Bawean Island

And then there was a volcano no one has ever heard off. It is on an island that is far off-grid and which takes a 9-hour ferry to get there. (There is a small plane, if you are happy to travel without luggage.) The volcano has long gone extinct. All that remains is this island,…

Mount Merapi and the temple it dooms

For a brief period this was the nation’s capital. During the war of independence (called a ‘police action’ by the Dutch, in an older echo of some current events), Yogyakarta served as the seat of the Republic between 1946 (the fall of Jakarta to the Dutch) until 1948. Indonesia later rewarded the city by granting…