Gret Surbek, a woman from Bern, spent 25 years in Indonesia from 1920 to 1945. She experienced the period of Dutch colonial rule in the Dutch East Indies and later the years of Japanese occupation during World War II. At the age of 19, she traveled to the jungles of Sumatra to join her dream man, the Bernese tropical doctor Kurt Surbek, without any prior experience abroad. While he worked at various plantation hospitals, she managed the household and cared for their two children. Later, the family moved to Bandung on Java, where they established a sanatorium until the war brought a significant turning point in their lives. After returning to Switzerland, Gret Surbek processed her diaries into extensive memoirs, which reflect a woman who engaged deeply with the indigenous cultures of Indonesia from an early age.