Kick the Air - Candi Sambisari, Central Java
Best
The Hospitality
Indonesians are best at their hospitality. We love smiling
to other people, our guests or even strangers. One of wisdom sentence in
Indonesia is “banyak tamu, banyak rezeki.” It means, “more guests, more fortune.”
That’s why Indonesians are very happy when we have guest in our home. We serve
our guests very well. And if you visit to a Indonesian home, the host will
serve you, at least give you drinking water. :D
Island Hoping!
I am very proud to say that Indonesia is biggest archipelago
in earth. We have 17508 islands, double than what Philippines has and triple
than what Japan has. With assumption one day one island, you need more that 40
years to step in all island in Indonesia. Anyway, there are small archipelagos
in Indonesia such as Karimun Jawa, Kepulauan Seribu, or Tojo Una-Una. For
example Karimun Jawa have 27 islands, you can spend days by hoping island to
island with boat. Can you do it in Hungary, Bolivia, or Kazakhstan? No. :P
Cultural Experiences
Consists of more than 17000 islands, with 230 million of
populations, we have diversity of culture than another country does. In
Indonesia there are more than 700 languages and tribes. And I only speak with
two of them, Indonesian and Javanese. Bali is known for the dances, like Kecak,
Pendet, and another art things. But if you cross to Java, you won’t find them.
The Javanese dances are different from Balinese. The funny thing is if we find
homonym word between two languages. We say ‘fried chicken’ in Indonesian with
‘ayam goreng’, but in Sundanese ‘goreng’ means ‘ugly’, so it will be ‘ugly
chicken’ in West Java!
Worst
Bad Infrastructure, Corruption, and Rubber Watch!
Yeah, I don’t like to tell bad things so these three worsts
of Indonesia I’ll make it to be one :P Someone said, “If you can do travel in
Indonesia easily, you can travel in other country very very easy!” What does
she mean? I’ll tell you with my story.
I was in holiday in Karimun Jawa last June. In 29th
June, I was scheduled to back to Java. At 4am, my guesthouse friend told me
that the ferry ship was almost full! The ferry actually scheduled to leave
Karimun at 8am. So, my cousin, which was my travel partner, and I packed our
things in a rush and got to ship in 4.30am. He was right, the ship was full so
I couldn’t find any empty seat. We found empty seat but tagged with black
mattress. I asked to other passengers and what they could said, “Those seats
had been tagged with someone.” Yeahhh, the someone bribed the ship crews so
they could get those seats. At 6am, there was a chaos about ticketing and the
crew commanded us to get off ship. And all the passengers didn’t want to. All I
was afraid about was if I couldn’t get on the ship and back to Java next 3
days. The ferry schedule is once every three days. Blablabla, the ferry left at
11am, 3 hours late than the schedule. And it called ‘jam karet’ – ‘rubber
watch’, if there is late in the schedule. And yeah, we got in the ferry also by
bribing the crew. I know that was illegal, but… ah… it’s very confusing. :P
So, she means that transportation infrastructure in
Indonesia is not good. So if you can conquer by traveling in Indonesia, you can
do travel VERY EASY in other country, since they maybe have good
infrastructure, no bribing, and all timely scheduled.
