Jakarta Surrounding Areas
Cipanas, Bogor, Krakatau
Cipanas
The quiet spa village of CIPANAS, at the foot of Gunung Guntur, around two hours' journey southeast of Bandung, makes a delightful place to witness a picture postcard idyll of Javanese rural life. The plentiful rice paddies are punctuated by glassy ponds, palm trees and flowering bushes, and local villagers supplement their living with fish-rearing. In the background loom the volcanic peaks of Ginning Guntur, Galunggung, Papandayan and the perfect cone of Cikurai. There are walks to nearby waterfalls and you can climb Mount Guntur in a hard five-hour trek.
Bogor
Located 300m above sea level and just an hour's train journey south of Jakarta, BOGOR enjoys a cool, wet climate - the Guinness Book of Records not the city for the "most days per year with thunder" - and famously lush Botanical Gardens, which were founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1811. In the gardens, pathways wind between towering bamboo stands, climbing bougainvillea, a small tropical rainforest, and ponds full of water lilies and fountains. Perhaps the garden's best-known occupants are the Giant Rafflesia and Bunga Bangkai, two of the world's hugest (and smelliest) flowers. Near the gardens' main entrance, the rather dilapidated Zoological Museum (daily 8am-4pm; Rp1000) houses some 30,000 specimens, including a complete skeleton of a blue whale, a stuffed Javan rhino and a Komodo dragon. Wayang golek puppets are made at a workshop to the northeast of the gardens. If you're interested in gamelan and Javanese gongs, visit Pak Sukarna's factory on Jalan Pancasan to the southwest of the gardens. Here the instruments are forged using traditional methods, and are also for sale.
Krakatau
At 10am on August 27, 1883, an explosion equivalent to 10,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs rent Krakatau Island; the boom was heard as far away as Sri Lanka and Reunion. As the eruption column towered 40krn into the atmosphere, a thick mud rain began to fall over the area, and the temperature plunged by 5'C. Tremors were detected as far away as the English Channel and off the coast of Alaska. One single tsunami (pressure wave) as tall as a seven-storey building, raced outwards, erasing 300 towns and villages and killing 36,417 people; a government gunboat was carried 3km inland and deposited up a hill 10m above sea level. Once into the open sea, the waves traveled at up to 700kph, reaching South Africa and scuttling ships in Auckland harbor. Two-thirds of Krakatau had vanished for good, and on those Parts that remained not so much as a seed or an insect survived.
Today, the crumbled caldera is clearly visible west of the beaches near Merak and Carita, its sheer northern cliff face soaring straight out of the sea to nearly 800m. but it is the glassy black cone of Anak Krakatau, the child of Krakatau volcano, that most visitors want to see, a barren wasteland that's still growing and still very Much active. It first reared its head from the seas in 1930, and now sits angrily '11joking amongst the remains of the older peaks. To get here requires a motorboat trip (4-6hr) from Labuan or Carita, then a half-hour walk up to the crater, from where you can see black lava flows, sulphurous fumaroles and smoke. The easiest way to visit Krakatau is with the tour company in Carita
