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The Indonesian airline Batavia Air has announced that they will start with two new routes. They will fly direct daily between Jakarta and Singapore as well as Semarang in Central Java and Singapore. The flight between Semarang and Singapore is fairly remarkable, as national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia ceased operations on that same route.
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Garuda Indonesia has announced that it will resume flights between Jakarta and Amsterdam as of June 1, 2010. A daily flight between the destinations will be made with an Airbus A330-200 plane, which makes a short stop in Dubai.
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Although KLM is flying to destinations like Jakarta and Surabaya in Indonesia through a 'detour' - by codeshares with Malaysian and Singapore Airlines for example - they will also fly to Bali with their own blue swans three times a week later this year. This means that three plane loads of Dutchmen can fly to Bali to celebrate their holidays without leaving the Netherlands behind during their long flights.
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It has been quiet a while that I flew with Wings Air. This company is a 100% daughter of Lion Air, but that does not mean that they offer the same services. Services may be similar, it is mainly the planes belonging to Wings Air that are the problem, while those planes are quite important in the industry.
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After flying with AirAsia resulted in a slight disappointment I tried to fly with Batavia Air more often. They also have a number of new planes and offer regular fares which are attractive enough to give it a try as well. Fares are not that much different than those of AirAsia, but AirAsia just knows how to play the pricing game better.
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Every once in a while I do get to fly short distances in Indonesia. Because I don't fly to very exotic destinations which can only be reached once every few days, I often have the choice between several operators. That puts back the fun in flying a little bit, because looking for the right tickets is part of the travel already.
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Because there are still many passengers heading for the quake-struck city of Padang in West Sumatra, Mandala has added extra flights from and to the city until the end of the month to accommodate all passengers. Extra flights will be organized between Jakarta - Padang and Batam - Padang. In total some 9.710 chairs will be added with Airbus 320 and Airbus 319 planes.
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However tariffs of toll roads throughout many parts of Java and parts of Sumatra and Sulawesi have indeed been increased late last month, price hikes are not as drastic as they were first portrayed. Most users will hardly have any increase at all, since tariffs for higher road classes were among those increased most. This means that an entire Indonesian family stuffed in one oversized SUV still pays almost nothing to use the toll roads.
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Singapore is just some 45 minutes away by fast ferry from Batam. An easy target for a day of shopping, a return trip 'new visa' or a lunch. From Singapore Batam is also seen as place to shop as prices are lower there while choice is still not that bad as well. Furthermore people can enjoy themselves with alcohol from early on the day until the early hours of the next morning.
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The Dutch airline KLM will fly to Bali with a direct flight three times a week from December this year. A stop in Singapore is scheduled for the trip however. The company made this announcement earlier today. This good news for those travelers that can not entirely leave behind their home country comes during a period in which KLM is having talks with Garuda Indonesia over a possible agreement.
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Ever wondered if there was any cheap alcohol in Indonesia? Of course there is, but what you will find first is the locally brewed kind, varying from arak (rice wine) as well as fake branded liquor in small bottles in most parts of Indonesia to real wine - and of good enough quality as well - on the island of Bali. The wine however is not cheap with some 100,000 Rupiah (7.50 euro) per bottle or more. The locally produced and fake branded liqor (Jack Daniel's and other well-known brands) are sold for somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 per 0.25 liter.
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It is just several minutes before half past one as Batavia Air flight 7P-577 from Jakarta is preparing to land on Hang Nadim international airport on Batam. After a nice and quiet flight that departed just a few minutes behind schedule from Jakarta, Batam is visible and the last empty cups of water and paper napkins are collected by the stewardesses.
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Before you know it you are in another boarding room. In this case on the airport of Hang Nadim. Back to Jakarta indeed, but the Batavia Air plane has not arrived yet so the minutes of delay start to count already. In contrary to the airport of Jakarta, there are no boards with information about the recently introduced laws on the protection of passengers in case of delay. Most people don't know about the fact that they have the right to a snack and a drink if there is a delay indeed.
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I have just arrived at 'Soekarno-Hatta International Airport of Jakarta', or short just 'the airport' or even shorter Soetta. Later this afternoon, at 16:20 local time, my flight should depart. When I got out of the taxi about half an hour ago I first bought a cup of iced tea at A&W. Not the best choice in the area, but I needed over an hour to reach the airport and had already spend an hour in the bus. Two hours without drinking is far from good for me.
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It was an old-fashioned Saturday evening in Jogjakarta. A part of my life that I left behind for a new life a few hundred kilometers away. I didn't miss a thing about it in the last two months, but when I am 'submerged' in it once again, it is fairly easy to pick up the old rhythm again. That is exactly what I did, together with my girlfriend and a number of friends in town.
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It has been two months ago that I left from Yogyakarta to move to my new house in Lippo Cikarang. Now everything has settled down - for some time already by the way - it is about time to go back to the city where I spent almost three years of my life. As I told before, I did not move from Yogyakarta because I had to, so returning is not a big problem for me.
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After a day or four, which was a few days back by now, it was time to go back home to the 'civilized world', however that is a wrong choice of words if you ask me. My girlfriend and I decided that four days was enough, above all it was a 'mere' eight hours shaking by bus and 55.000 Rupiah to get here, so it was not something impossible if you want to go.
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The long trip by bus lay behind us when we arrived at what we called home at half past three in the night. Most of the family stayed awake to greet us, so not to be rude I sat down on the wooden bench to eat something. After that it was soon time to excuse me to catch some sleep. I just wanted to go along with the rest here, so getting up early is something obligatory. Of course there is the understanding that I didn't have much sleep, so I could get some sleep without any problems.
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At the end of a Sunday afternoon we left from Lippo Cikarang in the direction of Kampung Rambutan, a bus terminal at the edge of Jakarta. From here we would take the bus later today. We would take the one headed for Cilacap at the southern coast of Central Java to bring a visit to the family of my girlfriend. The trip to the bus terminal took about one hour, which was only a small leg in the entire trip.
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'Welcome back in Indonesia' is what I first thought when I arrived from Kuala Lumpur with AirAsia flight AK 392. Before that I was in the air for another 12 hours on a flight from Amsterdam, but flying with KLM does not give me any sensation that I am actually flying towards Asia, that feeling only came when I walked out from the plane.
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At the end of last year I was able to experience how it was to fly a brand new plane as well as a very old one in just a matter of days. That very old one was a short domestic flight from Jakarta to Yogyakarta with Indonesia Air Asia, while just several months earlier I had traveled from Yogyakarta to Kuala Lumpur with Air Asia in one of the newest planes - at that moment - in use with the airline. It was the new plane that fascinated me most, while I only thought about the old one a few months later.
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Sitting in a bus is not something that I do with the greatest love. However every once in a while I will still do something that I don't want to do every single day. After the flight from Yogyakarta to Surabaya in the early morning, I didn't reach my final destination for the day - by far. But fortunately I had already taken that into account when I booked the ticket. At that time I decided to use only public transport to find my way to Malang, which was my final destination for the day.
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Several years ago I was there for the last time - at that time it was the first time as well - at the airport of Surabaya. A small building which was far too small for the number of passengers that had to be served from the airport there. A common problem at airports, especially in the western part of Indonesia where the airline industry has grown incredibly in recent years following the startup of a number of new routes flown by several different airlines.
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I had to get quite early this time, around four o'clock in the morning. That time is better known here as subuh, about the time at which the first prayer of the day for Muslims is held. However the alarm from my cell phone - no need for a buzzer or watch - was set at exactly four o'clock, I woke up just a few minutes earlier. In the background I could already hear some mosques uttering their first call for prayer at this early time. However that is no reason for me to get up this early, catching a plane is.
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With a flight in the afternoon I departed from Yogyakarta to the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta. For the first time I was to fly this route with AirAsia. It is called AirAsia here, but in fact it's a separate company that listens to the name Indonesia AirAsia. This difference is subtle, but if you know that AirAsia uses airline code AK, and Indonesia AirAsia QZ, it all becomes clear.
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I have to admit, it is somewhere far outside any holiday season in the middle of November, maybe that will help create the almost deserted Kuta around this time of year. It was a short trip of about one hour from the beating cultural and religious heart of Bali, Ubud. With a virtually blue sky I left the spiritual village on a rented Mio (scooter), heading for the hot lowlands and crowds of Southern Bali. That crowd was a relative thing here, but seen from Ubud almost everything in the outside world looks crowded.
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Overloaded they are and it is not just only on 'Halte Harmoni' where the situation is not really clear. There are even bigger exchange stops. One of the largest might just be 'Halte Senen', a little more to the north. This stop is situated directly at one of the corners of a busy intersection, directly under a fly-over. This is also the meeting point of a number of routes and transferring here is made difficult by hundreds of people that are finding their way here. That is not the only thing however what makes it a mess here.
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Outside the use of the many thousands of - in general - old buses that are still in use today, there is a new option which was introduced just a few years ago. In 2004 these were brand new buses which were used on - then - just two routes. One route ran from north to south and back and the other one from west to east and back. The official name TransJakarta can be found on the buses, but for the rest the company is known as 'Busway'. And that is exactly what it is, because TransJakarta is too common. In the four year that this company exists hundreds of bus stops were constructed from durable materials and four more routes were organized as well. They seem to run all across the city without any logic though.
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What is the fastest way to get from the north of Jakarta to somewhere in the southern part of the city? That is a question which is hard to answer for a city like Jakarta. With some 15 million residents and several hundreds of square kilometers of city it often is such a big unorganized situation that you will not be able to just go somewhere to buy groceries or to pick someone up.
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Departing from the flatlands from the beach of Parangtritis I decided to head east for a little while. The small mountain road up is a very nice route with generally good road conditions. It is a trip into history a little bit with houses made of bamboo and plaid work mats as walls which you will find here in some places. There are here, at just several dozen kilometers distance from the city of Yogyakarta, still villages that don't even have access to power at all.
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In the soaring heat of the countryside just north of the southern beaches near Yogyakarta I was driving towards the east on a small countryside road. This road is the only way out for the area directly west of the Opak River which causes the area to be fairly quiet until today. There are no main roads here, no buses and trucks but palm trees, open rice fields, parked bicycles and a strait black asphalt road which seems to disintegrate into water in the remote distance because of the scorching hot sun.
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Some days you will most likely not have a full agenda so you can finally do something that has been waiting for some time. Earlier this month I had such a day, I have more than one a month fortunately, but I can not always do what I want because the weather often has to be nice as well. This time it was jack pot; a nice blue sky in the early morning and some small clouds at the time I was about to depart for a days out. My plan was to take a motorbike trip to the beach of Samas.
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During the last year I regularly brought a visit to Malang. There I visited a Dutch friend who had stayed in Indonesia some years more than I did, and please read that 'some' as a big understatement. It doesn't really matter in fact, however someone who has lived here for so many years can be a huge source of information about many subjects. He sure is for me at least. Every once in a while I can learn from specific situations which still make me go 'huh?'. Outside that I like to spend some of my time there at a somewhat crowded place. Like in many cities and villages that is the central square or alun-alun. Often a nice place to submerge yourself entirely in the local situation and current events.
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After the trip by train and a nice glass of teh hangat (see " Lodaya Malam to Bandung, trains run on time") it was time to continue our trip. We didn't reach our goal for the day, however it wasn't that far anymore. We had to end up at the Jayakarta hotel which was located in the northern part of Bandung. We realized that a free nights' stay in the hotel would not come totally free of course. I can admit - without any feeling of shame - that I don't want to spend my money on that kind of hotels. The 'free' part is a very important part in this story.
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It is half past two in the afternoon on a warm Tuesday afternoon at the start of the wet monsoon. No guarantee for rain however, it has been strange weather for over a week now in Yogyakarta and elsewhere in Java it seems to be more of the same. The wind blows from the wrong direction I was told. Maybe that is just good, because that would mean I could have a dry trip to Bandung. However using the train is less reliable on the weather than flying, it is still prone to various delays.
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It is a completely random day at the end of August. Time to catch a plane to head for a new destination. Fortunately I know what is waiting for me on the other side. This is, for me personally, a lot less stress. I tend to arrange everything into the smallest details, and that from someone that tries to build a life in Indonesia. Yeah, I know, it sounds strange, but until now it was relatively easy for that matter. The bright red AirAsia plane touches down after about two hours of flight. The environment still is tropical and green. It is clouded, that is the only thing I notice directly. That means that here at least I can see what kind of weather it is, because that is a big difference than just two hours ago. Because Jakarta is always covered under a thick layer of brown smog and other lethal stuff.
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It is a very normal Thursday afternoon when I sit down on the veranda. A light rain shower crosses my path here after a long and humid day on which it didn't want to raining the first place. The rain was not enough to clean the humid air and so tomorrow will be another of those warm and slow days. Last year the wet season only lasted until the middle of March, but now there is still rain on a regular base. Not a changing climate, but just a slight change in ocean temperatures. As far as on the other side of the world this impacts tropical areas as well, because weather here isn't that monotonous as it looks like when you see those holiday pictures with a blue sky. For sure there is much sun, but there are clouds as well and rain of course, even during the dry season. Maybe it's just a different type of rain, more light instead of a complete tropical downpour.
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First time to have a drink. I looked in the direction of the only warung that I could find here at the moment. I didn't really want to look for another one. Fortunately there was someone to serve, in the form of a Javanese women which sat on a bench in front of the house. Probably waiting for a customer. A bemo passed. That stopped and the driver got out. Hopefully he didn't bring any passengers, otherwise they had to wait. I wasn't the only one there when I walked into that direction. The driver ordered an iced tea and sat down. I just had picked up the nice idea to drink a coffee here. It had been a long time that I drunk a kopi tubruk actually. That is nice for a change. I found a nice spot at the one big table available.
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However it wasn't Saturday for sure, but a Tuesday, still I had the feeling that I had to take my motorbike for a nice day of traveling. Where it would bring me? At least as far as Purworejo. To my amazement and some shame I had never been there before, so that became the primary target. I at least had to go there so I could honestly say that I had been there. Furthermore there were no plans, like usual. It was already late in the morning, so it was not really supposed to become a long trip. Maybe after Purworejo it was time to find my way back. That also depended on what I would find along the way of course. Seen the distance and the road conditions it was to take about one and a half hour to get there. My modest estimation.
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It was a Saturday afternoon as any other, but sometimes I just feel the need to get out for a while. This is not always possible, but when there is a possibility and there are no other appointments in the agenda, then it just might happen that after lunch I decide to grab my stuff for a trip on the motorbike. It's not too far away, within the borders of the province of Yogyakarta, but at least I can get away from the daily life for a while. Helmet, keys and a wallet is enough. To store some of the memories I have I also bring a camera with me and within a matter of minutes I leave the area. Where do I go then? Ooh, I felt like having a drink in Wonosari, so that became my first destination, knowing that most likely it would be something in that direction, but that doesn't really matter.
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It's not really difficult go get up on time, around seven in the morning, so for that matter it's a nice service that it's possible to get a minivan in front of the door within the hour when I'm making a trip to a destination at a bigger distance than just in the city or nearby. That kind of minivan is called a travel here, and plies a fixed route a few times a day, for example from Yogyakarta via Solo, Madiun and Malang to Surabaya. Of course you can also travel the other way around, if you like you can go as far as Jakarta, but from Yogyakarta that is such a big distance that I rather prefer taking the train or a plane. Trains often depart or arrive at the most strange times possible, but that's a matter of looking what you personally most like.
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It was less than one week before it really happened. I was in Kuala Lumpur to settle some official stuff, and when drinking an iced tea I took some time off in the evening to visit a friend. It was getting late and however we usually only 'speak' to each other on the internet, we had some serious issues as well. Sometimes it's best to make a small joke about accidents and disasters. The people on board of the missing Adam Air plane are having a splendid time diving there, things like that, whether they are fun or not. As long as it doesn't happen in your own direct environment, you can still say things like that. I also told that I always missed such events; earthquakes when I'm away; other disasters beyond my easy reach and other things like that.
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It's been four days since budget carrier Adam Air's Flight 574 disappeared over the Indonesian archipelago, and despite a search and rescue effort involving ships, planes and ground patrols, authorities are no closer to finding the wreckage or any possible survivors. The Boeing 737-400, which took off from Indonesia's main island of Java en route to the popular diving destination of Manado with 102 people on board, emitted a signal from its emergency beacon over the mountainous island of Sulawesi before dropping out of sight on New Year's Day.
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Quite a lot back in time, about two-and-a-half to three years already, but when I found these bills again there were certain memories returning to my mind. It's time once more to write down some of them here on this virtual paper, so I can reduce my current heap of entrance- and parking tickets and other useless prove of payment. I always keep all of them, just in case. But there is never a just in case until I find them again, like today.
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It has been a short while, but still I think about that one day that I was headed for the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Because I had obtained a nice booklet of maps of the city, and I also bought a monthly card for the LRT (city trains), I would be able to drop in there to bring my paperwork. The embassy opened at nine o'clock in the morning, like usual, so if I would get up at around eight o'clock I would have enough time to prepare myself. That is what happened. Half past eight the alarm of my telephone went off and I took a short shower. The train station of Chinatown - that's the place where I found a nice little hotel for the week - was located at about 300 meters from the hotel. I waned to the central station of Kuala Lumpur (KL Sentral) because you can take the monorail from there. This route brought me in the direction of the Indonesian embassy, however I still had to walk quite some distance. With a bottle of water that should be possible however. I also got the chance to use the monorail trains, because waiting until the one in Jakarta is finished would mean I was able to go to Kuala Lumpur a few more times, because that one won't be ready for some time being, if I read the stories about that.
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It was about time for me to get a new visa. Because of regulations it's not possible to extend a certain kind of visa - tourist visa. Also you can't apply for a new visa when in Indonesia as well. You will have to go to an Indonesian embassy. Where that embassy is doesn't really matter, so there are a lot of options left to look around for a holiday-hobbyist. And so I got to plan my first 'visa trip' to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Someone I know from the internet lives around there as well, so I also created the opportunity to meet. That should not be a problem because I would stay there for one entire week. I wasn't in a hurry - I didn't have to go back to Indonesia the same day or so - so I could look around there while my passport would be updated with a new sticker which permits entry into Indonesia again.
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Looking back in a bunch of old airline tickets, entrance ticket and whatever more, I again found some 'remarkable' items. A part of a boarding pass for a flight with Garuda Indonesia, which haven't been flying to the Netherlands for quite some time now. Also an entrance ticket to the Prambanan temple complex as well as a lunch in the Via Via Cafe in the well-known Jalan Prawirotaman in Yogyakarta. Several months after the earthquake I happened to be there accidentally because I was looking for something completely different. Still a reminder to get on my motorbike and see what became of the place. Especially going there for that one thing didn't have to, because I would go there anyway for renting a car for some friends coming over from Bali.
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Whether it's in Bali, Sulawesi or Java, you will get tickets for everything, everywhere. Most of them end up in the trash can - or on the street for that matter - right away, but some of them are worth while keeping as a memory to places you have ever been. Maybe it's not important to remember whether you have been there, but maybe it's more important when you were there.
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For the second time I look back at a handful of tickets that is in a box or plastic bag in my room. They are laying there, some of them already for about seven years now. Time to give them some attention and have a talk about hem. This time some attention to tickets of Taman Safari in Prigen, near Malang in east Java. Some attention as well to the parking tickets craze that seems to rage in Indonesia. Sometimes it's kind of funny where you will get tickets for however.
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Traveling in Indonesia, whenever you attempt to do this, you will notice the vast amount of small paper - sometimes even like toilet-paper - tickets you get. On virtually every occasion you will get at least one. Not one, but one for your car, motorbike, your friends, your family, your kids. And it gets even worse, since you don't get tickets for everyone, but also for everything. This becomes clear when you take the ferry. It doesn't matter which ferry, but you will get a ticket to enter the seaport, for parking, for boarding the boat, for bringing your car and to be insured during your trip. This results in a handful of tickets, and then you only got onto the ferry.
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Only for the first time since 1999, I was about to make some boat trips. After planning a trip by motor from Yogya all the way to Sumbawa Besar (yes, on Sumbawa island), I soon discovered there was no road all the way, but there were some stretches of sea to cross as well. By plane was one option, but then I had to check in my motorbike several times. I didn't even think about using a plane, since it was most likely a lot of work arrange six flights to and back from some of Indonesia's eastern islands.
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Over about seven years of travelling to Indonesia, I have spend many of my nights at houses with relatives in Jakarta, Bali and Yogyakarta, but as a traveller it's not possible to forget all about the hotels, even if you want to. But in fact, most hotel guests won't mention their stay there when talking about their holiday with friends and family. Probably because hotels are a need and not a desired place of stay during their holiday. Why stay in a hotel when you have all the luxury at home? That is holiday of course.
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Sometimes, just sometimes when I'm walking around, having a cold drink on a nice Dutch spring day, I have the feeling that I'm on holiday. One of those days was just barely a week ago, when I was on my way to Amsterdam. I'm going there a few times a year to meet with friends or my travel agent, but this time they would be stuck in traffic elsewhere in the city or, in case of the travel agent, they would be closed. Ooh well, what's the deal then? It was 'Koninginnedag', or Queens day. Every 30th April the birthday of former queen Juliana is celebrated. Queen Beatrix, the current queen, didn't want to change that date to her own birthday to honour her, and so it happened that every 30th April is a national holiday with celebrations virtually everywhere. Cities, towns and villages have their own live bands playing on their squares and the biggest cities have one day of local markets on which everyone is - almost - free to sell what they want.
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On my trip from Yogyakarta to the east, to Bali, Lombok and even Sumbawa, I was scheduled to make a stop-over in Banyuwangi, the last city before I was to enter the boat to Bali to enter a completely different world. After driving a good 1000 kilometers on my brand new motorbike it was time to find a place to sleep for the night. Though Banyuwangi itself is not a harbour city, Ketapang is, however it close to each other, so it doesn't really matter.
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A different world of course, since Bali is located about 500 kilometers east of Yogyakarta. It's another island, another culture and whatever more, but one thing I encountered amazed me the most, but in fact I only realised it when I was home again, bringing back memories with some friends and beers. This is about the difference in approach, if you can call it that, of the local police concerning 'traffic violations'. For a start I would like to admit that I do actually make mistakes. Probably nothing close to a miracle.
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It's not the world as I know it, an aerial view over the city. Normally I will only see cities from the roads I drive on by motorbike. It's much more cheap to do so, because using a helicopter to have a look in town is not for the average man. Still I had the chance to make some pictures from the window upon arriving in Yogyakarta in December last year. Since the airport is close to the city and the weather was clear, I made a handful of pictures.
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As soon as Tana Toraja was introduced to me, it was taken away as well. I still remember the fact that I agreed on those meagre four days in Tana Toraja ‘because my schedule is too tight’, as it always is. In the van, just leaving the hotel for the last time, I was asking myself when I would really stop taking about schedules at all. Probably never, because I will always have to take an airplane in and out Indonesia again, but the time between those fixed points is merely a collection of things to do and things done in the past. For now, I was on my way to Makassar again, this very same evening I would have dinner with the owner of Caraka Travelindo, which has provided me with this wonderful trip.
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Finally we found ourselves in the heart of Tana Toraja, seen as one of the few places in Indonesia where tourists go to see something that has to do with the everyday life, which is also ‘protected’ by the Indonesian government. It’s good that they see that such an important part of Sulawesi (and so Indonesian) history is preserved. And I was about to see some of it. I realised that it was not possible to see everything as thoroughly as I normally would, with my little four days in the area.
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Just outside Sengkang we brought a visit to some houses with traditional weaving installations under their house. In this way they are protected from the sun’s direct heat and they are working close to home. It’s nice to see the fabrics being produced in front of your nose, too bad it’s nothing for me to buy something like it. If you ever want to buy something like it, you can choose from all kinds of natural dyes. If you which they can put real gold in it as well. Everything is for sale, however the people producing it, do wear it themselves as well.
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On a usual early morning, around seven, I woke up from my last night in Bira, a small coastal town on the lifted coral sediments of the south-western tip of Sulawesi. It was time to get dressed, have some breakfast, which isn’t much choice here, but well, it’s Bira, a place with only a handful of people living here, compared to other places in Indonesia. Getting dressed and packing my backpack again I was thinking I would not be here for quite some time. I hadn’t planned a second trip to Sulawesi yet, so this is probably the last I would see of Bira in quite some time.
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On several different occasions, I travelled by train over Jawa. Some of the trips were made in the evening or at night, so there wasn’t much to see except some white lights from distant villages and every once in a while a train station where we made a short stop to let other trains pass, since most of the rail network still is single-lined.
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From Jogja, it’s just a short trip by motorbike to Solo, also known as Surakarta. Short is relative, because it takes about as long as a train ride from my current hometown of Eindhoven to Amsterdam, somewhere between 75 and 90 minutes. The road to Solo is quite easy. In fact it’s one long road which starts near the Tugu monument, in downtown Jogja. Travelling to the east the road is named Jl. Jend. Sudirman, Jl. Urip Sumoharjo, Jl. Adisucipto and finally Jl. Solo, starting outside the Jogja outer road, which can bring you to any side of Jogja in a matter of 30 minutes by motorbike.
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On my motorbike, enjoying the beauty of the Indonesian landscape – preferrably outside the cities – I see a lot of strange things. At least, they are strange in my western point of view. Some things make me wonder how they even got there.
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Airports are fun, not only in Indonesia, but everywhere on the world. After flying to Indonesia several times I have seen the airports of Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Zurich, Singapore, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Denpasar, Surabaya and Makassar. Not an impressive number, but it’s still growing longer. However the remote destinations always seem more attractive for me, a local flight in Indonesia, from Makassar to Jogja, with a short stop at Surabaya made me smile while thinking of it just recently. It’s just one of those experiences I should not forget about.
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He has established direct air links with Singapore and is negotiating similar links with Malaysia. And now, the Sultan of Yogyakarta province in central Java wants to change the value system of his bureaucrats to make them more entrepreneurial and understand the needs of foreign investors.
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After going to the airport in the early morning, flying to Surabaya and Makassar, driving from Makassar airport, which is in fact located in the town of Maros, to a little town of Bira, located along the southerneastern coast of the southwestern peninsula of Sulawesi, the day ended and the evening begun. As I had been lazy for most of the day I was barely awake during the trip from the airport to Bira. It was merely the new Sulawesi views that kept me awake. The speeding driver wasn’t a problem at all, now I wanted to go to Bira, knowing there would be a lot more of Sulawesi to be seen in the coming days. The day started with the early morning sun in Jogjarta, with rain in Maros and a windy coast here in Bira. This would be my place for a few nights, just to take a rest and have a look around.
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In a series of short stories I will shine a light on things I have seen, I have done, I have smelled and touched in my three weeks stay in Indonesia (Jogjakarta and Sulawesi) in March 2004. Many things tend to fade away as soon as you are back home, picking up your daily life. Luckily I had a little booklet for some daily remarks. That will be my guide for this stories and stories to come.
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In a series of short stories I will shine a light on things I have seen, I have done, I have smelled and touched in my three weeks stay in Indonesia (Jogjakarta and Sulawesi) in March 2004. Many things tend to fade away as soon as you are back home, picking up your daily life. Luckily I had a little booklet for some daily remarks. That will be my guide for this stories and stories to come.
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After my few days left in Jogja after my week in Lombok, I'm back in Jakarta again. Yesterday I took the plane from Jogja to Jakarta to relax for the last few days, and to possibly meet some friends and other people here. Earlier on, I didn't know that some friends from Jogja, were about to go to Jakarta as well, but not by plane, by with the train. One of them left on Monday morning, I left Monday afternoon, and two more are currently in the train, waiting and travelling to Stasiun Pasar Senen. I hope to meet them tomorrow, for doing something else than what I'm doing now, writing stories and waiting for tonight, when I will meet an old friend which lives in Jakarta, somewhere...
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Lagging behind with writing stories, I’m now making an effort to jump another two more days in time, but as usual, it will be hard for me to catch up writing the stories until today. I will to my best for now, but there is so much to do. Too bad I will go to Jakarta tomorrow in the afternoon, nevertheless I will most likely write a story there as well.
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I didn’t have a clue what to expect from Lombok, as I have already told before. I have never been there, and outside that it’s a part of Indonesia, and most people are muslem, there is nothing special about it that I know. My website features some information about Lombok, but that’s not written by me, nor had I visited the island before. My previous story tells a lot about Lombok, in future stories, I will probably write more about it, but now I’m going to write about another Indonesian island, which is seen as an island that belongs to Lombok.
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"Oh, you have to visit Lombok, it's very different from other islands in Indonesia, and Bali. It's much more quiet and the people are more friendly." That was what I was told when I told people there was a small chance I would go to Lombok. A very definate 'must see' island.
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In fact it was two days of doing nothing. Well, doing nothing is nothing for me, so that’s not exactly what I did. I was driving around on my motorbike with Cabe, and that’s something which is a little bit more than doing nothing. Not too early in the morning we left for a drive around the city again. First we would have a look at Gunung Merapi again, since that can be viewed in the morning, because fog tends to spoil the view somewhere in the afternoon. When we arrived at around eleven o’clock, there was nothing to see anymore. The clouds had already taken over the view over Gunung Merapi. We decided not to continue the trip, and to head back for Jogja for lunch and something else, no plans made yet.
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Pager set at seven, being paged at 6:18 and 6:49, being picked up at 7:30. It’s not an easy life when you are on holiday, as you may have read before. But having the ultimate first and last chance to celebrate Indonesia’s 58th Independence Day in Indonesia, is a chance that I would definately not want to pass. Since a few days I’m able to drive the bebek (motorbike for two persons) myself, so I don’t need to rent one, as I only did one time before in my life. No, it’s much more fun doing it all yourself, though it was late again last night, watching some women having a nice game of billiards.
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Arriving at Yogya by train and getting too little sleep over the last week, would come back to me, I was already preparing for that, and I was hoping to prevent it by getting to bed much more early than the days before. Unfortunately the night became all friendly and nice, which caused it to be a late night again… What a shame.
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Driving around in Bandung, so much to see. I was planning on visiting a location just outside Bandung, called Kota Baru Parahyangan. They are building a completely new city there within a few years, at least that’s the plan. The area is now home to open landscapes with sawah’s, some farms and few people. The construction of the about 12,000 houses, 2 schools, a hospital, university, shopping mall, and everything else that comes with Indonesian life, has just started about a year ago. At this moment, only a food court and some 150 houses are completed, not forgetting to mention the 6 lane road running from the end of the jalan tol (tol road) to far beyond the first set of completed houses to several locations where construction just has started (as it seems).
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Not long after I had settelled in South Jakarta, the people who live in the house came home, so I had the chance to meet them again. Bapak was home late, but he liked to see me again, same like the sister of my friend here. She’s about to graduate in a few months, and besides wishing her the best, I also got to talk to her for a few hours, on the late evening of that Wednesday. A talk that I in fact never had with her before, so it was a true delight that evening. I went to bed about midnight, remembering that she wanted to go to campus the next day, and I could go with her to the train station, since I was leaving for Bandung tomorrow.
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In the midst of a true anti-teroris atmosphere I was leaving for Jakarta today. Very early in the morning (read in the night) polisi was driving around Bogor with a hurry. The newspapers now reported that they are behind several terrorists in Surabaya, the same is happening with those in Bogor, because the police were in a hurry for a mass-arrest. I don’t know whether they actually found someone, probably they arrested a few for display in “Patrolli”.
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The first impressions from Indonesia this year. Yesterday I arrived with a late flight via Frankfurt and Singapore. Waiting for the stopovers in Singapore and Frankfurt wasn’t the main problem, but it seemed like I could’t get used to the little turbulence. At the end I was almost ill, not a very good start of my holiday, but the same happened last year, thinking that it would all soon pass over.
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In the very early hours of a day in july, 2000, we left home in Pondok Labu for a five-day trip to Yogyakarta. With we I mean Fifi, one of my relations in Indonesia and myself. We would go there to visit Candi Borobudur and Candi Prambanan, and to have pleasant stay outside Jakarta for a few days. That early morning already meant a surprise to me. Jakarta could be quiet like a rural area as well, but you had to go out very early. And that would not be the last surprise.
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After four years of Indonesia holidays, I have learned several things. A little bit of language ( I’m far from happy with the current results indeed ), a little culture, food, climate and environment. But the thing I would like to tell you about this time is public transport in a variety of different ‘products’ as I call it. In fact it should not be that different from your own means of transport, but remember that you have to give up your bike and car for your transport. A car was not my problem yet, I used to do everything by bike, because the city life in a small city like Eindhoven ( pop. 200,000 ) in the Netherlands is about the same mess as the daily Jakarta life. No harm done, by bike you can enjoy special routes and roads for bikers only. Imagine that..
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Recently been in Bali, and with my head still full of things I always wanted to tell you, I'm now finally writing them down. Currently I have a longer holiday because I have finished my school, and after that I will have a job, a real job. A job for grown-ups and no more working at the supermarket, though I liked it. It's about time to look back over four years of Indonesia-travel, starting with the latest experience, staying in a hotel for over two weeks.
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When I was in Indonesia for the second time, I also knew thet I was sure to go the third time as well. Back them I already got the chance to look for nice tickets. That does not only means cheap, because cheap is not always good. At that time I was looking for good and familiair names in the business.
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A story that I wrote a long time ago, but I never finished. Right now I finished it, and the texts that dates back from August 2000, I didn't change. Some information ( personal that is ) is already outdated, unfortunately.
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