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SUMATRA & JAVA

24-07

In the first 2 months of our big trip we travelled through beautiful countries and we have been lucky to see such beautiful things! But none of these countries has any beaches or warm weather, and our flip flops were still unused. Time to fly to the tropics and slow down a bit!

Our pick was Pulau Weh, a very nice little island at the North-Western tip of Sumatra in Indonesia. We stayed almost 2 weeks at Gapang Beach, which offered us a white beach, crystal clear water, a spacious bungalow, delicious food, good coffee, excellent diving, relaxed yoga and great people within just 100 meters. We were living in Paradise!

The only reason to leave paradise is to see a very special and almost extinct animal in his natural habitat: the orang-utan! We travelled into the jungle where they were waiting for us. To experience this part of the jungle at the fullest, we decided to do a 2 day jungle trekking. This jungle trekking included some serious hiking through the thick and muddy jungle, but when you get to see many orang-utans it is so worth it! We even got chased by a giant male orang utan, which freaked us out at first. After he stopped chasing us we were able to get very close. It was amazing to get so close to this 'jungle man'!

The whole jungle experience was great and we had the full back to basic experience: sleeping on the floor in a man-made tent during massive rain showers, taking a shower in the river and rafting back to the village

Indonesia has approximately 17.000 islands. That's why traveling here is all about making choices. We decided to fly from North Sumatra to East Java and continue our trip from Yogyakarta eastwards towards Bali.Yogyakarta was a great start of our Java tour. We loved the vibe and nice restaurants and we met a lot of nice people.

With the Prambanan tempels, the sunrise at the Borobudur tempel complex, the sunrise at the Bromo Volcano, the hike underneath the Madakaripura waterfall and the hike to the crater lake of Kawah Ijen we travelled from one incredible highlight to the other.

Most of these highlights in Java are at its best during sunrise. After a couple of nights without sleep in a row we enjoyed some relaxing days in Bali before we had to leave this beautiful country. Not because we wanted to, but because our 30 day visa was running out.

Watch more of this beautiful trip on YouTube

After a short visa run to Malaysia we will be back soon in Indonesia for more island hopping