We visited the Anak Krakatau area in July 2018, and it seems much has changed since Clyde's review below. We accessed the site via the same method: a private 3 hour drive from Jakarta starting at 5am, followed by a bouncing 1.5 hour speedboat ride from Carita Beach. In December 2018, not long after Clyde's visit, the main cone of Anak Krakatau collapsed. A tsunami thundered into the mainland of Java, killing over 400 people and injuring thousands more.

The volcano itself lost about 250m of height, along with all of its trees. The island is now just a barren wasteland of hard-packed ash with canyons riven by rainwater. There's a small beach of ash, but Alert Level 2 means you're not allowed to approach within two kilometres. Around the far side of the island, we could see a large cauldron of steaming sulphur but little other activity, and aside from the waves the whole area was completely silent. Our guide said there are small eruptions once or twice a week, punctuated by the occasional large eruption. After the December tsunami, these have grown less frequent.

The nearby island of Rakata suffered a landslide after the tsunami hit, but was otherwise unaffected. It was still quite green, and we spotted lots of fish while snorkelling and later some large monitor lizards monitored us eating lunch. The other islands that were once Krakatoa had their trees blackened or killed, but are otherwise in the same shapes as earlier.

Despite the ultra-long day (we returned to Jakarta at 7pm after our 5am departure), we were both quite happy with the tour. I've been fascinated by volcanoes (and Krakatoa particularly) since a young age, so it was great to visit one of the most volcanically active spots on the planet in relative safety. I can also second Clyde's recommendation for the book Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded as some pre-reading!