Wonderful Indonesia

The 2012 Wonderful Indonesia promotion video "Feeling is Believing " is indeed really wonderful:

I also like this video:

I also found this little gem on YouTube:

Overall, great job Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy! Looking forward to 2013 videos, keep up the good work.

Tree ferns of Java (Cyathea)

Photos of Cyathea tree ferns I took on a trail run around Gunung Pancar (West Java, Indonesia):

Tree ferns do not form new woody tissue in their trunk as they grow. Rather, the trunk is supported by a fibrous mass of roots that expands as the tree fern grows.

More info about Cyathea on this site.

Privacy in Indonesia

Anyone living in Indonesia will soon realise that the concept of privacy is not very well understood within the Indonesian society. Here's one interesting example, of a prepaid SIM-card registration process:

The registration process includes question "Are you a smoker? [Apakah Anda Perokok?]" It is not possible to skip this question. I think most of westerners would be really surprised to see such question - why the hell mobile operator needs to know if I'm smoking?!?!?! - and would not be happy to have to answer to it, but it is perfectly normal in Indonesia.

Gunung Pancar

I took a few photos from one of my favorite spots around Gunung Pancar, featuring Gunung Pancar (left) and Gunung Salak (center):

This is how the same view looks in Google Earth - it's pretty close actually:

It's possible to see Jakarta from here, but unfortunately due to high humidity and pollution, I can never see it clearly - I'm still waiting for the right conditions to take a better photo:

 Sentul seen from the same spot:

In case you want to visit yourself, I mapped all these photos on Panoramio.

Creatures of Gunung Pancar

I found this cute little crab on a trail run around Gunung Pancar:

I didn't know crabs can live in a forest at 450m elevation. This little bug was not moving much, so I had enough time to  set-up proper light:

Trail run from Cibadak to Gunung Pancar (West Java, Indonesia)

Last weekend I went back to Cibadak for more trail run challenges (video):

Finally I managed to find an off-road trail from Cibadak to Gunung Pancar (parking at the  pine tree forest). Turns out, it was another night trail run in this area because of invalid maps both on Google Earth & Garmin GPS (same source?). I had to run extra 4km to find the correct trail. Backup waterproof flashlight really came in handy.