep eyes on the management of national parks. Komodo National Park, for example, which is under the management and jurisdiction of East Nusa Tenggara government, most of the shares are now at the hand of foreigners. To make things worse, a foreigner had bought and managed exclusively Bidadari Isle inside the Park sea waters and local fishermen who live there for many generations get no more access to the sea waters around the area.

Another trick to get easily the ownership of isles or coastal areas is to marry local people. A certain rich foreigner married a local woman from Anambas isle in Natuna and established an exclusive nice resort under the name of his wife.

As such transactions have created a lot of problems, many locals people raised complaints to the government. Early this year, the Association of Indigenous People of Rempang-Galang Island filed their lawsuit to Constitutional Court against Batam mayor, ex-governor of Riau, and head of Regional Land Affairs Body for selling or renting 180 isles to foreigners.

The Constitutional Court had paid serious attention to the affair and identified the weakness of the law. Following the judicial review, the Court dropped the article 13 of the Law No. 27/2007 which was put into effect on June 16, 2011.

The isles are no longer for sale but tourists are welcome to come in.

Doing Business with Monkey, not Monkey Business

Indonesia is an archipelagic country which innumerable coconut trees cover its thousands of islands. Those palm trees yield various kinds of products mainly palm oil. The height of the tree makes it hard to harvest the mature coconuts.

In certain areas where coconut trees are plentiful, such as in West Sumatra, the tree owners are enjoying their lives because they can domesticate a certain type of monkey to pick the coconuts for them.  

 This kind of monkey, a pig-tailed macaque, is trained to climb and pick up coconuts and taught to select the mature coconuts. One monkey is able to pick up around 800 coconuts a day and the monkey owner usually receives 10% of the outputs.

However, such kind of business cannot be done extensively as only a handful of people can train a monkey to do such a job. The training is done gradually, starting from finding a couple of coconuts at the lowest part of the coconut tree and urges the monkey to pick them up one by one.

Then the trainer binds the coconuts at the higher place and lets the monkey climb higher to pick the coconuts. The training is continued until the coconuts are bound at the top of the tree. Then it is taught to differentiate the mature from the immature coconuts allowing it to pick up only the mature ones. After one or two-month training, the monkey is ready to do the job.

Special attention to the health and daily staple diet of the monkey should be given especially when it works hard a day long. Maintaining good relation and communication between the owner and the animal will make it easy to obey the order.

The young animal of one year old is not strong enough to be trained to do the job. The best age is 4 years old when the animal’s muscles are strong enough and its teeth are fully grown up to do the job well. A trained animal is sold at three times of the price of an untrained animal which is Rp 600,000.

People in Java employ animals more for fun than for doing business. The animals are trained to dance, ride on miniature bicycles bringing umbrellas or behave like a clown accompanied by music instruments played by the owner and his assistants. The performance is usually held around the marginal areas from one place to another.

The performances of the trained monkey are widely known in the whole island of Java. In the olden days, the monkey dancing might attract a lot of people that make the owners get much money.

There is a region where many people are specialized to catch wild monkeys and train them to dance. After 5 months, when the trained monkeys are able to perform entertaining actions they sell them at least one million rupiahs. 

The Primate Research Center found that more than 50% of trained monkeys were infected with the simian foamy virus (SFV) or herpes B which can spread among human being. For preventive action, the audiences should be prevented for direct contact with those animals.

Please do business with the monkey, not monkey business!

Jember Festival Carnival, an Extravaganza from Easternmost Java

In the easternmost Java, in the small city of Jember, an annual event called the Jember Festival Carnival (JFC) has attracted thousands of spectators from around the country and becomes one of the world-class carnivals during the last five years or so.

Jember, located around a thousand kilometers eastward Jakarta, is an agricultural regency with numerous tobacco plantations at the lowland and coffee plantations in the surrounding mountainous areas. It can be reached by road or railway at around two hundred kilometers southeastward of Surabaya, or at a closer distance but with a bit extra efforts from Bali by crossing the strait separating the two islands. 

This low economic growth area suddenly becomes famous because of an initiative and determination of Dynand Fariz, a motivated son of a local peasant who decided to convert himself from a lecturer to become a fashion designer.

Back in his little hometown, which once he was ashamed of, he founded a fashion house and short after launched what is now known as the famous JFC. He asked his 30 employees to wear simple costumes and almost no makeup marching around the Jember square. His passion for fashion and his love to the hometown, make his dream materialized and slowly grew bigger to the size we know today.

Last Sunday, July 24, the city held the tenth JFC with an eye-catching theme, the “Eyes on Triumphs”. Hundreds of photographers, as well as national and foreign media, covered the event witnessed by thousands of spectators sitting in tribunes, not mention a large amount of crowd viewing along with the 3.6 km runway carnival.

The JFC Live Performing Arts Marching Band and hundreds extravaganza carnival participants with costumes, accessories and unique makeup, music illustrations and choreography were beautifully presented in 10 parades colorizing the styles of Punk, India, Athens, Bali, Butterfly, and others.

It is amazing to see a person with barely nobody support can dramatically change the spirit of people and the "sleeping" city he lives in. Some other regions follow imitating the success of JFC, such as Solo which holds a similar event, the Batik Carnival. 

Congratulations to those brave people who manage to realize their obsessions, which the country may take benefits!

Krakatoa, the Super-Volcano

In August 1945, a couple of atomic bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused a half million people killed and promptly ended World War II. However, hardly anybody was aware that a much stronger explosion, around 30,000 times than the said atomic bombs, blasted from the Krakatoa volcano sixty years earlier.

As high as 40 meters of tsunami waves caused by the eruption swept away everything around without mercy. A big steamship harboring at Anyer, the coast of West Java, was thrown away 3 kilometers inland. The explosion was heard to faraway lands at a radius of 5,000 kilometers from the eruption. Around 36,000 people perished.

The global impact was staggering. Around 100 billion tons of materials were projected into the atmosphere up to 80 kilometers altitude. The stratosphere was covered by the ash of the volcano and only a slight amount of sun rays capable to reach the earth causing Europe missed its summers for 3 consecutive years.  

The historical record indicates that much bigger eruption of Krakatoa took place in 535 CE, as pointed out in the Javanese King’s Chronicle, caused a huge flood propagated eastward and destroyed the whole area of Sunda Strait. A gigantic storm and rain of volcanic ashes darken the whole area for a long time.

In the other part of the world, a Syrian bishop in Ephesus reported in the same year: “The sun stops signing well for 18 months and the weather becomes extremely cold. We are afraid the sun will never shine as usual again. Many people die because of the coldness and of the bubonic plague following the eruption.” Other documents from the Ming Dynasty in China pointed out: “The extremely loud sound of the explosion is heard from thousand miles away.”

Those documents matched with the finding of enormous sulfuric deposits frozen deep inside the ice block of Greenland and Antarctica which was dated to around 500 CE. It was the remnant of the Krakatoa eruption concordance with the report from Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA, entitled “Were the Dark Ages Triggered by Volcano-Related Climate Changes in the Sixth Century?” which pointed out the Krakatoa as the culprit.  

The eruption in 535 destroyed a greater part of the ancient volcanic creating a big caldera in place of it. Some of the caldera’s remaining walls had grown bigger to become what was then the Mount Krakatoa. After having dormant for centuries, the 1883 explosion created Anak Krakatoa, the daughter of Krakatoa, which emerged and grew up at the pace of 20 feet per year.  Today its mountain top is 230 meters above the sea level far below of that of the ancient Krakatoa which was 2000 meters.

Indonesia is sitting on Ring of Fire. No wonder that the biggest volcanic eruption ever recorded in the human history also took place in Indonesia i.e. Mount Toba, North Sumatra, around 74,000 years ago. The explosion catapulted one trillion tons of materials to the air, reducing the human population on earth to only several thousand. Compared to the Toba explosion, the sound caused by the Krakatoa eruption was just like a couch of a sick old man.

The Krakatoa newly eruption in 2010 generated 100 times regional earthquakes but causing no serious damage. Some volcanologists said that the mountain now keeps collecting its energy and predicted that the catastrophic eruption might happen again sometime in the next 3 centuries.

Nowadays, the vegetation of Anak Krakatoa grows well establishing greenery areas along the mountain slopes and become the den for birds, snakes and various kinds of insects. Tourists can go there from Canti, a small port near Bandar Lampung, or from Merak, Banten Province, taking speed boat or local sailing boat, the latter is much cheaper though takes much longer time.


So, welcome and have a nice day sailing, and fishing if you wish, to and around Krakatoa, the super volcano.

Javan Rhino, Another Endangered Species in Extinction

In the westernmost cape of Java Island there live rhinos of a rare species having a single horn out of 30 species once lived on earth. Rhinos are the animals witnessing tertiary period, started appearing on earth since 65 million years ago. Unfortunately, most of all those species perished already leaving behind just five species roaming on earth.

Of those five, two species live in Indonesia, one of which is Javan rhino, the most endangered mammal living on earth today. Their population is estimated at around 40 and could be in the brink of extinction. Other species with two horns live in Sumatra, with a population of around 300 and in the other part of the world in India and Africa with a population of more than 30,000.

Forest fire, catastrophic disasters, destruction of the ecosystem as well as their safe habitat, the difficulty of their breeding process and more recently illegal hunters, all are the causal factors. They lead to the extinction of the majority of them and today the remaining 5 species are trapped in the narrow protected forest as their habitable areas have been taken over by human beings.

The difficulty in their breeding process is caused by the fact that the female just bears a baby, after the 19-month gestation period, while waiting for the next 5 years to bear another one. In addition, under a small population, the interbreeding will take place making them vulnerable to various kinds of diseases.

The life span of rhinos can be 45 years in their sanctuary, but usually less than that figure in zoos. Roaming area of a male is around 20 square kilometers and it marks the areas with feces and the scarves on earth or young trees. Violation of the territorial boundaries might result in a clash between the owner and the intruder.

Illegal poachers are intensively searching for rhino horns as the price of the horn is quite expensive around US$ 30,000 per kilo at the black markets. As a consequence, if it is not handled properly the damage might lead to non-repairable limit and the extinction of exotic species is only a matter of time.  


Javan rhino was protected by law stipulated in 1910. In 1921 Ujung Kulon became the sanctuary of the animal and today it is named Ujung Kulon National Park has an area of 380,000 hectares. In 2006, the census held by the authority of the park using automatic camera and sample of their feces provided a smaller figure, 27. During the last 75 years, the total number never hit the figure of 60.

Today, Indonesian WWF tries to breed the rhinos at Halimun National Park at Mount Salak, West Java, and if possible make use of the only 7 Vietnamese male and female Javan rhinos to prevent interbreeding. On the other hand, the government is planning to build an electric fence around the 3,000 hectares of Javan Rhino Study and Conservation  Area in Banten's Ujung Kulon National Park. The area was established in June last year by the Ministry of Forestry and is managed by an NGO, the Yayasan Badak Indonesia. 

The proposal includes the construction of 20 kilometers electric fences at the eastern boundary separating the conservation area from the densely populated village areas and 2 kilometers at the western boundary separating from rhino population area. As the northern and southern parts of the conservation area are bounded by the sea, the fences enclose totally the area which is converted into a sanctuary for Javan rhino.


The plan is inspired by the sanctuary for Sumatran rhinos in Way Kambas, Lampung, but the fence there encloses a smaller area of 200 hectares. Under the action plan, the government is looking to boost the population to 80 by 2015 and hoping to reach 1,000 by 2075. The project raises pros and cons as its effectiveness is still questionable, even more, when roads for patrol activities of 30-meter width are built along the fences across the protected jungle.