Parangtritis Beach

Tuesday, 15th november 2011

Today, we are going to visit Geospatial Laboratory in Parangtritis Beach, about 20 km away in the southern part of Yogyakarta. Our journey started at 8.25 from University Hotel.

9.32 – 10.00 – Geospatial Laboratory

We drove to the south of jokjakarta towards the shore to drive to the Geospatial Laboratory.

Here stand a big blue building with studying the coastal area and monitoring the circumstance in Indonesia twice every day. Downstairs there where all kind of equipment for mapping, and there stands all kind of coral from the sea. After the tour inside we went to have a snack. In the canteen were stands a variation of traditional Indonesian food. Like Pisang goreng, sweet potato and tofu with a green chili and other thing. Perry toke the challenge and eat a whole green chili. It was really spicy for him he got all tears in his eyes.

After this funny happening there were made some group pictures.

When these were taken we went to the beach to have some fun. Some of us ride on a horse and others drove on the ATV or swim in the sea.

When the time was over we went back to the bus and have a lunch.

10.15 -11.15 – Parangtritis Sand Dune

After we had visited Geospasial Laboratory. We went to Parangtritis Beach. It is not far away from Geospasial Laboratory. We had just 5 minutes to arrive there. Parangtritis Beach is famous beach because there are aboundant sand dunes which is barchan tipe. It is the ony one sand dunes that we can see in the Southeast Asia.

Long the street we can see so many sand dunes. It is kind of aeolin and marin landform that likes a hill that all materials is sand.The materials are from Merapi eruption that is taken along by the Progo and Opak River into the sea. Because there is long shore current, the materials come out the sea. It becomes deposition material. It flies over by wind becomes sand dunes. On the other hand, because there is cliff. It makes possible to barrier the material not to go far away. So the materials stand along there.

Sand dune in parangtritis has some forms. Tongue dune has small size with long, tongue shape that can be found in some part of the coast. Typical sand dune has medium size, located in the middle part of the coast. The last, large barchan dune with U shape located in the back, far from the coast line.

It is very unique because it can grow in the tropis climate. We know that in the tropis climate is humid and wet. Sand dunes looks like desert where grows in the dry climate. But it is different, eventhough it is same materials. There are important factors that make different. The factors are sand, long shore current, wind, and cliff.

11.15 - 12.30 – Parangtritis Beach

Parangtritis Beach is sandy beach, in which the material comes from the Merapi Volcano. Due the tectonic process comes from two major faults in east and west side, the land between them decreased and formed a graben, resulted in wide, flat topography around Parangtritis Beach. In the east side, the fault line became a beautiful cliff consists of limestone material, resulted in very wonderful view in east part of the beach. Coconut trees, big waves and strong wind that come from the sea give additional value to the amazing scenery in Parangtritis.

By : Andung, Perry, Reny, Tao

Mount Merapi and Borobudur

Today was a tourist-day for us. Early in the morning we went with our enthusiastic tourguide to mount Merapi. This is a volcano on central Java. After 45 minutes drive we arrived on the foot of this volcano. From the foot there were two ways up: By motorcycle of by foot. The sportive ones choose foot offcourse, but the daredevils went on the motorcycle with the Indonesians. It was a very hot, but a lot of us made it to the top where we had a beautiful view over the hills. Also there we could see something of the impact of the volcano. A lot of vegetation was burned because the volcano gives al cloud of more than 200 degrees when it irrupts.

After the volcano we had a lunch at restaurant Orang Outang. The statue in the front of the restaurant (offcourse an Orang Outang) was a big attraction where we made a group photo.

And than finally we went to the Borobudur temple. This is a Buddhist temple. When we came out of the bus directly a lot of people came to us to sell stuff. Lucky the tourguide told us to bargain and some other tricks how to buy a how not to buy souvenirs from them. So we went to the temple. The temple was enormous. The temple has ten levels and on the side of the temple the story of Buddha to see made in stone. We went all the way up to the highest part what is called ‘heaven’. The guide said that you get energy from being in this place. When we were at this ‘heaven’ we had a beautiful sight of the surroundings and the temple complex. In this touristic attraction we became a touristic attraction ourselves. A lot of people wanted to take a picture with us because we were white and tall compared to the Indonesian people. This was a very weird but funny experience for us. Our laughing mussels where hurting after 30 minutes of being famous. We bought some souvenirs and went back to the hotel. At the evening we went to dinner and worked on the cases.

Jorge Jansen, 13th of November, Yogyakarta

From the Indonesian point of view

On Friday, 11 th November, 2011, we went to go around in the site of Semarang city. The trip begun at Siliwangi Hotel that is located at Jl. MGR Sugiyopranoto No 61 where we had stayed during in Semarang. First, we invited Old city (Kota Lama or Oudstadt) at about 09.00 am. It is located at Jl. Letjend Soeprapto, Semarang, Central java, Indonesia. It has a lot of oId Dutch colonial buildings such as machine factory, cigarrete factory, Immanuel church-Gereja Blenduk, pond, etc. This location offers nice architecture. We around in this part and take picture some of oId Dutch colonial buildings.

At about 10.00 am, we continued our journey to the Nyonya Meneer’s factory. The factory is lacoted at Jl. Raden Patah 191-199, Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. That is herbal medicine factory. We were friendly welcomed by factory’s staff. They offered free some of herbal medicines for us to try the medicines and some of us took that several. Factory’s staff gave many explanations about the herbal medicine such as the type of herbal plants. And then we are offered to buy herbal medicine and several of us buy that medicines. Finally we took picture together in this place.

At about 12.00 am, some of us went to Paragon mall and the others went to back to Siliwangi Hotel. That mall is located in Simongan, West Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. In this place, we had lunch and hang out together. After we were full, we continued our next destination to the Sam Poo Kong by taxi about 15 minutes by pay about 15000 IDR @ taxi. The Sam Poo Kong is China’s heritage. It is located at . We can enter there by ticket’s price 3000 IDR for local tourist and 10000 IDR for foreign tourist. It offers nice and unique architecture. We took picture happly in around this place. Finally, we went to back Siliwangi Hotel at about 04.15 pm and arrived at 04.30 pm.

At the night, some of us had dinner together in the Steak stall near from Siliwangi Hotel at Jl. MGR Sugiyopranoto. After that, at about 08.31 pm we invited lawang Sewu that is located at Jl. Pemuda , Komplek Tugu Muda Semarang Tengah, Central java, Indonesia. From the hotel until lawang sewu, we went to there by foot. This place near from Tugu muda that is one of icons of Semarang. The Lawang sewu is one of oId Dutch colonial buildings. This building has many doors and because of that, it is called lawang sewu in javanese. This place is famous scary building in Semarang. This place offers beautiful architecture. The guide gave us the story of lawang sewu that has many scary and tragic stories. During the guide told story, we was be afraid to listen it. At about 09.30 pm, we decided to go back to the Siliwangi Hotel. We arrived the hotel at about 10.00 pm by foot. And then we still discused until 00.00 pm. Uhf.. today activites was so full and fantastic. Finally, we slept to prepare again for the next morning activites.(Sepviana-Dana)

From the Dutch point of view

The program for today tells us to visit a polder project in Semarang. This event would take place in the morning, but because we went to the slums in Semarang yesterday afternoon, we saw the polder project already. That’s when we concluded that we had the day off. Rick Heikoop came with the proposition to use the bus and go to the old city center and a medicine factory. Semarang is well known for its medicines. It was free to choose whatever you wanted. Some of the students stayed at the hotel to do some homework or get some rest, but most of the students took the opportunity to visit the old city center. We walked around in the center and after seeing it, we went back to the bus and drove to the museum Jamu Jawa Asli. This museum was part of the medicine factory. We got a guided tour through the museum. During this tour, we were told about the history of the factory and after the tour we got some herbal medicines as souvenirs. The hospitality was great and everybody must be very healthy after using our medicines.

After visiting the medicine factory, we didn’t have a program so after a little bit of asking around, we decided to go to a shopping mall with the bus. Everyone who wanted, could get out of the bus at this mall. If you didn’t want to go out, the bus would drive you back to our hotel. Some people left the bus at the shopping mall to get some lunch. Others went back to the hotel to rest or do other things like working on our assignments.

After lunch, the ones who left the bus at the shopping mall decided to go to a Boudistic temple. The Sam Po Kong temple is a temple just outside the centre of the city. Our Indonesian students called some cabs to bring us there. You could walk around at this temple and we stayed for 1,5 to 2 hours. It was a big complex with multiple temples. You could walk around in front of these temples, but after paying some extra entrance fees some of us got the possibility to see the inside of these temples. They were really beautiful. We saw things that we never saw before. After completing our tour, we called the taxis again and went back to our hotel.(Maarten)

Blog Saturday November the 12th

Saturday November the 12th

An early birds special today. The planning was to leave Semarang at 7 a.m., using our trusty bus. However, things didn`t go quite as planned. Some of us arrived more than 30 minutes late at the meeting point just in front of the hotel. Be that as it may, we departed at 7.30 a.m.. After a quick slash `n dash we and the bus were ready to go and winded our way through the streets of Semarang towards the hills surrounding this amazing city. The journey to Yogyakarta was the only thing planned for this day. The bus trip gave us the opportunity to either take pictures of the beautiful landscape with mountains, the Merapi volcano, forest scenery, the little shops at the side of the road, or to get a few extra minutes of sleep. However, the bumpiness of the road and the occasional ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s coming from the mouths of people amazed by the scenery or one of the many threatening accidents made it pretty much impossible to truly catch up the sleep.



After a few hours and a short rest stop later, we drove through the gate which told us that we had reached Yogyakarta. We pulled over at a cute little fruit store next to a local restaurant, specialized in mushroom dishes. We had a nice lunch and continued our way towards the hotel, where we arrived 1.30 p.m.. We divided the rooms amongst ourselves at the reception and were wondering what we could do with our free afternoon. This is when Rick announced that we could have a tour by bus through the city of Yogyakarta. We would visit the old town center, the palace of the King and a traditional silverware production place, where we could buy a few souvenirs.



This was a nice plan and filled up our afternoon. A guide joined us in the bus and told us all about Yogyakarta on our way to the places to be. It was an informative day on which we travelled a lot, seen beautiful things and, maybe most importantly on a field trip, learned some things as well.
Now, it`s time for some well deserved local dinner.
(Bas Rademacher)

Blog, Saturday 12th of november 2011, Yogyakarta

Blog Wetskillls Indonesia Saturday 12^th of November 2011

Today is the last day in Semarang, if you can call it that. We travelled from Semarang (in the north of Central Java) to Yogyakarta, or Yogya, in the south. Personally, I didn’t sleep much last night, because we had to wake up early. The bus departed at 7:30am in southbound direction. As always, the traffic was crazy. This is one of the things that I will now forever associate with Indonesia, crazy motorcyclists and cars, but somehow it seems to be an organized chaos, for I haven’t witnessed a serious accident yet.

The trip from north to south comes with a variety of landscapes. First you see the incredible contrasts of huge houses with big fences around it and small ‘houses’ made primarily of sheets of corrugated material. Also the numerous small shops on the road side are predominant in the streetscape. It seems that having five tire repair shops in about a kilometer is not a lot at all. After moving away from Semarang and driving in the country side you get an impression why so many conquests have been undertaken to explore Southeast Asia. The number of buildings became less and the urban environment transforms into village aside the road. The road, however, remained as busy as ever.

All these people living on Java leave their mark. The island seems a lot smaller if you consider the fact that there are hundreds of millions of people using and depending on Java’s resources. Indonesia copes with a lot of serious problems and you don’t get the feeling that the government has any control over what is going on, especially perhaps in the country side. Most infrastructure, beside the main road, looks improvised by the locals.

As we approached Yogya, we caught a glimpse of Mount Merapi, a very big volcano that as recently as last year claimed many lives and livelihoods. The government tried to provide an alternative way of life for the predominantly (ex)farmers. Their land has been destroyed and it will take some time to recover. And farmers are no salesmen or cooks and cannot just change their profession. This is one of the issues still faced by the locals and the government.

Towards the end of the journey to Yogya we had lunch at the mushroom restaurant of Yogya. Although I really don’t like mushrooms, I could appreciate the beauty and variety of species they had on display. Also the atmosphere in the restaurant was really nice. A small band was playing songs about Yogya.

Finally, we arrived in Yogya. It had, in my opinion, a complete different feel about it then Solo and Semarang. It looked friendlier, cleaner, more historical yet younger, but I think the hotel in Semarang, which was not very nice, added to that contrastive experience. We arrived at the University Hotel of the Islamic university. After some time to refresh (with a normal shower!) we departed with a guide to explore Yogya. We saw a lot of buildings with Dutch architecture and some typical Java activities, such as the production of Batik clothing and Yogya’s silverware.

The guide also explained about the natural disasters in the city, such as flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcano eruptions. The guide told us about an earthquake on 5.3 on the Richter scale and how basically nobody knew how to react and what to do. The people near the coast fled to the north to escape a possible tsunami and the people in the north fled towards the sea in fear of a volcanic eruption. The result was that everyone wasn’t going anywhere and that it could have led to an even bigger disaster.

Concluding, this day was a day of transition, from location and atmosphere. Yogya was the first place where the Dutch explorers arrived and settled and this history has been well kept and remains visible. The people of Java are very friendly and even though they have so many problems, they keep smiling and remain hospitable.

Laurence Koetsier, 12^th of November 2011, from Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Thursday, 10 November 2011

We headed from Solo at 6.30 a.m and arrive at Semarang at 9.30. after arrived at Semarang, We Involved on Presentation session about the polder project from SIMA (Schieland-Krimpenerwaard and Semarang) and Discussion with UNIKA Soegijapranata in Toko Oen, one of the cafe and meeting room with colonial architecture.


After lunch, we visited Polder Project Karangturi Sub-district, the upstream part of the River Banger guided by Mrs. Iswari, Board Advisor of SIMA.




The water flows through the river comes from household wastewater and the water is still in normal condition.



The next destination was Tanjung Mas Port (downstream part) to saw the condition of tidal flood in Semarang. The flood is happened because land subsidence, sea water rise, decreasing of retention basin and the the formulation of water management system is still being discussed.
The final site was East Channel “Banjir Kanal Timur” at downstream of Semarang. We visited some constructions for riverbeds. In the end, the pumping station also under construction for the whole polder has been seen. It pumps water from west side of river to the east. The tour stops around 4 o’clock and get to the hotel in the central of Semarang City.


Tao Hong, Widya, Andy

Wednesday 9 november 2011

Today was our first day of the fieldtrip. Starting the day with a good breakfast, we were ready to get on the bus to drive to BAPPEDA (Regional Planning and Development Agency) of Surakarta City. At BAPPEDA, we were welcomed by head of Bappeda of Surakarta City, Mr. Anung Indro Susanto and his team. Following that, we heard several presentations related to our main topic: water management. Surakarta can be seen as the best city related to water and waste management. Within the last couple of years a lot of improvement could be made. The PDAM (Regional Company of Drinking Water) is the coordinating power on water and waste related problems within the Region. For Solo, as one of the quickly growing cities within in Indonesia, those issues are very present and important to deal with.

Since 19 July 1999, installation of sewerage treatment has been built in Surakarta. There are two different kinds of system, on site and off site system. The off site system is a pipe system while the on site system uses tools like the septic tanks. Surakarta has done a lot of improvement to increase the quality of the sewerage, as an example, there has been an increase of sewerage capacity, development of secondary pipe network within the business area.

Further there can be drawn a long history of drinking water supply. 57 % of Solo’s population have access to drinking water from PDAM. There are still many problems to face, including water loss of almost 40% due to old pipes and the water meter. For the future, government of Surakarta has two strategies: for short term, they want to increase water treatment capacity in Semanggi. For the long time planning, they want to make some cooperation with the surrounding cities which are Wonogiri, Sukoharjo, Surakarta, Karanganyar, and Sragen (WOSUSOKAS) in order to have advantages of regional hydrogeological conditions.

After the presentation, there has been a productive discussion about water and waste disposal management in Surakarta. (Annisa/Johanna)

After the presentation of the project Solo Surakarta, we went into the city to lunch. When we were all full of the great meal, we went on to visit the waste water installation in the southern part of Solo. Here we could see how the sewersystem works. The installation is one of the two working waste water installations of the city. In front of the air streatment bassin was a buffer installed, wich recieves the incoming waste water. This buffer gives a controlled amount of waste water to the air bassin. After this proces of treatment the waste water is discharged into the river.

An other part of the system of controlling the waste water are the public toilets. These are build in the area's where the people cannot affort to create a connetion to the sewersystem. These buildings are controlled and maintained by the government. The people who uses these facilities can pay monthly or every time they use the bathroom.

After this day trip we went back to the hotel to have a spa massage!