"Indonesia" a Indonesia Travel Page by biawak

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Rakata

This is a picture of the new Krakatoa/Krakatau/Rakata volcano. Since VT does not have Krakatau as a destination, I'll use it to represent the country. I've just been told that VT has "Pulau Anakrakatau" (on my maps it's called Pulau Rakata and Pulau Rakata Kecil is separate). Maybe I'll move this page there later. It is usually called Anak Rakata or "the son of Krakatau". It is located between the islands of Java and Sumatra. Note that it is WEST of Java island (the movie "Krakatoa, East of Java" was wrong!). The green vegetation you see on the island are mostly Causarina trees.
It's a shame we can't really see the birds on the rocks (that is why the rocks are always white on top!). The boat did not come in closer so we couldn't take better pictures of them. Those white dots are actually a row of small white birds (and some of their guano).

I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the island during a shoot for the French series "Ushuaia". Those outside France may not see the part I was in as in the American Discovery Channel the "Nature" part of Ushuaia is usually edited out.
You can appreciate the power of the eruption in August 1883 if you see how big the remnants of the original volcano is! What was left of the volcano's rim became 3 islands.

The eruption in 1883 was so big that the sound was heard more then 4800 kms away (all the way to Rodriguez Island, near Mauritius). The tsunami created (reaching up to 35 meters high in Merak) killed more than 36,000 people in the Sunda Strait alone. The tsunami was 1.5 meters high when it arrived in Madras, South India. The ash darkened the area totally for two days and some of the it were reported in Cocos Island, 1800 kms away!

You can take boat rides from the west coast of Java (Carita, Merak etc) to see these islands.
Be careful of falling rock! It still spits out projectiles once in a while. A lady that came with a UK Embassy group got killed a few years ago on this island. I found a projectile in a small impact crater and it's now in my living room.

Indonesia is the world's largest Archipelago, there are more than 17,500 islands in Indonesia at last count. When I was a student we had to know that we had 13,677 but they have better data now. Indonesia also has the highest number of volcanoes of any country in the world.

More photos of other places in Indonesia in my Travelogues.

I have been to many islands in eastern Indonesia such as Sulawesi, Timor, Ambon, Seram, Ternate, Halmahera, Kei, Tanimbar as well as many places in Irian Jaya/Papua. I will try to put up each trip in a travelogue. Unfortunately, I don't have photos of much of my trips as they were taken during a time when I was too lazy to take photos. I took videos instead.

For an almost-live webcam of Krakatau: krakatau-island.com

My Indonesia pages:

Jakarta
Bali

My Indonesia Travelogues:

Bali
Provinsi Banten
Cilamaya
Pangandaran
Pasuruan
Pulau Seribu

VT has thousands of names not listed by province. You'll notice that many small towns and villages are included while some cities are omitted. It is very difficult to organize towns with the same names as we have so many!