The rest of Indonesia

I thought I would be conscientious and finish my spiel about Indonesia. Unfortunately I can’t put up any of my own photos as my SD card has a virus on it or something… anyway I am sending it back home for my brother to fix. But I will download some for your viewing pleasure.

Java was our last island. We didn’t end up going to Sumatra as we simply ran out of visa time. I think anyone wanting to come here either needs to fly around (lots of people do as airfares are cheap) or come for 2 months as the barest minimum.

Java….
- Is by far the wealthiest and most developed island in the archipelago. Mercifully we were able to get off the buses and onto trains!
- Is mostly devoid of jungle, which has been cut down to make way for huge coffee and tea plantations and has lots and lots of people
- Practices a very mild form of Islam. Some women wear a headscarf, but not the majority from what I can see. No one actually seems to pray at prayer time. Everyone is busy trying to make money instead

The main sites in Java are the volcano of Gunung Bromo and the Buddhist temple of Borobudur.

Gunung Bromo is cool, but has been developed in the most hideous way. The standard thing to do is take a jeep up to the top at sunrise. So you think: “excellent, it will be nice, just me and the sun and a few other tourists marvelling at the power and magnificence of nature”. Wrong! After you park down the road from literally 50 or so other jeeps, you then brave your way through an avenue of tourists shops anxious to rent you a beanie, mitts, rain jackets etc (if it’s not stinking hot the Indonesians tend to think it’s freezing, in fact it’s milder than most mornings in Melbourne winter). Then you get to the viewing platform, which turns out to be an amphitheatre full of hundreds of people milling about, waiting for the sun and trying to avoid hawkers. This is the view we are meant to have seen:



However what we saw was more obscured by mist & cloud than that. It’s still an impressive sight, but I just wish it didn’t have to be such a corny tourist experience.

We were more lucky with Borobudur as we went on a weekday and although there were other people there, you weren’t tripping over them. Very impressive temple:



Unless you have a wide-lens camera you can’t actually take a photo like this, which encompasses the entire temple. It’s huge!

Jakarta was a shithole. Don’t go there.