Indonesia

Indonesia Sumatra, Kampong Keling market, Medan. Note the fine vegetables amongst the tropical fruit. These were grown in Brastagi a few hours drive and a few thousand feet higher to the southwest where the climate was more temperate. We lived in Medan from 1979 to 1981 when I worked for Mobil & greatly enjoyable it was. I found the people and places fascinating. Every day threw up something new & even on the walk to the office you saw different things of interest. I went back on holiday in 1997 &, unsurprisingly, things had changed. Toko Ben's - the sacks sit outside the shop entrance - had transformed into a modern supermarket no longer opening onto the market but what shocked me the most was the fact that the Mobil office building had been converted into a Pizza Hut! A sign of the times I suppose.

Me & Francoise getting a close look at the sulphur around the fumerole of Mount Sibyak volcano.

We climbed Mount Sibayak a fairly dormant volcano near Berastagi south of Medan. It is more than 100 years since it last erupted - very recently in geological time - but the Barisan Mountains are definitely still active. Mt Sinabung a few kilometres from here did erupt in 2010. Steam from the fumeroles can be seen on the mountain. The walk starts in these rice padi fields but climbs quite steeply through forest and then onto open rock. The crest is at 2,212 m (7,257 ft) and in the clouds it gets chilly when you're wearing shorts!.

A labourer walks the plank carrying planks. They are teak which had come from Sulawesi (formerly known as Celebes) on this beautiful wooden sailing freighter. As can be seen the harbour was full of them. A real glimpse into the past.

In 1981 I was working in Medan, North Sumatra but as I was about to transfer to The Hague we decided to take vacation and travel around some other parts of Indonesia before leaving. We had just spent a few days in Yogyakarta and were now flying east to Bali over East Java and the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park. The islands of Sumatra and Java lie on a long volcanic arc above a subduction zone where the Indo-Australia plate is moving beneath the Eurasia plate making it very volcanically active.

Pulau Seribu sailing ship carrying wood from Sulewasi to Jakarta. The wooden framework on the right is a fishing platform common in the shallow water all over Indonesia. The photo was taken early morning en route from Jakarta to Pulau Seribu on a geological field trip to study the coral reefs. I know, it's a dirty job but somebody has to do it.

The second time I visited was as a tourist with my wife & this time we flew from Jakarta to the Pulau Seribu (the aptly-named Thousand Islands) in the Java Sea by light aircraft. The Pulau Seribu are actually a string of 105 coral reef-fringed islands stretching 45 kilometres north into the Java Sea.

We were en route by boat from Jakarta to Pulau Seribu in the Java Sea when we passed this classic sailing ship carrying timber probably from Sulawesi. It made a fine sight. Lots of other working sailing ships in the background.

From one volcano to another! We are on on Mount Sibayak (Indonesian: Gunung Sibayak) an active Pleistocene-to-Holocene stratovolcano peaking at 2,181 m (7,156 ft). The other volcano is Mount Sinabung, about 15km to the southwest, that in 2010 erupted after a 400-year-long hiatus, a blink of an eye in geological time. Both volcanoes are part of the Barisan Mountain range that runs NW-SE for a 1000 miles along the whole length of Sumatra parallel to the Sumatra Trench & includes 35 active volcanoes. Although its last eruption was more than a century ago, Sibayak has geothermal activity in the form of steam vents and hot springs on and around the volcano. The vents produce crystalline sulfur, which was being mined on a small scale in 1979 (men carrying sacks down the mountain on their backs). Seepage of sulfurous gases has also caused acidic discolouration of the small crater lake part of which can be seen bottom middle.