You want monkeys? I'll give you some monkeys.

Just northwest of Ubud is a place where dreams come true: the Sanggeh Monkey Forest.

For just $1 U.S., you can go in to this magical place where Macque monkeys roam free. We brought our own fruit and were accompanied into the forest by guides whose sole purpose was to make sure none of us got bit.

I have to admit, it was terrifying at first. You walk in the gate, the guides make animal sounds and suddenly dozens of monkeys come out of the forest and start running at you. Instincts told me to run the other way but I held my ground and waited for someone else to go first and hold one.

(The above picture would have been perfect had one monkey been covering its eyes. Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.)

Once I saw my friends hold out their hands with fruit and watched a monkey crawl up them to take it- I was ready for my turn. I slowly approached a smaller monkey and help my arm out straight. The guide saw the terror in my eyes and this little guy grabbed on to my pants and started climbing. The guide reminded me not to close my palm or make any sudden movements. He then held my wrist as a reminder.

The little guy made it out to my arm, grabbed the fruit and then planted himself on my shoulder to eat it. You can see the pure glee in my eyes as this took place.

Making me even happier was the baby monkeys. How freaking cute! I made sure to give them fruit also, but I threw it to them as I didn't want to inconvenience their mommas and make them climb.
Not all monkeys were as awesome. This big guy sitting on my friend Leslie's shoulder was the king monkey. He was very aggressive and crawled up Leslie, ripped her sunglasses off her head and threw them. The guides told her to be very, very still was he was sitting on her.

Eventually, the king monkey also accosted me for fruit and I could barely remain standing as he was so heavy.
The rules of the park were as follows: you can't pet the monkeys, run after them, hold them, pick them up or move while they are on you.

You have to let the monkeys choose to come to you, then stand there like a statue as they take the fruit you offer.

It took my friend Mike some convincing to let this happen. I love this picture because the monkey is going from my arm and jumping to his. You can see him eyeing this thing up. He was petrified. The guide made sure to hold his hand open.

This little guy tried to take my hair clip out. I put the kibosh on that one.

This picture almost brings a tear of laughter to my eyes. Lyle is sitting there watching us all feed the monkeys and has no clue that there is one sitting right next to him- in the exact same position!!
Ian had a certain monkey magnetism. Even without fruit in his hands, they would crawl up and sit on his shoulder. Maybe it had something to do with the hair?

The Sanggeh Monkey Forest was beyond what I had hopped for. They only thing that would make it better would be if I could take one of them home with me...

Ijen and the Acid Lake

It's amazing. I have been back from vacation for 2 months and am still blogging about it. OK enough is enough. I am making it my mission to finish up on Bali ( I haven't even gotten to the monkeys yet ) and get back to talking about China by the end of next week! Hold me to it- OK?


SO, one would think walking three km to get to the top of a volcano would be no big deal. The people at the bottom of the trail told us it would take an hour and a half. WRONG.

The trek took Anais and I three hours. It was not a fun three hours. Surprisingly, I was the one setting the pace. I know, push your jaws back up cause I am sure they just dropped to the floor.


Sorry to call you out Anais, but your skinny ass slowed mine down. Perhaps it was because she didn't eat the butter and chocolate sprinkle sandwich that I did for breakfast. Anyways, after a not-fun hike, we finally arrived at the top of Ijen- an active volcano on the eastern side of the island of Java.

We had to wear masks, sprinkled with perfume, because Ijen is a sulfur volcano. Sulfur stinks- bad. Despite the smell and the hike- the view made the suffering totally worth it.


By the time you get to the top, the water below looks so tempting you just want to jump in it. I would avoid that however, as it is the world's most "highly acidic lake". Of course if you hike all the way up a damn mountain, there really is no point in just looking at what's in the center of a volcano if you can hike down into it. Plus, I really wanted to touch that acidic turquoise water. Who wouldn't?

Plus, there was something else going on down there that I just had to check out- a sulfur mining operation. That's right, people were down there collecting bright yellow chunks of sulfur. When the wind blew the right way, we could seem them even though they looked liked ants.

I knew the hike down would be tough. Anais and I really only packed a bottle of water and perfumed masks. There was no food or first aid kit in our pack (duh us). The rocks were jagged and the trail almost invisible. Still- I wasn't going to pass up this opportunity. Hah impending death- I laugh in your face!


I'm glad I didn't die. These men were mining sulfur by hand. I shot a video on my camera to explain the process. You can watch it by clicking here.

And then I also shot this video- just in case you can't get enough. I knew I couldn't. I mean- I was standing in a live volcano!!!


These guys mine this stuff by hand. Once they get enough sulfur to fill up their baskets, they head out of the crater and back up Ijen. Some understood English and we were able to have a conversation about their work.

We were told that their load weighs about 70 kg or about 150 pounds. I believe it as this stuff was heavy. They make the trip down to the pit, out and down the mountain only to go back up again- twice a day. Some were wearing shoes such as flip flops others were walking with just their bare feet.

Because of the weight, several had built up a large hump of muscle on their right shoulder, behind their necks. This is where the weight of the basket sat.

For all this hard work, they earned about 8 U.S. dollars per day. It really puts my job complaints into perspective.

Because the job is so demanding, many take energy boosters. We saw wrappers like this one littering the trail. The guys say they stay on the mountain for a week carrying their loads of sulfur, then go home to their families on the weekend.

I am not sure what they drink as water from the lake is too acidic.

Normal people would think to themselves, "Hmm, most acidic lake in the world- better stay away if I don't want my skin to melt off my bones."

I, however, think: "I can't not touch it. So curious. Must. Go. To. Water." And so I did. I stuck a finger in slowly hoping not to lose some of it. Oddly enough, it did burn, but my skin stayed in tact. It was like touching warm lemon juice. Only the spots on my skin that were slightly cut- burned. In fact, had I not touched the water, I wouldn't have noticed the scrapes incurred from my hike down the rocky cliff.

I can now cross-off "touching an acid lake inside an active volcano" from my bucket list.

I know this will never happen again in my life because the trip back out was pure and utter hell- something I promised myself to never go through again.

Running on little energy and not being able to breath because of all the sulfur smoke- I contemplated a life with the miners at the bottom of the crater. I knew I either had to keep hiking straight up or become their mistress. In moments of weakness, I contemplated the latter.

Nothing quite sums up my hell like this picture. Yes, I am flipping Anais the bird. How would you like it if someone took your picture after an hour on a StairMaster while you couldn't breathe?

We finally managed to get out of the damn volcano (my expletives were much more offensive at the time) but still had a 3 km hike back down. Our legs were shaking so badly that we got the giggles.

Exhaustion and lack of focus = Gretchen doing a face plant into the side of the mountain. Just like the horse-dog story, I was glad Anais was in front of me and didn't see what happened until after the fact.

I made it all the way up a mountain, into and out of a volcano and hadn't tripped once. Now, on the way back down, I step on one measly rock and am a goner. Par for the course I suppose. At least I didn't fall into the molten sulfur or acid lake- right?

Despite my complaints, I am glad and proud that I did this. Not my idea of a vacation, but well worth it.

Up next... monkeys!!!

Java in Java

In between volcano treks, we stayed the night at a local coffee plantation. The above picture is the village where all the plantation workers lived. They were in such a remote area in the mountains that there really were no other options for employment. It took us almost 5 hours to get there in an SUV, these people only had their feet.

Looking out both windows on our drive there, all you could see was bright green jungle. Wherever the trees parted was where coffee was growing. We found these people out working and thought they were picking coffee beans. Turns out they don't do that until the beans turn red which happens twice a year.


When the beans are ready, they are hand-picked and carried to the factory where they will be dried on big concrete slabs under the sun.


While the men are in charge of planting and harvesting, the women of the village all work in this room. They sit at long tables for 8 hours a day sorting coffee beans. The good beans go in bags, the bad ones are tossed out.


It might seem like a boring job but these ladies were busy chatting away while listening to pop music. I shot some video of it because it really is funny to see their hands moving to the beat of the song. You can watch it by clicking here.

As I was taking pictures, I felt something bounce off my back. Thinking it was just a bug, I continued shooting. Then I felt it hit my head. I turned around just in time to see a lady chucking coffee beans at me to get my attention.

When I went over to her, she pointed at my camera and smiled a wide grin. I took her picture and then she motioned for me to show it to her. She loved seeing herself on my camera's screen. Sure enough- her giggles broke the dam.

I was soon being hit by dozens of coffee beans. Everyone in the place wanted to have their picture taken! Of course I had to oblige since they seemed to be enjoying it so much.

It's hard to imagine being so happy in such an isolated place. You live with the same people you work with. Day after day it's the same thing. Being here reminded me of how lucky I am to be an American with choices about my future.

Speaking of future... before we set off on our hike, Anais and I had breakfast at the plantation. Our choices were a rice dish or a sandwich. I opted for a sandwich although I almost wished I didn't.

As I was unwrapping it I noticed these little brown pieces on the edge of the bread. Anais almost hurled as she thought it was mice droppings. I thought the mystery pieces of brown looked familiar but couldn't place them until I took the top slice of bread off.

I got a sandwich that consisted of butter and chocolate sprinkles!! With no other options, I ate it. Tasted OK believe it or not, however, I probably would never fix one for myself.

This wasn't the only oddity about our accommodations. Our "room" aka dorm was hilarious. The plantation marketed itself as a mountain resort. The slug in our bathroom proved otherwise. That's right- a big ol' fat slimy slug slowly made his way down to our toilet during the night.

We also had no hot water or shower and our sink was held up by one piece of bamboo. I figured that one out after I leaned on it and it almost fell out of the wall. The destroyer strikes again!

There was nothing we could do but laugh as we crawled into our single beds with arctic penguin bedding (WTF?).

Needless to say, we were roughing it, but the truly rough part of our journey wouldn't start until the next day....

You see the new bubble?

One volcano down, two more to go on my Indonesian adventure.

This next one, Lucy, involved much less hiking and no horse-dogs. Mode of transportation was still cool, though. More on this later...

Anais and I pull up to the village of Ponog Atas on the island of Java. Climbing up a canal we overlooked a big lake. This lake wasn't filled with water- it was filled with mud.


You see, what had happened was (this line is for you Ashley!) a gas company was digging for a well, it hit a crack in the earth and mud started spurting out.

That mud spread and swallowed up more than 30,000 homes- or basically most of the village. This is a picture of the very top of a mosque.


To get out there to this spot, we had to hop on the back of motorcycles driven by locals. Dangerous- yes. Fun- yes. I mean where else on earth do you just randomly hop on the back of a bike with a driver you barely know?!


My driver could speak English. He told us the government and the gas company refused to compensate him for the loss of his home. Instead, people were given these badges.


The badges certify them as official "guides" around Lucy. He is supposed to earn money this way and of course the government thinks this is a sufficient deal. Home = tour guide certification. Sounds fair, right?

We pay him to take us around this dirt path on top of man-made levees built to protect surrounding homes and businesses. Click here to see the video.

Part of the mud lake has dried up.

The other part, however, continues to spread- covering farm land, homes and businesses. You see, Lucy is still very active. You can see white smoke billowing out of the 2-year-old volcano and occasionally big bubbles in the mud.


Not sure what the village is going to do about this problem but one thing is certain- making tour guides out of victims isn't an adequate solution.


To listen to a story about Lucy by NPR go to this link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91066179