My whole professional life has been spent writing about Indonesia. I've written three guidebooks to the country and for seven years I led soft adventure tours all over the archipelago. I had stumbled upon this vast string of islands in my hippie vagabond days in the early 1970s. Indonesia was simply the next country on my journey around the world, so I spent six months traveling through it. So enamored was I of the place that I overstayed my “landing pass” and got kicked out on my first visit in 1973.
From the very beginning of my travels in this extraordinary country, people have always asked me what is my favorite Indonesian island. For me, this has always been such a maddeningly complicated question to answer. Favorite for
what? For awesome natural beauty, Sulawesi. For wildlife, Sumatra. For the performing arts and religious pageantry, Bali. For intact tribal life, Papua. For historical and archaeological remains, Java. For pure adventure, the Southeastern Islands of Nusatenggara.
Where do I even begin to describe what Indonesia has to offer? How do I start to tell of the multitudinous destinations of a country that sits astride two oceans and stretches 5,200 kilometers, embracing a total area of five million square kilometers, more than the total land and sea area of the whole United States? It would take several lifetimes to even scratch the surface of the richness of the Indonesian archipelago.
A good place to start, perhaps, would be to go back to a time when its rich biodiversity was first truly recognized - tracing Alfred Russell Wallace’s epic forays in his classic book The Malay Archipelago through eastern Indonesia over 150 years ago. No wonder the great naturalist conjured up
such epoch-making visions that led to the discovery simultaneously with Darwin of the Theory of Evolution.
Within the archipelago’s land and sea territory are 17% of the world’s bird species, 16% of its amphibians and reptiles, 12% of its mammals, and 10% of its flora - all of which are found in landforms encompassing mind stupefying extremes: 5,000 meter high snow-capped mountains of New Guinea, sweltering lowland swamps of eastern Sumatra, open eucalyptus savannas of Nusatenggara, and lush rainforests of western Java with lava spewing volcanos running the entire length.
And living from island to island are such a rare and wonderful mosaic of peoples - races that date back to the Java Man to the very dawn of history. Indonesia is in fact an ethnological goldmine the variety of its human geography (336 ethnic groups) without parallel. These thousands of islands encapsulate all the Asian cultures, races and religions; they worship Allah, Buddha, Shiva, and the Christian God and speak over 250 distinct languages. The country is in fact a subtle blend of every culture that ever washed up upon its shores: Chinese, Indian, Melanesian, Polynesian, Portuguese, Arabian, English, Dutch, even American.
This archipelago is, to put it simply, the most complex single nation on earth; 992 inhabited islands with customs, native dress, architecture, dialects, tribes and geography all its own. Its wayang puppets, unearthly gamelan music, timeless performing arts, exquisite textiles, matchless and varied cuisines, wildlife and nature reserves, historical sites and ancient ruins such as the world’s largest stupa, Borobudur which is to Buddhism what the Sistine Chapel is to Christianity and what Angkor Wat is to Hinduism.
The world’s fourth most populous country is, unequivocally, one of Asia’s last great travel adventures. For decades, millions of tourists have attested to the country’s highly developed tourism infrastructure as well as its vast inter-island air, ferry, road and rail networks. The resorts and hotels of Indonesia are rated amongst the world’s finest, sited in locations that have relegated the word “exotic” to its cliché standing.
Wherever your travels take you - whether it is crewing on a Buginese schooner or luxuriating on a private yacht traversing this island nation will open endless possibilities. Volumes have been written about the archipelago’s peerless watersport activities - the unending drop-offs of the Banda Islands in the Moluccas, the stupendous reef walls of the Bunaken sea gardens in northern Sulawesi, and the unusual pelagic creatures of Maumere in Flores all have been rated amongst the best top dive spots anywhere.
Intrepid surfers regard Indonesia as a premier destination with a multitude of uncrowded breaks year round. Too extreme? The country has quietly and increasingly become one of most renowned spa and rejuvenation centers in the world, employing new age techniques which have been built upon its own age old traditional healing arts.
Whether your travel interests be lazing on a serene Lombok beach, hiking a North Sumatran volcanic reserve, immersing yourself in a thousand years of ruins, fossicking in the antique markets of Yogyakarta, dining in the vibrant capital of Jakarta, or nightclubbing in Bali’s Seminyak Beach it’s all here in the greatest archipelago on earth.
Selamat jalan!
E-mail : pakbill2003@yahoo.com
Copyright@2005 PakBill
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