Experiences Abroad: March 2016

For most of February I was able to take a vacation outside of China to a warm destination. I jumped on an airplane and headed down south quite a ways all the way down to the southern hemisphere. I landed in a country that has many islands and is known as Indonesia. I chose this destination for the fact that with so many islands there is a great chance to do some scuba diving and simply enjoy the beaches. As I was leaving cold and freezing Harbin those were my intentions and it was a pretty successful vacation.

My first destination was on the island of Sulawesi. From Jakarta I took a plane to Palu and then a bus to the next city of Ampana. The bus ride from Palu to Ampana was through some mountains with some winding roads. It was a nice drive going through smaller villages along the way and the scenery had a jungle type feel. My ultimate destination was a small chain of islands that are called the Togean Islands. After staying the night in Ampana I took a speed boat (two 200 h.p. engines) out to the islands. I ended up staying on an island that was called Kadiri and the view was amazing. A clean beach and the water had a great color to it. I ended up staying out on this island for about six nights. The place I stayed was called “Kadiri Paradise” and it did feel like paradise. The room fee did also include breakfast, lunch, and dinner which were great meals. The food usually consisted of rice, vegetables, and some form of seafood (fresh fish, shrimp, squid, etc.). On this island there was no internet and no phone reception so it was simply beautiful nature and other travelers to visit during the stay on the island.

Beautiful nature is indeed pretty accurate. I was especially focused on the nature under the water. Which with this water it was possible to see from the surface pretty easily but of course when scuba diving I can get up and close. The diving here was pretty good and I was able to see some interesting things. It is some of the best reefs I have been on but at times we did stumble across some bad reefs. Up in this remote location the fisherman are known to dynamite fish which is very bad for the environment particularly the coral reef. Besides that fact there still was some interesting life to see. Various schools of reef fish, a black tip reef shark, a sea turtle, Triton trigger fish, anemone fish, eels, parrot-fish, jack fish, lion fish, nudibranchs, etc. Plus there are so many different types of coral that make for interesting views and seeing how they interact and grow next to each other or sometimes even on top of is neat. Majority of dives were either following along the coral reef, a wall dive or something very similar but there was one very different dive. It was a plane wreck! There is B-24 American bomber that crash landed very close to the place I was staying. The plane had engine problems and they knew it was going down and were able to eject in time before landing. Even with it crashing it was still in good condition underwater. It was only about 22 meters (around 70 feet) deep but right by a mangrove type island so visibility could be bad at times. You were able to swim through real quick but not through the whole plane, simply one door on the port side swim out another door on the starboard side (those are boat terms and I am not sure if they apply to planes too). For this particular dive my camera didn’t have battery that day so no pictures but there will be other pictures below of some of my other dives.

While staying on Kadiri there was one day where I didn’t do any diving but took a little local trip. There was a group of us who rented a local boat for the day and they took us to three different spots. First spot was simply a nice empty beach (almost all of them are anyway) that had some good coral out front where we snorkeled a little. The next stop was actually right next to the beach and it was a little bit crazy what we did. There is this freshwater lake right behind the rocks that we swam in along with jellyfish. Yes, the lake is full of jellyfish, but none of us did get stung. This particular jellyfish doesn’t sting and is obviously very unique. The next stop was a village on an island about an hour’s boat ride away. Some of the village was built on stilts literally right above the water. To connect this village to actual land there is this very long boardwalk type path. We walked along that to the next village which is on actual land. That day they were laying out coconut pieces to dry and probably sell and eat. Plus you could see that here they do build the boats just like the one we were on for this little trip. After this we started headed back but then made a right out into the middle of the ocean. Out here there is this random platform and it is known as Hotel California. It is literally a platform with a roof in the middle of the ocean. Here we ate lunch and then did some snorkeling along the reef right there. This reef is the main draw to come out to this platform because it has some very nice life on it. Here is where I did see the black tip reef shark, some squid, and many more coral fish. After visiting the reef for some time we headed back to Kadiri and saw one of the better sunsets on the whole trip.

About six nights later, eight dives later, many meals later it was time to leave the Togean Islands and venture somewhere new. First to get off the islands I took a ferry that left around 5:00p.m. arriving into the town to the north around 4:00 a.m. so getting a little sleep on the ferry. Once getting into this city I needed to use the internet to see what options I had for plane tickets. Luckily some people I met were going to be staying in this city for one day so I went with them to their hotel in order to use the Wi-Fi. I left that city around 11:30 a.m. heading south and eventually (after a layover) landed in Bali around 8:30 p.m. I had originally wanted to go to Flores which is the island directly to the East of Bali but no connections that day to make it that far. At this point I had two options: to stay in Bali and be able to dive at least two days or fly the next morning to Flores and be able to dive only one day (this is because of not being able to fly directly after diving, and my plane heading back to China was a few days later). Even with the great stories of the life around Flores I took the gamble and stayed in Bali for the chance of two days of diving.

My gamble did pay off and in fact the diving down in Bali (even with only two days) I saw more life, and more unique life than up in the Togean Islands. I ended up doing five different dives and saw some great things such as: lion fish, nudibranch, mantis shrimp, seahorse, small porcelain crabs, trigger-fish, eels, scorpion-fish (great at camouflage), parrot fish, two turtles (one swam right over my head), octopus, anemone fish (aka clown fish), puffer-fish, stingray, schools of reef fish, etc. The amount of life and abundance of good coral was amazing. I didn’t see any damage from fishing. Even with that list of well-known/ bigger fish creatures everyone might recognize there is one thing I left off. I have been wanting to see and dive with this for a long time and I was able to. The dive site is known as Manta Point. After the hour boat ride out and some choppy water we jump in and our objective is to hopefully see some manta rays. They are known to be at this spot because it is a cleaning station for them. This rock which is only at about 5 meters (10 feet deep) the mantas will swim over the top and other cleaning fish will clean them. This happens all over the oceans and is especially common on the bigger animals such as manta rays. We drop in and swim up to the rock but of course don’t want to go on top of the rock but instead just hover there waiting. There were some manta rays that day and it was awesome to see. After seeing one my dive master tells me and my buddy to go to the back of the rock because there were so many other divers there. With going to the back the mantas swam right by me I could have reached out and touched them, that is how close they came. In total at one time there were about four different mantas. They are big, giant gentle creatures that ironically have the nickname of devil fish. I am pretty sure this is simply because of their looks and some say they have horns. It is a nickname that old sailors gave to the manta rays and in fact they are beautiful majestic creatures.

Even with the amazing sea life, warm weather, and relaxing atmosphere my vacation did have to come to an end. With Indonesia being so big and having different things on the different islands I would love to get back down there and see some more. Before completely leaving I did have about six hours in Jakarta which a lot of that time was spent in traffic. Luckily the taxi driver told me about a train to get back out to my hotel which was by the airport so I did take a couple commuter trains. In Jakarta I simply walked around an area that has a big Dutch influence. I am pretty sure they were one of the first colonizers on Indonesia. Then I also went to a mosque (the biggest one in Southeast Asia) and cathedral which they happened to be right across the street from each other. I know there is more to see and do in Jakarta but I wanted to spend as much time in and around the water and so that is what I did.

I have been back in Harbin for about three weeks now. It still is freezing weather up here and at first seemed colder because I was vacationing on the equator and in a warm environment. Of course I have readjusted and we are starting to see glimpses of spring weather. I was extra busy with work the first week back because it is called make-up week, which means a lot longer week with more classes. I have noticed I haven’t really described the working environment I have up here in Harbin. That will be the next post and it won’t take a month or longer before I write that one. I know I have been slacking but there was just too much to see and do during winter in the “Ice City.” For now below are some pictures from Indonesia including some of the underwater creatures I did see. I will write later.