Home Again

So, my plans to dutifully keep an updated blog over the summer may have failed miserably, but that doesn't mean I can't give you the major highlights of my time on Hoga Island! I thought the best way to do this would be to show you my favorite pictures and provide some captions to go along with them.

My experience on Hoga Island this summer was surreal and nothing less than amazing and life-changing. I don't think I could have asked for anything more. Diving every day in one of the most biodiverse regions of the world, being constantly surrounded by scientists who love talking nonstop about marine biology and conservation issues, and watching the sunset every night from a beautiful beach on a remote island in Indonesia. Summers can't get much better than that in my opinion.

Beautiful Nudibranchs (basically sea snails with no shell). My favorite animals to look for while scuba diving, they come in all different colors and sizes, and I think they are some of the most adorable invertebrates found in the ocean :) The diversity of fish, corals, and invertebrates in the Indo-Pacific region is unbelievable and I feel so lucky to have gotten the opportunity to experience it every day for 6 weeks. There was never a dive where I didn't see something that took my breath away or made me marvel at the complexity of the ocean. After taking the Coral Reef Ecology class in my second week, I was able to identify and know the scientific names of over 30 corals, 40 fish families, and even more invertebrates. Being able to apply what I learned in the lectures to my dives and understand what I was looking at was an incredibly gratifying experience. 

This is a picture of my friend Allie swimming above a giant barrel sponge (one of my favorite pictures!). For one of the weeks I was on Hoga, I lived on a live-aboard dive boat called the Bintang-Sedang with 9 other volunteers. We did most of our diving around the island of Wanci, which is the first island in the Wakatobi region. Every morning we did a Reef Check Survey of different dive sites where along a specified length and location of reef we would record the amount and types of fish, invertebrates, and coral. These surveys, with data collected over a span of many years, can give scientists a general idea of the health and quality of that particular reef and can help them determine whether a reef is improving or degrading. 

Yes, this is a sea snake (Black and White Banded Sea Krait or Laticauda colubrina for those scientific folk!), and yes, its venom is quite poisonous. But don't worry because these snakes aren't aggressive at all. In fact, watching them swim through the water was one of the most graceful and beautiful things I've seen. 

The Bintang-Sedang crew from Unit 3! I met a ton of amazing and interesting people from all over the place. Operation Wallacea is a UK organization so most everyone is from England, but there was a decently sized group from the US, Canada, and Ireland, along with some from Spain, Scotland, France, Belgium, Brazil, Italy, and other countries. The friends I made and the extremely talented people I met and learned from definitely made the experience for me, and I already miss all of them loads.   

Snorkeling at Buoy 3, one of the sites on the reef directly in front of Hoga. 

Kit-up area where everyone puts their dive gear together before heading to the boats. 

Some of the most stunning sunsets I've ever seen are in Indonesia. I made an effort to watch them every night from the beach if I could. It's amazing how quickly the sun disappears when it approaches the horizon (within seconds!), but shades of pink, orange, purple, and red stretch across the sky for a while after. 

The trip home from Hoga was more eventful than I thought it was going to be. After our 12 hour boat ride to Bau Bau and a 4 hour delay at the Bau Bau airport, we missed our flight from Makassar to Bali. I missed my flight to Singapore and my flight home. This unexpected change of plans ended up being the perfect way to end my trip as I got an extra day to spend in Bali along with a few hours to explore Singapore. I took a ride on the Singapore Flyer, the highest ferris wheel in the world, and walked around Chinatown before heading to the airport for my 16 hour flight back to Los Angeles. I have to say, transitioning from a third world country to a developed one like Singapore was definitely a shock!

Spectacular view from the Singapore Flyer!

If you couldn't tell from my descriptions of Hoga, I love this place and would go back in a second. This trip has probably been one of my most challenging and at the same time one of my most rewarding adventures I've ever embarked on. Would you be surprised to know that it has made me want to go back to Indonesia and other regions in the Indo-Pacific and Asia? Not really. Good. Because I'm not surprised either :)

Thank you to everyone who patiently kept checking and reading this blog in an attempt to follow my adventures this summer!! If you have any questions feel free to ask me and I'll explain in much more detail and show you more pictures (I have a lot of underwater ones!). I hope everyone's summers were relaxing and happy.

Till my next adventure!
<3 Charlee

Updates from Hoga Island

Hi all!
Sorry it's been a while since my last post, but I've basically been travelling to Hoga Island and then getting settled. I can't even express just how difficult it is to reach this island--it's more than remote if that's possible. I flew from Bali to Makassar where I was taken by Operation Wallacea people to a hotel where I would be staying for the next 2 days until all of the Hoga island people arrived. All 60 of us left Makassar and flew to Bau Bau where we grabbed dinner and then got on a boat at 8:30pm for a 9pm departure. We were told that the boat ride to Hoga would take approximately 12 hours, so needless to say when 3 hours later we were still sitting at the dock our levels of exasperation and annoyance reached a peak. All in all, we were on the boat for 16 hours.

Once we finally got to Hoga around 1pm, we got on smaller boats that brought us closer to the shore. When I say closer, I'm hoping that you catch on to the idea that it does not mean all the way. We then got to wade through the shallow water for a while to get to the beach. The rest of the day was full of orientation lectures about health and safety, tours, accommodations and bed.

I'm very sad to say that the internet here is unbearably slow, so I won't be able to upload any photos anymore because I don't think this internet connection is strong enough. The layout of the Operation Wallacea portion of Hoga Island is pretty small, consisting of a main lodge with a dining room, study area, tiny library, computer room, and one smaller lecture room. Near the lodge is a lecture hall where we had our orientation and where the Tropical Reef Ecology class that I'll be taking starting on Saturday meets. There is also a bathroom facility next to the lodge. The huts that we stay in are owned by the nearby villagers and consist of 2 beds, a cupboard or two, and a pretty much outdoor bathroom called a Mandi. While there is an extensive filter system for drinking water, there is no actual running water on the island so in order to "shower" we get to take a small scooper to the large bucket of fresh water (not drinkable) in our bathroom and pour it over our heads. We can only do 2-3 scoops per day to conserve that water as it is limited. The toilet is actually a squat toilet, which if you've travelled a lot you may have encountered a few times. We flush that with a scoop of the smaller saltwater bucket. I took some pictures which I'll post in August.

Anyways, yesterday we had some more lectures about which organisms to watch out for in the ocean. But I also got to go on my first dive, which was incredible. It was mainly a check dive to show that we still knew how to scuba dive properly, but just getting to finally be in the water was what I'd been craving. I've never seen anything so beautiful, and the visibility wasn't even that good at the moment. The biodiversity in the ocean here is unbelievable. There were a bunch of different kinds and colors of coral as well as tons of fish. I'll spare you my marine biology nerdiness for later though, so I won't get into it too much here.

The people here are all really awesome. Most of them are from the UK, some are from Canada, and a few are Americans. I've made a bunch of friends and have been having an amazing time hearing people's stories about where they've dived before, what they're studying here, and other interesting facts about their lives. Most of the people here, especially from the UK, are doing dissertations (in the UK, undergrads have to do a dissertation to graduate and a lot of them opt to go to Hoga Island to do their research). I'm just a research assistant, so I've been asking around trying to figure out which projects are happening and which ones I'd like to help out with.

My time here is split up into weeklong units, and my first one, which actually doesn't involve diving, started today. It's the Wakatobi Culture course (Wakatobi is an acronym for the 4 different islands that make up this region of Indonesia). We're going to be visiting fisheries and villages and eating local food and doing traditional activities. So far today, we went to an island called Kaledupa and learned how the women hand-weave traditional sarongs. A man climbed a coconut tree for us so we could try some fresh coconut water. Every day we also spend some time learning Bahasa Indonesian, which is the language in Indonesia (apparently we have a test at the end of the week!).

I'll try and keep this blog updated as much as possible but please don't be offended if it takes me a while. I miss you all!

Selamat malam (Goodnight!) and Terima kasih (Thank you!) for taking the time to read this.
<3 Char

Bali Part 4: Water for Elephants

This will sadly be my last post from Bali, but not to worry! At 6pm I'll be on my way to remote island called Hoga, which is in the Wakatobi Marine Reserve close to Sulawesi. I'm positive that I'll have plenty more stories to tell you about and keep you entertained for the next two months.

Yesterday we went to the Elephant Safari Park in Taro village, which is very close to Ubud. When we entered the park, it reminded me a little bit of Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida except only with elephants. The park has 30 Sumatran elephants that were rescued and are currently treated very well. We learned that these Sumatran elephants are the smallest of all elephants (compared with the largest and most aggressive: the African elephant) and have the best memory.

One of the coolest parts about the park is that you can go right up to the elephants and feed them palm leaves, touch them, and take lots of pictures with them. There were 3 baby elephants that were just born in 2009, and they were so adorable. We got to watch them play around in the water and rough house. It's amazing how playful and silly the elephants are.

My mom and I got to ride an elephant named Rama who was 27 years old. I learned that only the eldest male elephant gets to father baby elephants and that he gets the choice of the female elephants. Rama wasn't quite old enough yet. Most elephants apparently live until they're about 60 years old! Our ride was incredible, and I'm really glad I got to experience it. Rama's trainer who sat the entire ride on Rama's head, led us through the forest surrounding the park. We saw beautiful trees and strange tropical plants (I obviously took pictures of all the weird ones I saw). At one point there was a Kingsbill bird sitting on a branch right next to us. It had this huge, bright orange beak that was huge in proportion to its tiny body. The ride was super bumpy, and might have made my mom slightly nauseous, but it was still amazing.

All in all, it was a really fun day. Not too long, though we still drove most of the day (we left the hotel at 8:30 am and didn't get back until 5pm!).

I hope you've enjoyed my stories from Bali. Stay tuned for updates from Hoga Island and my Operation Wallacea adventures!
<3 Char

Bali Part 3: "You smell like a monkey, and you look like one too

Here is the picture I promised of the family riding on one motorbike. Mom, dad, two kids, and infant:

*Spoiler Alert* If you're currently wondering whether or not my title has any relevance to my blog post, it certainly does.

Yesterday was probably our favorite adventure of the entire trip. We left the hotel at 9am again and drove for about 2 hours until we reached the monkey forest in Sangeh. Before I get into the details of our monkey escapades, I'd like to pause here to tell everyone a crucial piece of information about Bali that you absolutely need to know if you ever plan on vacationing here. Unless you plan on staying at your hotel for the entire duration of your trip, you will be driving for at least 2 hours, usually more, to reach any must-see temples or activities. Please don't let the length of time spent in a car deter you from visiting Bali however--I just wanted to give you a heads up. It's truly one of the most beautiful and interesting places I've been.

Anyways, I'll get on with the show now. The monkey forest was probably one of the most fun and memorable places we've been, if not for the beauty of the towering trees and intricate statues (so many "evil-stoppers"), then for the hundreds of monkeys surrounding us and looking extremely curious. There are locals at the forest who follow tourists around with bags of papaya leaves and bananas so they can help these visitors take pictures with the curious and hungry monkeys. These monkeys in particular had no fear at all, and at one point I had one sitting on my head eating whatever treats were given to him and two crawling up either leg. These monkeys were so much better than the greedy, flip-flop- and hat-stealing ones at Uluwatu because all they wanted was a snack, which was exactly what they got after they were coaxed to sit long enough on my mom and Kristen's shoulders to take a picture. I lost track of how many different monkeys had crawled and sat on me while we were there. One of the coolest things was seeing a newborn monkey clutching the underside of his mother as she ran around avoiding other threatening monkeys and gathering food. My one downfall was when I got a little too comfortable with my new monkey friends and convinced one to jump onto my shoulder even though I had no food in my hand. Once he realized I wasn't giving him any treats, he promptly started biting me on the shoulder and I had to get the help of one of the locals to get the disappointed and deceived monkey off me. Luckily, he didn't break the skin, but he did leave some bite marks on me that kept me worried all day.

Our next destination was Jatiluwih, which is a village that sits atop a hill and has a spectacular view of the sprawling rice terraces below it. Just so you have some idea of how populated Bali is, the whole time spent driving we dept passing countless rice fields and rice terraces, so understandably we were really confused to discover that rice is not a Balinese export. In fact, they need all of that rice just to sustain their own villages and towns.

We discovered another favorite spot at our last stop in Tanah Lot. You could tell that this was one of the big postcard-picturesque areas because of its breathtaking location on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Only Hindu worshippers were allowed to enter the temples, but it was okay because most of them were located in the middle of the ocean anyways. No, but really, they were I swear! People can only access them at low tide because at any other time, they are completely surrounded by water. My pictures really don't do justice to Tanah Lot, but they can give you some idea of just how stunning it is to see it in person. We did a little bit of souvenir shopping afterwards, but ended up sitting at this outdoor restaurant overlooking the temples of Tanah Lot and stayed there for over an hour soaking up the view. If you asked my mom, I think she would tell you she's never seen anything more beautiful in her life.

Stay tuned for our Elephant Safari adventures in Taro Village!
<3 Char

Bali Part 2: Durians and Windy Countryside Roads

This marks my second official blog post from Bali!

Yesterday was our first full-day adventure through the middle of Bali, and it was nothing less than breathtaking. We started our day at 9am when we were picked up from the hotel by the tour guide and began driving through the streets of Jimbaran, the region where our hotel is. Right away we realized it was going to be a long day because the traffic started reminding us of the 405 freeway in Los Angeles.

I want to take a moment here and fill you in about the favorite Balinese form of transportation: the motorbike (or something between a motorcycle and a vespa). Since we’ve been here, we’ve seen entire families on one bike—mother, two children, husband, etc. It’s hard to capture a photo of it since they drive by us so quickly but I’ll look through my shots to see if I got any good ones because it really is an astounding sight to see.  Something else that is difficult to get used to at first is driving on the left side of the street and having the steering wheel of the car be on what would normally be the passenger side. As we got further into the countryside, the road became one lane, which was pretty frightening considering there were constantly cars and motorcycles driving in both directions, not to mention cows, dogs and roosters crossing the street whenever they felt like it.

Our first stops were two gorgeous temples called Pura Batuan and Pura Tirtha Emphul. As an fyi, “Pura” means temple and “Puri” means palace. We learned that the entrance of all temples is covered in statues that resemble gargoyles, but because our guide wasn’t familiar with this word in English he referred to them as “evil-stoppers”, which I have taken a liking to and will probably continue to use in place of the usual term. Something Willy told us on the way over that we all found pretty interesting is that the Balinese never build anything facing or even near the ocean, the reason being that for them the mountains are closer to God and thus the ocean must symbolize evil. Because of this, the beachfront area of Bali has been largely unused—unlike what we’re used to in California where every inch of sand belongs to either a home or a hotel. Within the past 10 years or so, corporations have started to build hotels and utilize these beautiful but uninhabited areas. Another thing we learned is that Genesha, the god of knowledge, has the head of an elephant and the body of a human (and we all know that I’m a huge fan of elephants!).

Probably my favorite part of our excursion was our visit to Mt. Batur and Lake Batur. Mt. Batur is an enormous volcano sitting in what is thought to be the crater created by an ancient volcano that used to fill the valley but that erupted, leaving its mark. From where we parked on the ridge of one of the mountains facing the lake and the volcano, you could see everything. My pictures really don’t do justice to the magnificence of the view. I would have liked to get closer to the volcano or even to have done some hiking, but unfortunately there was no time for that—and I might have been the only one with the desire to do some hiking anyways—so we continued our trip. 

Next, we went to Ubud, a popular and touristy village about an hour and a half drive away from the hotel where we found an overcrowded open marketplace selling large wooden carvings of everything from Buddhas to elephants to shapes I dare not mention here for fear of offending anyone reading this, and other tchachkis. We also discovered—much to my mom and Kristen’s delight—a Starbucks. It was by far the most beautiful Starbucks I have ever seen in my life (and we took many pictures don’t worry!). 

Our final stop was a traditional Balinese house where we learned that every home in Bali has its own family temple—much smaller but still just as elaborate and beautiful as the temples we saw earlier in the day. Every different room in the house is actually a separate building: the kitchen, the bedrooms, etc. Apparently a lot of tourists come to this house because they have their own store where they sell a special type of coffee called Lowak coffee. The story behind this coffee I find to be kind of odd and even slightly disturbing. There is a mongoose-esque animal called a Lowak that scurries across rainforest floors on the prowl for certain types of coffee beans. The Lowak enjoys these treats but can’t digest the bean, so people have discovered (and I have NO idea how on earth someone discovered this) that these partly-digested coffee beans found in the poop of the Lowak make for some spectacular coffee. Luckily, I’m not a huge fan of coffee so I don’t feel at all guilty for not wanting to try it in the least.

Some of my highlights of the day:

Pulling over to the side of the road at a small street stand just to try/smell my first Durian. For those of you who survived Professor Ellmore’s section of Bio 14—or anyone who happens to know what a Durian is—I thought you might appreciate this. It was gross and I don’t know how I didn’t spit it out. For those of you who don’t know what a Durian is, it’s a huge spiky fruit that tastes kind of like sweet garlic and onions and smells worse.

Seeing several Banyon trees and other incredible tropical plants that blow my mind…sooo many epiphytes!!! (I want to give a shout out here to all my science-loving friends and family who would be able to appreciate this with me if you were here).

I’m going to stop here because this has gone on far too long. I apologize for the length. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog posts. I hope you find them to be entertaining or at least some-what amusing.

Till next time!

<3 Char

Bali: Aggressive Monkeys and a Temple on a Cliff

*To everyone reading this blog: I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures. I have only just realized that I neglected to take a camera cord on my trip and so I don't think I'll be able to show you many of the pictures I've been taking. However, I can promise you that they are awesome and you'll probably get a chance to see them at the end of the summer when I come back to the states.*

So, I guess I'll start by explaining where I am and what I'm doing this summer. Right now, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Bali, Indonesia with my mom and our friend Kristen. We got here yesterday, June 15th, after an extremely long travel day--or should I say 2 days. Our 17-hour flight from LAX to Singapore took off at 9:15pm on June 13th and we landed on June 15th at 5am. After a 5-hour layover in my new favorite airport--seriously, the Singapore airport is one of the most beautiful airports I've seen in my life with a butterfly garden and numerous koi ponds, a full mall, and an entertainment area with a free movie theater--we took a 2-hour flight to Denpassar, Bali. 

I'll only be in Bali for this week because I'm spending the next 6 weeks on Hoga Island (a remote island within the Wakatobi marine reserve in Indonesia) as a marine biology research assistant through the Operation Wallacea organization. I'll be working on various projects focusing on conservation efforts. I get to take a tropical reef identification class before being a research assistant. If you want to read more about operation Wallacea, you can check out their website at http://www.opwall.com/. 

This post marks the beginning of the blog that I've decided to attempt to update throughout the summer since I won't have free internet and I want to be able to let people know about what I'm doing in Indonesia. 

I've only been here one full day and we've already started our crazy adventures. After unpacking and getting settled in the hotel today, we went to a place called Uluwatu to see an ancient temple from the 11th century. Besides it's stunning location on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean, the Uluwatu temple is inhabited by hundreds of monkeys. Now, I can't say I've really spent that much time with monkeys thus far in my life, but I've never seen anything like what I saw today. Monkeys were evvvverywhere. I've never seen so many monkeys in one place, and they weren't scared of all the tourists either...in fact it was just the opposite. We were warned before going to this place that we shouldn't be wearing any jewelry or loose accessories because the monkeys would take it from you. I couldn't really picture cute little monkeys being brave enough to take items from visitors, but you'd be surprised. I saw a monkey steal the flip-flop off a woman's foot and run away. Some guy got his hat stolen right off his head. There are a lot of locals who "work" there. They know that tourists are going to want their flip-flops and hats back, so they wait until something gets stolen and then they go to work trying to retrieve these items. They usually have bags full of peanuts and bananas to bribe the monkeys (who are essentially trained at this point) to trade their precious find for a delicious treat. The tourists can then get back what they've lost, but they're expected to pay the locals a small fee for their help. Clever, no?  Anyways, it was one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen, and I couldn't help but be amazed at how smart and human-like these monkeys were. They know they can be choosy about which foods they want and how to trade their stolen treasures for them. 

Tomorrow, we'll be heading on an all day trip to an area in Bali called Ubud, and I hope we'll get to see some more monkeys along with the volcano and countless temples I've been told fill that region. 

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, and thank you for bearing with me as I ty to keep it updated. 

<3 Char