The Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park : Getting the Best of Bromo for Free!
We have all seen it, the iconic image of a sunrise filtering through a vast cloud filled caldera with Mount...
Travel
So Sabah
There’s a long weekend coming up in October and you’re trying frantically to book a villa in Bali but it...
Trail-Biking in the Foothills of West Java
If you’ve ever dreamt of riding through the hills and rice terraces of West Java on a trail bike, dream...
An Old Suburb and an Invasion
Tugu means memorial and memorial is an apt name for this old suburb up in North East Jakarta by the...
The Truth Behind ?Oktoberfest?
The first Oktoberfest took place in October 1810 to celebrate Crown Prince Ludwig’s wedding to Princess Therese von Sachsen Hildburghausen....
Marriage Curstoms-Balinese Elopement
I was browsing my Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch Indië, not looking for anything specific as I was curious who or what...
Pemuteran: A Road Runs Through It
As we head clear of Candi Kuning the traffic noticeably thins. We wind our way higher up into the mountains,...
A Dive Paradise in Sulawesi
Prince John Dive Resort isn’t in Palu. It’s about an hour up the road, in a tiny place called Donggala....
Amed and Tulamben: Bali’s beautiful north east coast
Bali’s tourism industry is currently enjoying a strong resurgence as large numbers of foreign tourists are once again visiting Indonesia’s...
Wali Songo
The Wali Songo are revered throughout Indonesia as the wise men who brought Islam initially to Java but ultimately...
In Search of the Blue Lagoon
South of Malang in Eastern Java an uninhabited island contains deep within its dense jungles a salt-water lagoon framed from...
The Path to Perfection through Action
I hug trees. Some trees hug me back. Learning about the sculptures around the place I live and work from...
West Java’ Beauty at Bay
The sun is shining, the weekend lies ahead. What better way to spend the free time than unwinding far from...
The Importance of Being Charming
My home village of Batur may be more spectacularly beautiful, but Ubud is where tourists choose to linger for longer....
Mads Johansen Lange: A Danish Adventurer Nicknamed ?King of Bali?
Most people know Kuta as a hedonistic beach resort where anything goes. It’s a Phuket-on-Bintang, just about the only place...
Four Faces Needed to Face Bali’s Brave New World
On July’s windy days, the skies of Denpasar fill up with kites. These grand birds and fish dance and glide...
Climbing Mt. Merapi: No Jumping Pictures, Please
What makes a great Monday morning? Sleeping in? Not wearing any clothes until lunch? How about summiting one of the...
The Comfort Woman
As job titles go it is difficult to think of any more crass, more cynical than ‘comfort woman’. To the...
Get on the Bus
My Pembantu, Mami, who has worked for me for eight years mentioned after my asking how her weekend was that...
It’s Karimunjawa, Dan, not Kilimanjaro!
Kilimanjaro, Kalimantan, Karimunjawa, Kilimantanjawa? For a foreigner, it’s fairly easy to find yourself mixing and twisting these rather similar names...
JAKARTA – from Health Hazard to Traffic Jams
Batavia, as Jakarta was called during the colonial days, was once styled the “Queen of the East”. This label was...