Ujung Kulon

Went on an adventure trip to Ujung Kulon over the weekend, which is an island off the western tip of Java. This involves a 6 hour car-ride to a fishing village on the edge of West Java which serves as our port, a 10 minute dodgy canoe ride to our wooden motor boat, which we then ride for 3 hours to Ujung Kulon. It was blazing hot and then raining hard in between, so we arrived wet. Once there we walked through miles of dense forestry to watch the sunset drop while the waves bubbled froth upon the rocky beach. And then we trudged back through the forest in the spooky darkness, our torches twinkling and the night crickets accompanying our tired breathing.

The next day we left early on our wooden boat to the other side of the island, dropped anchor and canoed to shore. Shore was not a sandy white beach but was instead a rocky cliff which we had to climb, leading us immediately into dense forest to follow a tiny foot track which went up and down, through giant palm-like shrubs, over huge dead logs, through sandy beaches, back into forests, through shallow downstream rivers, out again into beaches strewn with shells and dead corals, back into forests, out again into beaches strewn with large pebbles and into blaring heat from the sun. Our destination was a wide open beach overshadowed by a giant cliff overlooking the sea dotted by huge boulders of rock: simply breathtaking view. We bought tons of fresh lobsters from a lone fisherman on the beach and cooked them on a woodfire. We cracked them open with stones and ate them steaming hot with sea salt. We thought this was the climax of the day.

On our (very long) way back to the boat we discovered the tide had risen and was now crashing furiously on the rocks, also threatening to do the same to the canoe. So we had to swim back to the boat guided by a single rope we held on to tightly. On the boat, while we were sleeping out of exhaustion, one of our friends fell overboard and had to be rescued (and amazingly managed to keep his sunglasses intact, which he didn’t hesitate to brag about). Back on our own corner of the island, we swam in the clear sparkling sea and made sandcastles on the white sandy beach till dusk. And that, was the climax of the day.

Plenty more adventures on our way back to Jakarta, but will stop here and leave you with pictures of the things I saw during the most adventurous holiday I’ve had in a long time.

hundreds of tiny fish are trapped on dry sand as the tide pulls away too fast
















resting by the entrance to the sacred Sanghiang Sirah Cave by the beach.





















sailing in the sunrise on Sunda Strait.

















insomniac reindeer on the beach accompanies us on our last night.





















sunset on the rocks at Copong Beach.