Switzerland

The nearly 6 month's in Southeast Asia passed very fast and now we are already back in Switzerland. We stay here about a month with our family to relax and visit the country. Today we are going for a few days to Thun to my grandfathers house, photos we will show you later on.

Singapore

Singapore is a big city on an island at the end of the Southeast Asia peninsula. The city is very, very different to other one's in this region (only Kuala Lumpur is similar). Everything is well organised and clean, by metro it's possible to reach every place quickly and all is modern (buildings, shopping centers, etc.)

Inside the city are many different quaters, like Chinatown, Little India, Colonial District, Kampong Glam (muslim), etc. Modern skyscrapers are next to old coloniail buildings.

Hindu and buddhist temples, mosques and churches (St. Andrew's Cathedral) are very close to each other.

One day we spent in the Singapore Zoological Gardens, a nice place with a lot of animals. Finally we could see all this big cats and other animals in real, which we didn't have the chance to spot during our trekking tours in different National Parks!! The Zoo has an open concept, the Orang-utans are free! And apart of the animals is also the forest very nice, jungle! After the zoo visit we went to the Night Safari, another park with animals, but this one is only possible to visit during night time. It's something special to see the animals by night and drive along by tram.

Jakarta

Jakarta is Indonesia's capital and one of the biggest cities in Southeast Asia. The city is very busy, a lot of traffic and quite polluted, but the train service is a reliable service.

The center of the city is the Lapangan Merdea (Freedom square) with the National Monument, a 132 meters high column. Except of this, the center has some modern buildings and big streets.

The historic heart of Jakarta is in Kota, home to the remnants of the Dutch capital of Batavia. Along a channel (which smells very, very bad) can be seen many old Dutch colonial houses and also the Chicken Market Bridge.

The center of the Dutch town was on the Taman Fatahillah, the old town square, where the old City hall stands (built in 1710) and inside is now the Jakarta History Museum.

Close to the square is the Gereja Sion (Sion church), the oldest remaining church in Jakarta. It was built in 1695 for the "black Portuguese" brought to Batavia as slaves and given their freedom if they joined the Dutch Reformed Church. It's the only church we've seen with an organ inside.

Before coming to Jakarta, we made a stop in Bogor. In the center of this city is the Bogor's botanical gardens, called Kebun Raya. This "green lung" was first laid out by the British governor Sir Stamford Raffles and later expanded by Dutch botanists. The gardens are big and full of plants, many different palm trees, water plants, cactus, etc.

Dieng Plateau

After Yogyakarta we went by bus to Dieng (via Wonosobo) where we stayed 2 days. The Plateau of Dieng (Abode of Gods) on 2100 meters (and above) is a volcanic landscape of swirling clouds, green hills and acient ruins. There we went trekking to lakes and craters and to a mountain for sunrise.

The view of the Dieng mountains from Wonosobo and the fields and terraces where they plant a lot of things.

On a trip we went to Telaga Warna, also called coloured lake, and from a viewpoint above we had a nice panorama. The colour of the lake is different from other one's, because it's inside an crater.

Afterwards we went to Kawah Sikidang, a volcanic crater with steaming vents and bubbling mud pools. The water inside has a temperature of 90 degrees, a famous place for suicide.

After the football match we started the trekking tour at 3.30 am and went up to a mountain for sunrise (at 5.30). There were some clouds, but it was the best sunrise we could enjoy in Indonesia. We had also a nice view towards the Gunung Sundoro, another volcano more than 3100 meters high.

Another day we went to another lake inside a crater, where we could see a lot of people who worked in the terraces.

On the way to the lake we passed a crater with a lot of bubbling hot water inside. In Dieng Plateau they use the geothermal energy and they have a lot of pipelines and factories.

Dieng Plateau not only has volcanos, but also Hindu temples. They are ghought to be the oldest in Java, dating back to AD 680. The temples are quite small and many of them destroyed, but with the surrounding landscape they look nice.