Indonesia Trip Part 4: Fun!

We took a few detours from our work in Indonesia to enjoy some things! Indonesia is such a diverse place (with something like 17,000 islands!) and there are so many different things to do. The first pictures are of us and some friends at a beautiful beach in northern Sumatra.

Everyone said that this beach had the best sunsets, but the day we went it was cloudy! And super windy too. Really, the sand was blowing everywhere. It was so hard to have a conversation because whenever I tried to smile or laugh sand would get in my mouth. It was really funny! Now, what you can't see in these two pictures are the cows that were roaming all over the beach, or the large "gifts" that they left behind...everywhere!!!

Daniel absolutely loves the ocean, so he hardly wasted a minute before he dove right in! He had the best time, he said that the water was so warm. Here in Northern California the water is so cold that you pretty much have to wear a wet suit, so he stayed in the warm water as long as possible!

The last week of our trip was spent on Java in a town called Bandung. This was such a cool city. Our second morning there a friend took us (both of us!) to get "Cream Baths", which are a very popular thing there. They start out by washing your hair...

And then they take you to a chair where they massage a thick cream into your hair. I chose the avacado cream, and I can't remember what Daniel's was. I was REALLY looking forward to this, I absolutely love spa-like things! Daniel was pretty unsure about it, but he bravely went through with it anyways. The head massage was a little bit different than we were expecting, a tad bit more painful! It felt good sometimes, but then other times it hurt so bad it kind of took my breath away!! Daniel eventually ended up with a headache that night and swore that he would NEVER do anything like that again. Poor thing. I didn't get a headache, but I did have really soft hair for days!!

And here is the finished product! (Daniel took the picture)

Our friends also took us to a volcano. I think that this was the first volcano that I've ever been to. It was hilarious, while we were standing there looking into the volcano all of these people started asking to take pictures with us. I guess they don't see Americans very much there. We felt like celebrities!

There were also hot springs at this volcano that you could hike to. The smell of sulfur was almost too much for us, but there were tons of local people soaking there feet in them and rubbing the mud all over their legs and arms. There were even some people boiling eggs in one of the really hot ones!