Did you know that .... ?

Just some cool facts about Indonesia....

- Kopi Luwak is the most expensive & rarest coffee in the world.
It is made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The civets eat the berries but the beans inside pass through their system undigested. This coffee is called Civet coffee in english.

- Indonesia is made up of more than 17,000 different islands, making it the world’s largest Archipelago. Only around 6,000 of them (35%!) are inhabited.

- Indonesia consists of around 300 different ethnic groups with their own language. Therefore, there are about 300 different languages in Indonesia. Unfortunately, these languages are gradually disappearing since they are often no longer spoken by the younger generation.

- The world’s largest flower is found in Sumatra. The name of the flower is the Rafflesia arnoldi. This is a rare flower that lives as a parasite on the Tetrastigma vine. It produces no leaves, stems or roots. The bud itself takes many months to develop, and once it blossoms (spreading an unpleasant smell) , it only lasts for a few days.

- The Borobudur Temple in Central Java is the largest Buddhist monument in the World.

- The world's largest lizard is the Komodo dragon, which can only be found on Komodo Island in Indonesia.

- Since volcanoes have been documented, Indonesia has been home to two of the world’s most biggest volcanic eruptions based on VEI (Volcanic Explosivity Index) :

• Tambora, 1815: VEI=7, Tambora's volcanic cloud lowered global temperatures by as much as 3 degrees celcius, creating climate anomalies even a year later (1816), which in the northern hemipshere became known as "the Year without Summer".


• Krakatau, 1883: VEI=6, Krakatau's explosion generated the largest sound historically reported. Its explosion was heard as far away as Perth, Australia.