I had a Dream …

… and IBM made my dream come true. Words could not express what I felt when I received the “CSC Employee Acceptance Notification” on October 12th last year. I felt very honored to have been selected for the CSC program.

It was a great experience that I did during our CSC mission in Jakarta/Indonesia and that I will never forget. I am very grateful for this great opportunity and the many experiences that I gained during my CSC assignment in Jakarta/Indonesia.

Therefore, I would like to sincerely thank:

• IBM for having such a great program and for the CSC alumni who have looked after my applications, especially Doreen Hübner, Markus Sachs and Michael Siems. And those alumni who I do not know, but who found my application so good to be able to participate in the program.
• My previous and current manager, who both supported me during the application phase and the actual assignment, Uwe Mazurek and Ronald Baldauf.
• The CSC Program Manager, Jamie McDonald for her overall super work, and our awesome CSC Team Facilitator, Chris Moorhead, who has guided us very well through the training sessions in the preparatory phase, and who gave us great support in all administrative activities.
• PYXERA Global, who was responsible for the actual implementation of the CSC program and did an excellent job, especially Kelsey Figone, Tasnim Jalil and the five Project Assistants, Candra, Dodo, Jessica, Salma and Talitha.
• IBM Indonesia, who gave us great support during our CSC deployment in Jakarta, especially the Corporate Citizenship Manager, Santi Diansari Sarino and the IBM Security Officer, Wasis Surono.
• The entire CSC Indonesia 9 team for having worked together so well to meet our clients’ needs in the best possible way.
• All my colleagues in the C&I VW Squad, who took over my work at home whilst being on the CSC assignment.
• My husband Olaf and our children, Lennard and Silja, who always support me in all the new challenges that IBM poses to me, including this CSC assignment.

Tuesdays are batik days, right? To preserve this tradition, our family dressed in batik yesterday.

And, before getting sentimental now, I say it again in Bahasa Indonesia:

Terima kasih banyak!

Back to Jakarta

The last day in Indonesia has begun … After a delicious omelette for breakfast, I write two more blogs. Then, I have to hurry to pack my belongings and order a taxi. In three quarters of an hour, I’m on time at the airport of Yogyakarta and wait for my flight back to Jakarta.

Arriving in Jakarta, the traffic chaos kills me again. Since there is no cheap taxi to get via the Grab App, I finally take a normal taxi that brings me to the Gran Meliá in one and a half hours for twice the price.
There, I pick up my two suitcases from the storage room and go to a room in the gymnastics area. I spend two hours hopping between the two suitcases and my backpack and sorting out various heavy items to tune my machine baggage to 30.2 kg. The lady in the reception of the gymnastics area is very happy about my PRADA perfume and about my travel steam iron, which I give her.

Slightly exhausted from the pack action, I treat myself to a last dinner in the “El Bombon” shop and print out my boarding passes in the business area. Then, I order a last time a Grab taxi and drive to the international airport Soekarno-Hatta of Jakarta. I’m over-punctual and wait another hour before I can check in my luggage. I am pleased to see Anita and Csaba again, returning from Bali and flying with me from Jakarta to Dubai.

In Dubai unfortunately our ways separate: Anita and her boyfriend fly from Dubai to Budapest and I am looking forward to my return flight to Hamburg, to see my husband and my children again after such a long time. Finally, at 13:45 pm I arrive in Hamburg and our family is now complete again 😉

Sunrise at Sikunir Hill

Getting up between 3 and 5 o’clock in the morning has become almost normal for me 😉 At 3:45 am my alarm goes off and Joko and I leave at 4 am from our hostel to Sikunir. It is cold and Joko lends me a light blanket to cover myself in the car. Also, Franziska and Theresa want to experience the sunrise on the Sikunir hill and our two cars drive in convoy to the car park in Sembungang – Java’s highest village.
From there it’s a 30-minute walk along a track to the top of Sikunir Hill. The path is dark and uneven steps are dug into the side of the hill. Luckily, Franziska has a flashlight which we use to help us see. Above us we could see the light from the stars. It looked so beautiful this high up away from any big city.

Shortly after 6 I am on the way back to the parking lot. I’m hungry and I’m looking forward to the roti breakfast at the hostel. Even if the peanut sauce has given the meal the necessary spice, Roti will definitively not be my favorite choice for breakfast …

Before we leave the hostel, I check in quickly for my return flight to Hamburg (tonight came the already much-desired call for the online check-in 😉 Then we drive back to Yogya. I enjoy the beautiful landscape of Java, take one or the other photo …

… and at 11 am we stop at Candi Mendut which is a ninth-century buddhist temple, located about three kilometers east from Borobudur. The main room of Candi Mendut has three carved large stone statues.

The 3 metres tall statue of Dhyani Buddha Vairocana was meant to liberate the devotees from the bodily karma, at the left is statue of Boddhisatva Avalokitesvara to liberate from the karma of speech, at the right is Boddhisatva Vajrapani to liberate from karma of thought.

From there we continue towards Mount Merapi. which is the most active volcano in Indonesia and has erupted regularly since 1548. It is located approximately 28 kilometers north of Yogyakarta which has a population of 2.4 million, and thousands of people live on the flanks of the volcano, with villages as high as 1.700 meters above sea level. Due to the recent eruptions of Mount Merapi, the visibility is unfortunately extremely bad. Instead of taking photos, I look – all alone – a short film about the events of the last eruption of this volcano on October 25, 2010. I am deeply moved by this force of nature and the catastrophe that has arisen.

Well, and then we drive back to the hotel. Too bad, too bad, now this short trip is over. Thank you dear Joko for the very nice tour – you were a great driver!

Later on, I have dinner in a Chinese restaurant, continue a little blogging and then finally go off to bed. Tomorrow I will fly back from Yogya to Jakarta at 1 pm.

Dieng Plateau

Today it finally goes to the Dieng Plateau which I have been looking forward to for days, too. A nice family, whom I met here in the guesthouse, gave me the telephone number of their driver. Joko is a fine guy and we quickly agree on the price for the two-day trip.

Dieng Plateau is a marshy plateau that forms the floor of a caldera complex on the Dieng volcanic complex near Wonosobo in Central Java, referred to as “Dieng” by Indonesians. The plateau sits at 2.000 metres above sea level, far from major population centres. The name “Dieng” comes from Di Hyang which means “Abode of the Gods”.

The drive to Dieng takes about 3 hours and I enjoy the landscape of Central Java: rice fields, volcanoes – all in lush green. On the plateau are some of the island’s oldest Hindu temples. The five main temples form the Arjuna complex and are dedicated to Shiva.

Other temples are Candi Gatutkaca with the small museum of the plateau showing statues and sculptures from the temples and Candi Bima with its rows of staring heads.

For several centuries, the volcanic activity of the Dieng Plateau has been determined by so-called phreatic explosions. The explosions created around 100 craters on the Dieng Plateau. Among the most famous craters is Kawah Sikidang:

In many areas of the crater, steam comes out of the ground, as well as hot springs, fumaroles, solfatars …

… and mud pots.

Just over one kilometer further east are two lakes in the Telaga Warna (Colored Lake) and the Telaga Pengilon (Spiegelsee) in an older crater into which a lava flow has flowed. Gas bubbles rise in the Telaga Warna; its water is acidic with a pH of three. Near the lake are three caves, which are used as meditation sites.

At the end of the day, Joko and I are looking for a homestay – actually in Sikunir, so getting up for the sunrise tomorrow is not too hard … Unfortunately we will not find anything in Sikunir … due to the Ramadan season the sidewalks seem like folded up there … and so we end up in Dieng in a quite passable hostel.
At dinner I meet Franziska and Theresa, two young women from Southern Germany, who have hung up their job as nurses and travel half a year through South East Asia. I remember my travel time 25 years ago and we spend a nice evening chatting together.

Yogya, Yogya, Yogya

Today is my first day alone. I start the day calmly, have a nice breakfast and write on my blog. At 10:30 am I finally leave the guest house, stroll through Jalan Malioboro and buy the last souvenirs for my loved ones at home.

At lunchtime, I look for a place, which is again difficult in light of Ramadan. Finally, I have a pizza at the Vredeburg Museum which is a former colonial fortress who was built in 1760 as requested by the Dutch governor of North Java, at that time. Then I let myself drive from a rickshaw driver to the water castle, called Taman Sari.

Taman Sari is the site of a former royal garden of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta. Built in the mid-18th century, Taman Sari had multiple functions, such as a resting area, a workshop, a meditation area, a defense area, and a hiding place.

I stay there for quite a while, before I head off to the guesthouse with another rickshaw driver. There, the wife of an employee is already waiting for me. She has agreed to sew something for me – from pieces of fabric that each CSC team member has gotten as present from our second Community Service Day.

After the clothes fitting, I take a quick shower and get ready for the Prambanan Ramanyana ballet performance. Unfortunately, I’m 15 minutes late. The ushers lead me still friendly in the performance hall. Quietly, I sit down and watch the ballet performance in front of the backdrop of the Prambanan Temple. It looks fantastic and somehow pretty mystical …

During the break, I exchange my drink voucher and buy myself a bag of tortilla chips for dinner – very healthy 😉

After the end of the performance, I am a bit alone and lost in the parking lot area … I just want to order a Grab taxi when I am approached by a man who seems to belong to a group. As it turns out, it is a group of 11 priests who have chartered a minibus together with their father and they offer to give me a lift back to my guest house. Oh, how happy I was about this nice opportunity – thank God!