Hello! I am Anja, one of the two German girls in the team. My base is Granada, Spain and my aim is to document the timing and patterns of the diversification of the indopacific reef-building coralline algae.

So, yesterday night we arrived in Bandung. For me it was like arriving in a little paradise after the noisy, quite dirty and huge city of Jakarta, finding ourselves in a quiet garden in our nice hotel. Another interesting experience was eating Indonesian fast food, called Padang, (in the chain “Sederhana”) for the first time at a resting area right by the motorway. And it was really good, healthier than what we are used to in Europe, great variety and also great choice for the vegetarians.

Here we are with a huge table full of food!

Today we are visiting the Pusat Survei Geologi, where our Indonesian colleagues work. After an introduction to stratigraphy we had the chance to see the museum and Professor Fahrul Aziz showed us astonishing samples of Java man skulls and mandibles, which are around 1 million years old and that we only know from the literature. The afternoon will continue with practical planning, decision-making on methods and completing our tool set to make the field work as effective as possible.

Professor Aziz and Fauzi Hasibuan from the survei with Frank Wesselingh, Bill Wood, Jon Todd (NHM) and Willem Renema