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Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

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If you are familiar with Dante, you will recognize this as the saying inscribed on the Gate of Hell that the condemned pass through on their way to eternal damnation.  But, I bet you didn't know this is also the saying inscribed above the entrance to the Customs Office at Soekarno-Hatto Airport in Jakarta--the place where my three suitcases have been held for 15 MONTHS now. Though I haven't provided you any details of my visit to the Customs Office today, I think both the headline and the first paragraph qualify as textbook examples of foreshadowing and you don't need to have ESP to have figured out how our expedition turned out.  I was accompanied by Tasya (she is picture here dressed in camo, though her battlefield attire was of no use) and Gigih, the poor souls in HR, who have inherited this mess from the previous souls in HR, who no longer work at SU.  They escaped before they had to pass through the Customs Office Gates. I will not bore you with details of the three ...
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The World's 3rd Largest, Almost Invisible, Statue

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As my flight was approaching the international airport in Bali, I noticed a giant statue on the horizon that was about 15 kilometers away, but appeared as though it must have been hundreds of feet tall.  I decided that I would visit it while I was on Bali. My last day on Bali, I decided to hire a taxi to take me to the Gurita Vishnu Kencana Statue, which depicts Vishnu riding on Garuda.  Including the pedestal, it is 122 meters tall (30 meters taller than the Statue of Liberty) and the winged Garuda's wingspan is 64 meters.  And the statue is so massive it can be viewed from up to 20 kilometers away. It is the tallest statue in Indonesia and the tallest statue of a Hindu deity. When the taxi I hired arrived at the park entrance about a kilometer from the statue, we found that the site was closed indefinitely.  I couldn't take a picture, because you couldn't see the statue at all through the trees and it was obscured further by the terrain.  My intrepid driver at...
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Images of Surakarta (Solo)

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Last weekend I visited the historic Central Javan city of Surakarta, more commonly known in Indonesia as Solo. I am now posting mostly on Instagram when I travel (erikhk21), but here are some images for those of you who don't venture near that platform. Some highlights: *Images of Mt. Merapi, the extremely active volcano near Solo, which I enjoyed watching erupt from my hotel room.  It is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. *Mangkunegaran Palace, which was the home of the Sultan of the Mataram Empire until the 1940s. *The Laweyan Batik neighborhood, one of the most famous places in Indonesia for making and selling fine batik. *The Sukuh Temple about 40 km. from Solo, up into the mountains, circa 1350. It is a very unusual Hindu temple and scholars are not completely certain as to the full meaning of everything at Sukuh, but there seemed to be an emphasis on purification and fertility as you might have guessed from the photos. *Grand Mosque of Solo, which dates from the 1...
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