These mysterious mountains now lure hikers and mountaineering clubs, which have sprung up in Jakarta, Bandung, and other cities. Adventure travelers from other countries also find these volcanoes worth the trip. The most popular ones to climb are:

• the twin volcanoes of Gede and Pangrango in West Java;
• Semeru and Kelud in East Java;
• Merapi in Central Java; and
• Rinjani on Lombok.

On rare occasions, expeditions are made to the snow-covered summit of the Jayawijaya Range in Papua. Although it was not formed by volcanic activity, it is the highest point in Indonesia and one incredible adventure at 5,050 meters (16,000 feet).

Indonesia’s most famous volcano is Krakatau (known in the Western world as Krakatoa) in the Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra. When it blew up in 1883, the explosion and its after-effects circled the world. This volcano and many others have killed more than 150,000 people in Indonesia over the last 200 years. Following is a list of the deadliest Indonesian volcanic eruptions on record:

Mt. Tambora, Sumbawa: In 1815, it killed 92,000 people. This eruption was greater in size and power than the more famous eruption of Krakatau. About 10,000 people were killed directly as a result of eruptions and ash falls, while about 82,000 were subsequently killed by starvation and disease.

• Mt. Krakatau, Sunda Strait: This well-known volcano erupted repeatedly over August 26-27, 1883. The northern part of the island vanished into the air and sea. It killed more than 36,000 people, mostly those who lived on the neighboring islands of Java and Sumatra. The massive tsunamis caused by the explosion surged 10 miles inland on these two islands to kill most of the victims. The explosions were heard 3,000 miles away and the shock was felt as far away as California, 9,000 miles from ground zero. Since 1925, this volcano has visibly been regenerating itself and is violently active again.
• Mt. Kelut, East Java: In 1586, Kelut (also called Kelud) erupted and killed about 10,000 people. Most of the victims were killed by lahars—violent mudflows comprised of volcanic ash and debris saturated with water from the volcano’s crater lake.  In 1919, this volcano erupted again and killed more than 5,000 people.
• Mt. Galunggung, West Java:  In 1882, this volcano erupted and killed about 4,000 people with mudflows and hot ash.

Mt. Awu, Sangihe Besar Island in North Sulawesi Province: In 1711, Awu erupted and killed more than 3,000 people. In 1856, it erupted again and killed about 2,800 people. In 1892, it erupted again and killed about 1,500 people. In 1812, this deadly mountain killed another 960 people.

Mt. Merapi, Central Java: In 1672, Merapi, which means mountain of fire, erupted and killed about 3,000 people. In 1930, Merapi erupted again and killed about 1,300 people in the valleys below. In 1994, a scorching heat cloud from the volcano killed 66 villagers and farmers living on its slopes.

• Mt. Papandayan, West Java: In 1772, this volcano killed about 2,900 people with its ash flows.
• Mt. Agung, Bali: On March 17, 1963, an eruption blew the top off of the volcano and killed nearly 1,200 people. Agung is the island’s highest and most sacred mountain.
• Mt. Raung, East Java: In 1638 this volcano erupted and killed about 1,000 people.
• Mt. Iliwerung, Lomblen Island, which lies between Flores Island and Alor Island, East Nusa Tenggara Province: In 1979, this remote volcano erupted and killed about 500 people.

Mt. Semeru, East Java: In 1965, Semeru killed more than 250 people. This is the highest mountain on Java.  In 1981, Semeru killed another 250 people.

Mt. Kelut, East Java: In 1966, Kelut killed more than 200 people. In 1966, Kelut killed another 90 people.

Mt. Dieng, Central Java: In 1979, this volcano killed about 150 people. The Dieng volcanic complex in Central Java Province consists of two main volcanoes and about 20 smaller craters, several of which emit poisonous gas.

River

In the middle of the nineteenth century, British zoologist Alfred Russel Wallace observed that the animals east of Bali and Borneo were closely associated with the species found in Australia. Meanwhile, the animals on the islands west of Lombok and Sulawesi had more in common with creatures from the Indo-Malayan region of Southeast Asia. This biological border has since been named the Wallace Line. In Papua, for example, there are major areas of dense forest and swamp similar to those of Sumatra and Kalimantan, but the large mammals of Asia, such as the tiger, rhinoceros, and elephant, are absent. Instead, many Australia-originating species are found on this side of the Wallace Line, including wallabies, carnivorous mice, bandicoots, and flying possums such as the sugar glider, which uses the membrane stretched between its legs to help it float from tree to tree. This region also features tree kangaroos, which are at home among the branches but find walking difficult. The spiny anteater, a creature related to the duck-billed platypus, also is found here.

Technorati Tags: Wallace Line, Alfred Russel Wallace, Lombok, Sulawesi, species found in Australia

Beautiful Indonesia

Human migration to the Indonesian islands has been traced back to 3,000–500 BC. These first migrants appear to be from the Mongolian region of Asia. They introduced new Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age cultures and influenced local languages throughout these islands.

Indonesia came under the influence of a mighty Indian civilization through the gradual influx of Indian traders in the first century, when great Hindu and Buddhist empires emerged. The Buddhist Sriwijaya was centered in Sumatra, while the Hindu Mataram located its capital on Java. The Mataram Empire ruled for two centuries and built many monuments across Java, including the Prambanan temples near Yogyakarta, the Panataran temples in East Java, as well as the temples on the Dieng Plateau. The rich architectural and cultural legacy that remains from that time forms the basis for Indonesia’s national identity.

By the seventh century, the powerful Buddhist kingdom of Sriwijaya was expanding. Many historians believe that the spectacular Borobudur Buddhist sanctuary was built in Central Java during this period.

In the thirteenth century, the Hindu Majapahit of Java faced a strong challenge from Muslim forces, which spread south from the Malay Peninsula. Slowly losing ground, the Hindus retreated to Bali, where they remain today. Arab traders and merchants laid the foundations for the gradual spread of Islam to the region, which did not replace Hinduism and Buddhism as the dominant religions until the end of the sixteenth century. Small Muslim kingdoms developed and grew, but none anticipated the strength and persistence of subsequent European invasions. Marco Polo was one of the first known Europeans to visit the islands, in 1292. The Portuguese arrived a few centuries later, in pursuit of spices. In 1509, the Portuguese established trading posts in the strategic commercial center of Malacca on the Malaysian peninsula. These strongholds allowed them to control important trade routes in the area.

Although the Portuguese broke the Islamic hold on Indonesia, the Dutch displaced them with settlements of their own in 1602. The new occupants called the area the Dutch East Indies. The new Dutch colony fell under British rule for a short period during the Napoleonic Wars of 1811–1816. A revolt led by Javanese prince Diponegoro in 1825 also threatened Holland’s empire. Despite these distractions, Dutch rule continued and bloody clashes between the Indonesian people and the Dutch colonial government escalated.

World War II halted the friction between the Dutch and the Indonesians because the Japanese military controlled most of Indonesia. Most of the islanders welcomed the Japanese as a potential force of liberation. However, the surrender of the Japanese in 1945, signaling the end of World War II, served as a turning point in Indonesia’s quest for independence. The Indonesian revolutionary nationalist movement helped the country win its independence from the Netherlands. The Dutch returned to reclaim Indonesia but encountered renewed resistance from Indonesian nationalists, who embarked on a bloody war of independence against Dutch rule. Although the war dragged on from 1945 to 1949, the independence movement prevailed. Indonesia declared its independence on August 17, 1945, but it wasn’t until December 9, 1949, that a formal independence agreement was reached with the help of the United Nations. From that point forward the world acknowledged Indonesia as an independent country. The revolution was led by a young Javanese man named Sukarno. He became the nation’s first president and served from 1945 to 1967, presiding with mixed success over the country’s turbulent transition to independence. Turmoil characterized the first decade of Indonesian independence until 1957, when Sukarno unified his power over the Indonesian archipelago. An attempted communist coup against Sukarno in 1965 brought renewed turmoil. However, General Suharto’s army restored order, which paved the way for him to ease Sukarno out of the presidency and assume office himself. Haji Mohammad Soeharto, more commonly referred to as simply Soeharto (he was known as Suharto in the English-speaking world), was a former Indonesian military and political leader. He served as a military officer in the Indonesian War of Independence but is better known as the long-reigning second president of Indonesia, holding the office from 1967 to 1998. Over the three decades of his authoritarian regime, Suharto constructed a powerful central government with strong military ties. An ability to maintain stability and an avowedly anti-Communist stance won him the economic and diplomatic support of several Western governments in the era of the Cold War. For most of his three-decade rule, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialization. His rule, however, caused the political purge and deaths of millions of Indonesian “Communists” and Chinese Indonesians and the enactment of legislation outlawing communist parties and ethnic Chinese. By the 1990s, however, his administration’s authoritarian and increasingly corrupt practices became a source of much discontent. Suharto’s unquestioned authority over Indonesian affairs slipped dramatically when the Asian financial crisis lowered Indonesians’ standard of living and fractured his support among the nation’s military, political, and civil society institutions. After internal unrest and diplomatic isolation began to drain his support in the mid to late 1990s, Suharto was forced to resign from the presidency in May 1998 following mass demonstrations.

After serving as the public face of Indonesia for more than thirty years, Suharto lived his post-presidential years in seclusion until he passed away in 2008. Attempts to prosecute him on charges of genocide failed due to his declining health. His legacy remains hotly debated and contested both in Indonesia and in foreign-policy debates in the West.

Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie was the third president of Indonesia, holding office from 1998 to 1999. He rose to power after modernizing and expanding Indonesia’s aviation industry. Abdurrahman Wahid was the president of Indonesia from 1999 to 2001 and founder of the National Awakening Party (PKB). He is a former Islamic cleric who guided the country for two years, despite virtual blindness. Diah Permata Megawati Setiawati Sukarnoputri was president of Indonesia from 2001 to 2004. She was the country’s first female president and is the daughter of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno. In 2004, she was ranked number eight on Forbes magazine’s list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is a retired Indonesian military general and statesman and the sixth president of Indonesia. He is the first to be elected directly by voters. Yudhoyono
won the presidency in September 2004 in the second round of the Indonesian presidential election, in which he defeated incumbent president Megawati Sukarnoputri. Javanese do not have surnames in the Western sense. For example, the president’s name Yudhoyono was not inherited either from his father or his mother. While he uses Yudhoyono in naming his children, it is not a descended family surname. In Indonesia, he is referred to in some media as Susilo and is widely known in Indonesia as SBY. Abroad, he is referred to as Yud-hoyono, a name that he chose for his military nametag, while in formal meetings and functions he is addressed as Dr. Yudhoyono.

While Indonesia comprises thirty-three different provinces, and its official capital is Jakarta, the country’s spiritual capital is Yogyakarta – a beautiful city located southeast of Jakarta. Yogykarta is politically sovereign and still has a Javanese sultan who rules the city. Banda Aceh, in northern Sumatra, also has its own sultan who rules the city. Although these sultans are largely political figureheads who have been carried over from historical eras, they still have significant autonomy and political influence.

Technorati Tags: Indonesian politics, Indonesia travel, Banda Aceh, Yogykarta