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After Kuala Lumpur, we decided to make a trip around Malaysia. We went to Pulau Penang, Cameron Highlands and Pulau Perhentian.
Pulau Perhentian, we can say for sure, that was the best place in Malaysia. We stayed there for 5 days and we could see a beautiful beach
and a excelent place for snorkeling and diving. We also played football, voleyball and partying every night on the beach.
And after this routine in Perhentian, we went back to Kuala Lumpur to take a flight to our next country.
So, let's see if you can realize which country we went to. We are going to give you some tips.
17.000 islands, with more than 11.000 uninhabited.
240 million of people, being the 4th biggest population in the world. And having the biggest muslim population in the world.
More than 700 languages.
50% of the population living with US$ 2,00 per day.
Lots of tsunamis and earthquakes.
More than 129 active volcanos and just in this picture you can see 3 of them.
After Malaysia, as you already know, we went to: Indonesia.
And Indonesia has 6 main islands: Sumatra, Java, Bali, Papua, Sulawesi and Kalimantan. We'll visit just Java and Bali.
We are going to Java island, which is the main political and economical place in Indonesia. Just there they have 40 volcanos.
So, our first destination in Java is Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia and one of the biggest cities in the world, having 20 million of people.
We are in Lapangan Merdeka square, created by Soekarno, the guy responsible for the Independence of Indonesia. He decided to create this central square as a gift to the country. Merdeka means freedom in Bahasa Indonesia, their main language.
And here behind me... you can see the National Monument, which us a Soekarno's attemptive to show is... Manhood!!
This monument is also known as "Soekarno's last ***".
Now we are in front of the main mosque in Jakarta, but, to see the liberty of religion in the country, check out what we have in the opposite side: a Cathedral.
Muslims here don't wear that black clothing that we usually see on the TV. Girls wear a small veil and some of them have a tab, like a cap, to protect them from the sun.
Istiqlal, which is the name of the mosque, means Independence in arabic. Its capacity is 200 thousand people and simbolize their independence against The Netherlands.
And this mosque is full of independence simbols.
This central space in the roof has 45 meters and simbolizes the year that they became independent, 1945.
Also the five floors of the mosque represent the five pillars of islamism.
1. Professing monotheism and accepting the messenger 2. To pray five times a day 3. To have five ritual godsense 4. To accept the obligations of Ramadan 5. To go to Meca.
The architecture of the mosque was designed by a catholic guy, representing the religious freedom.
A fact that called my attention was that the girls here pray in the same room than the guys, which didn't happen in Malaysia. Here the guys pray in the middle and the girls in the left side. All of them directed to Meca.
Usually the mosques have 2, 4 or 6 pillars with speakers, but this one has just one, representing the faith in only one god: Allah.
Our last destination in Jakarta was the National Museum.
We went there to have an idea about what we are going to see in the rest of the country.
And two things that we really want to see are:
The puppets performance.
And the famous javanese masks.
After Jakarta, we went to Cibodas, which is a city where we should visit a volcano.
We didn't climb the volcano because of the bad weather conditions. So we just stayed overnight
In the next day, two local girls came to talk to us and invited us to go to their school to practice english with them. Of course we said yes.
Escaping from the touristic centres, we could see a little bit more of their lives.
And in this day, we could meet new people, laugh a lot and receive some flirt.