Sebesi Island and Anak Krakatau (April 25–27, 2025)

An open trip is a shared-cost tour where travelers join together with other strangers to visit a specific destination. It’s definitely the most budget friendly way to experience Indonesia’s nature. On my first open trip, I joined my colleagues-slash-friends to visit beautiful spots around Java Island.

Kak Sakti brought the coolest gadgets to document our trip. Luqman brought his kendama and impressed strangers we met, he often started the conversations with others for us. Kak Tiara was like the group representative (slay) who I could always go to when I wanted to ask things I saw in the sea. The perks of traveling with your engineer friends was to not run out of conversations as we can always comment on the nature and infrastructure.

I adore this trip and this is my attempt on documenting it.

From South Jakarta to Canti Dock, Lampung

Last night (Apr 25), we logged out of office at 5 PM and we prepared for our trip. We moved our items to 6th floor lockers to prepare for our work next Monday. Then, we scattered: some went to buy things or to pray, I changed my clothes and had dinner, then we went on our way on 6.30 PM.

We talked a lot in the car: mundane things, Jakarta’s traffic, and our country’s political state. We arrived at a meeting point at Cawang and spent most of our time at a nearby Alfa-Midi store. It was too bad that the facilities suck: no proper toilet, signs about who to go to, and… where’s the bus? We had a hard time looking for our bus–we even put our bags in a random wrong bus, the one deparing to another island, Peucang Island.

Our bus took us to Merak Port. It’s a proper facility with cool view–somehow it felt like we’re at an airport. We took a ferry to cross Sunda Strait, arriving at Bakauheni Port located in Lampung, Sumatra Island. I had fun exploring the ship, looking at the ocean and islands on the edge of it, then then the wonder of waves enticing us with their movement.

We then took angkot, some type of Indonesian mini van, to reach Canti Dock. It was during ungodly hours, everything was dark, and the rustling wind was our company through our ride. At the dock, our spirit rose as we ate and looked at the sea.

First snorkeling experience

We first visited Sebuku Island with its gorgeous white sand before going for snorkeling. Mind you I couldn’t swim (even a year later I still haven’t learned how) so I was really anxious on doing it. At those moments, I was really grateful to have such gentle and patient companions. I was literally stuck by the boat, unmoving to jump to the water. The rest of them waited and gave me pointers until I was brave enough to jump and realized that it’s all managable!

I just faced my fear and I understood the beauty of snorkeling as I admired the colorful view below me. As I was floating on the ocean, I looked up and admired the gray Krakatau. I thought of its significance in this world as its explosion changed our Earth in the past. As I drifted away, I looked away towards the island we were staying in. Sebesi Island was a home to the friendly small village, protected by their big palm trees and hills. I thought my life is complete after admiring the beauty of this big nature–this is enough.

The village of Sebesi Island

We spent a night at our homestay, by the shoreline of Sebesi Island and close to the locals village. The four of us stayed in a room and I remembered having too much fun playing cards. When the morning came, we took time to appreciate the sunrise view from the shoreline and visited the village. To now, the views I captured from that morning were my favorites of the trip.

I think what fascinated me from the village was the idea of the locals’ preparedness towards tsunami. They were close to the active Krakatau. I saw signs of evacuation towards the higher hills in case of the disaster.

Trekking at Anak Krakatau

Visiting Anak Krakatau was also definitely my favorite part of the trip. I mean, it’s Krakatau: The volcano that changed our Earth when it exploded some centuries ago! The impact was so huge that it altered our atmosphere, brought deadly impact to Java and Sumatra. As a runner who can’t swim, I felt more in peace to do trekking too!

I remembered it was a long boat ride from Sebesi Island to the volcano. We insisted on sitting on the rooftop of the boat, I’m pretty sure that was the longest duration I toasted my body. During the long ride, we were waiting to see until the volcano was visible from our boat. Once it peeked out, I was astonished and humbled.

Aftermath

After this trip, I got back to the routine of commuting between Harapan Indah and Jakarta. I loved my sunkissed skin–a reminder of time I spent under the sun. In hindsight, I was also sad because of how my city and the islands we visited were completely different. We seem to have the choices, but we ended up somewhere with no stars at night and no fresh air to breathe. My dream was shifted to a particular thing: to be with my loved ones in a place where we can breathe properly and enjoy the nature as long as we could.

Anyway, this visual journey was my hand-written documentation of the trip and I am proud of it. I tried to spend more time with my book and pen during the trip and it was indeed a good strategy to be mindful and to reflect during the journey. Additionally, you can see my messy organization as I loosely listed rundowns and things to pack for the trip.