Treasure!

The Best and Worst of Indonesia

saktinuzan — Mon, 5 Sep 2011 15:46:00 GMT

First of all: no, Bali is not the only thing we could offer here. The faces of the land is an immense delight, and the diverse cultures, as well as their colorful traditional ceremonies and customary life really are adorable. But Indonesia is an equatorial maritime country; it has more than thirteen thousand islands separated by seas and straits, and each part of the land has much more of an adventure and experience i could really jumble in one summary. Nor even, i may say, our 742 range of different ethnic languages and dialects. But let's start my list of the best and worst thing you may run into in Indonesia.

Best of Indonesia

Traditional Hospitality

Photo by Tanenhaus

As individual as it could get for modern people in big cities as Jakarta or Bandung, i may guarantee that you will, at some point, experience surprising humble welcomes and treatments in places and from people you might not expect. Maybe, a glass of jamu—a traditional herbal nutrition drink—at a remote house of an old Javanese farmer in your intercity trip? Be prepared, also, to kindly respond to the common invitation for an overnight stay in their modest wooden houses.

Edible Adventures

Oily and red. Picture by Mama Tamy

Be it spicy, greasy and savoury as can be; Indonesia’s traditional food ranging wide throughout the archipelago, and it’s charming. Indulge your journey experience with Nasi Padang’s playful combinations of spices in West Sumatra, or maybe a Sulawesi tender grilled fish (yes, you may pick your own fish in Sulawesi’s floating market) in a hot soy gravy. Now, pay close attention on what you’re eating and how they’re made: somehow, you could learn a lot about the rich culture from foods they are serving.

Inexpensive Indulgence

Indonesia provides a thrifty way to spend money on your travel. Cheap city hostels in Jakarta or Lombok village homestays? Check. Budget-friendly food feast in a great portion and a nice domestic beer in Bali? Check. Low-cost transportation from Bandung to Surabaya? Check! Be sure, of course, you have double-checked what all those budgeting options could really offer you from a trustworthy reference.

But then again, this third-world country still has some unpreparedness in welcoming foreign travelers to its cities. Here are things you may have to prepare yourself just in case:

Complicated Administrations

The immigration sections in the airport could be the first thing you can learn about adminitrations in Indonesia. But that is not the only problematical encounter: ticketings in tourist places, tourism informations, emergency calls and their operations, and don’t forget the dealings with police if you’re out of luck: they tend to over-complicate things. Learn yourself some basic Bahasa Indonesia just in case you bump into those mumbo-jumbo.

The Not-Really-There Tippings

How are we notorious, mostly even to ourselves, with under the table transaction cultures spreading viral in every general service you may find the need, here in Indonesia. You will surely have to allocate some of your budget in small changes of Rupiahs for those, say, charges over car-parking (which could literally be anywhere you’ll find it somehow laughable), the seemingly sincere young men helping you out with your dead rented car, or any other false generosity. You can always politely decline their helps, but then again— it’s a confusing hospitality.

Living in The Sprawl

As the most populous island in the world, you may find it hard to establish silence and peaceful mind in Java. Say, Jakarta, with its traffic trouble every single day. People here may have their own way in facing their demon everyday in the streets, but this bedlam could be rather depressing if you’re new to it. Malls and tourist places are as crowded as the city slums, people jumble themselves up in commuters and public buses—prepare yourself well.

Photos: Bali, June-August '11

saktinuzan — Sat, 3 Sep 2011 03:39:00 GMT

What I have so far captured within my stay(s) in the land of God

My Travel Writing Scholarship 2011 entry - My Big Adventure

saktinuzan — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 03:48:00 GMT

The surrounding air has just got thickened to moist. I tiptoed over hundred steps of weathered stairs, drowned in a pandemonium of lush, moss-glittered tree limbs. Eerily crying grey macaques loomed all over the verdant bushes only several inches above my head, awkwardly provoking tourists to stare back at their ferocious eyes. Thundering river carried over future moving beings from the mad distant waterfalls, while anonymously signed and doodled boulders tried to resist it for the sake of the land— in an almost effortless way.

It was all these fathomless noises here that got the length of my spine embraced into feelings of, somehow, longing: as if one forgotten hymn was being subtly sung by some homesick troops, lost forever in marches and wars.

A swarm of local residents halted our van somewhere in Mataram outskirts; mostly females, uniformed in a white threadbare Javanese kebaya with almost cheap, sheeny red lips. They were parading for this one soon-to-be husband and wife placed in each contrary tip, separated by the long haul of celebrating human lines. It was an enchanting spectacle, however; as intrepid little boys banged the moving van’s window for coins while rainbow-laced umbrellas served as vessels for the Gods’ blessings danced all over the cavalcade.

Soon after, prudent and liberating devotion genuinely occupied the air. I jealously believe everyone here would eventually teach themselves to meditation: through the boisterous beats of gendang belek, a human-sized customary leather drum, overlapped with the flamboyant dangdut rhymes; and the deafening cheer upon the wedding procession all the way from one village to another (the whole wedding worth four hours-long walk through highways and hills) they were seemed enigmatically at peace. It was almost like a consecrated pilgrimage: even in the most self-dissolving bedlam, they could still hear themselves chanting their way to the deities.

“I walk four kilometers from home,” one aged yet vigorous woman shouted, as she rested two bridges away from the Tiu Kelep Falls in Northern Lombok. She was all-drenched by the humid atmospheres. Her grandbaby nestled around her back while she was counting various medicinal plantation gathered for the market. She supposed to be seemed delicately weak at her seventy-ninth year, but this sincere architect of her own joy enthusiastically mumbled over just everything. “I shook President Soeharto’s hand once, in Surabaya,” she ambiguously stated.

A rock hollowed out by years of constant stream guarded the Tiu Kelep. It earned its name right: roughly translated to a ‘floating pool’, this 30-meters terraced plunge falls alluringly foamed the riverbed and caused the perpetual drizzle all over the air.

I stopped breathing for a minute— it was like this huge sum of longing I previously burdened myself got washed away. This very shrill sound of thunder finally got me listening to my own self; tranced me after all my contemplations. This solemn island had simply captured life in its accepting phase, along with lessons on celebrating every given thing. And so, I sat down and applauded myself.