Indonesia days 1 & 2

. Boarding our Flixbus transport to Gatwick Airport. Jackie, with her red trousers on, has her 7kg backpack on and our small suitcase (that we've left in the hotel in Jakarta with warm clothes that we don't need for the duration) that has our two light daypacks in, is on the ground beside her

We left the house on Thursday just before midday with a rucksack each and a small suitcase holding both of our day packs. We got the train to New Street and walked through Birmingham to Great Charles Queensway where the bus stop for Flixbus is. The bus arrived on time and we set off for Gatwick. We hadn't been paying attention to traffic reports and had missed that the M25 was closed between Heathrow and Gatwick as a lorry had fallen over at 10.30 in the morning. This slowed down our arrival into the Premier Inn at Gatwick North,  to 19.00, but that's fine, that's why we came down a day early!

.  In the business class lounge at Gatwick with a glass of prosecco and lots of free food and drinks and a great view out over the runway (if you like that sort of thing!). Toughest wait we've ever had for a flight!

A reasonable meal, with a glass of wine as part of the dinner and breakfast meal deal and we made it upstairs to watch the penultimate episode of Traitors, though obviously we won't manage to watch the final till December. I then slept really badly. That wasn't part of the plan.

.  In our business class seats. There's a TV in front with an opening underneath into which you can rest your feet. When you go to sleep you press a button and the seat base moves forward and the back slides down until it completely flat. The arm rest lower down to give a bit more width. There's a screen that will raise between us if required. Duvet, slippers, noise cancelling headphones, free WiFi and meals on demand freshly cooked by an onboard chef complete the service

A relaxed start, breakfast, followed by lazing about till 13.30 when we got the monorail to the South Terminal and made our way through security to the No1 Lounge, included in our business class tickets.

.  This was the Turkish meze starter, with dessert and cheese course above. Our main course served after was salmon, prawns and sea bass, washed down with a Sauvignon Blanc followed by coffee. A bit different from our usual experience in economy!

This is a complete first for us, but it's a long way and with a full schedule we wanted to hit the ground running. We'd picked Turkish Air as this gave a short and then a long flight rather than everyone else who had to medium flights which wouldn't have given us time to make full use of the lie flat seats.

.  In the arrivals hall at Jakarta airport. Our driver must be out there somewhere. A quick chat on WhatsApp and he appeared

The meal and movie on the 3 hour flight were good, with comfortable big seats. An hour and a half in the lounge at Istanbul, and we boarded the Airbus A350-900. With an onboard chef there to cook our meals we could have them when we liked. Still full from our meal on the first flight we decided to go to sleep and eat when we woke up. It wasn't good sleep, but 7 1/2 hours passed remarkably quickly. We waited a bit and then had our dinner, rather than the breakfast, with a glass of wine. We didn't even watch a movie, with 1GB of data included we did puzzles and read.

.  Finally we arrived at our first hotel and order a beer!

Finally arriving in Jakarta at 16.30 local time 11 1/2 hours after taking off. Passing through the airport was very smooth, our eVisa, rather than visa on arrival, allowed us through the e gates and the customs form we'd filled in 3 days before arrival scanned and we were through.

.  On to today and we stop on the way to Carita Beach. That's Thomas, our guide for the day, in white buying us some red bananas. He decided we needed a whole bunch, despite us having just had a huge breakfast at the hotel. They were very nice and tasted just like regular bananas

A man with a sign took us to our first hotel, there was a shuttle bus, but our company had organised us a car which was great. We are glad we have a company doing this trip, of the 11 internal flights Brian booked 5 of them have been changed, but at least someone else has to deal with the knock ons.

Not really hungry we had a light snack and a beer. About the same as UK prices for a small beer, which is also about the same price as a main meal. Food is cheap, beer expensive, but it's an 85% Muslim country.

.  Another stop a bit further on, this time to buy some stinky fruit. He decided we needed some to go in our lunch in Carita. It was Mie ayam bakso, mie is noodles, ayam is chicken and bakso is meatballs. Cooked with the stinky fruit and some delicious gravy it was a tasty meal and a little bit spicy

We made it to 22.00 and went to sleep. Brian sleeping through, not me though, I woke just after midnight and that was that! Now I feel rubbish!

.  We've had a free afternoon at our very nice beach side hotel, Mutiara Carita Cottages, a 4 star hotel with loads of facilities, most of which are closed as it's low season so has few people staying here. Those two lumps on the horizon on the left I think are Krakatau, our destination tomorrow. At least they aren't erupting at the moment!

Breakfast and collection at 09.00 after leaving our small case in the hotel, holding our flying and warm clothes our 7.5Kg just wouldn't cover. We stay there before the flight home, so all should be good. 

.  I might be proved wrong tomorrow when we get our boat out there, but I think that's Anak Krakatau (son of Krakatau) that reappeared out of the Java sea after the original volcano blew itself apart on 27th August 1883

We were only expecting a driver, but we got a driver and a guide (who turned out to be the boss of the company organising this 4 day leg, a huge bag of snacks, water and useful wet wipes. We learnt a lot on our 3 hour journey, stopping en route for red bananas, snake fruit and stinky fruit which he added to the lunch we weren't expecting! We met our guide Hendi who is taking us to Krakatau tomorrow and had the afternoon to ourselves. 

.  Looking inland there's the remains of another very old volcano. That's Gunung Malang just one of many extinct volcanos that we wove round on the road here from Jakarta. Indonesia is positioned on the Ring of Fire so is mainly here due to old and new volcanic activity. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions of various levels of ferocity are a normal way of life in these parts

A big resort hotel, so we looked at the petting zoo, the turtle conservation pool and the reef, before walking out to the street to try and buy some beer to take to our beach camp tomorrow. 3km later we still have no beer, and have probably lost about litre in sweat. We'll get some from the restaurant here, at great expense, when we go and have dinner 

Just to stay awake.....

.  We walked out to the turtle conservation pond, seen in the above photo surrounded by the green flags. It's a circular saltwater pool at the end of a curving pier with lots of these quite large gentle creatures gliding about

.  This is a baby one and Jackie had to give him a little stroke. He didn't seem to mind, he looked up and seemed to be enjoying it