We landed in Jakarta at 7pm and was met by our drivers who were taking us to Carita Beach, where we would be leaving the following morning for out Krakatoa Park Tour. Indonesia is made up of many islands, with 3 very large ones that run below the equator. Java, the middle of these three island "states" is where Jakarta was and all of the cities we would be visiting this trip. Carita beach was a coastal town on the straits in between Java and Sumatra, the island "state" to the north west of Java. In this strait was where the volcano was. While we were in Carita, I found a map from early 2000s that said there was a no-boat-zone due to unexploded ordinance in the South part of the strait...so who knows what goes on there!
Anyway, we got into the van with out two drivers and started off on our 4 hour car ride through the middle of nowhere Indonesia. Everybody who we met on our trip was overly nice, it was very nice and welcoming. One big this we noticed off the bat, which I noticed in Thailand, was the variety of cars. Americas are led to believe we are the only people who use trucks. False. There were so many trucks in Indonesia as well as a variety of a van/SUV-like car. They are all Asian brands, so they don't look like our cars.
The beginning of the drive was on the highway to get out of the city. We were stuck in some deadlock traffic, and people would come up into the windows in the traffic and try to sell water, toys, fans, trashcans, etc. everything! I also noticed something that confused me a little about the language. They speaks Indonesian here, but there were many words that I recognized from Malaysia, like taman (park), negara (national), etc. We noticed this throughout the trip. I think these are words that originated from Sanskrit, probably from their Arabic friends who brought over Islam, that's my best guess. But it was nice because we knew a FEW words. There were lots of night food vendors with huge signs as "doors" made from banner material with a photo of the animal and its name. This was a nice way for us to quickly learn the foods we liked, ayam (chicken), bebek (duck), and my favorite name, lele (catfish).
The rest of the drive, the other 3 hours, as on potholed half paved roads in large fields and factory lands. There were SO many factories once we got relatively close to the coast, most of them some kind of oil production, as they all had petra in their names. HUGE Ones that looked like they went on forever.
We finally made it to our hotel that was across the street from the beach and it was the most basic tiny thing, but it was nice. We quickly went to bed since we had a 6am wake up in the morning!
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