It is not without a little sadness that we sip our last kaffir lime mojito in Bali (for this year, at least !). I'm extremely fond of this little island and its quirky contradictions: brash nightclubs and peaceful, incence-filled temples, surf beaches and dazzling rice terraces, unfinished concrete monstrosities and carved palaces. And it's the only place you can get a frozen lychee martini for next to nothing (and no, we haven't turned into winos - yet). We have a late evening flight from Denpasar airport to Sydney, where we have planned to connect straight away with a Melbourne-bound dome [View Full Entry]

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Our boat back to Ambon is "only" two hours late in leaving port, which can be considered "early" by PELNI standards. During our short stay in the Spice Islands, the Bukit Siguntang has been all the way to Sorong in West Papua (formerly known as Irian Jaya) and back. No surprises as to the reason behind the delay - have a guess...it begins with a "K" and ends with "ARGO". I'm not quite sure what's being transported (not nutmeg) from a place like this to the bright lights of Ambon, but there sure is a lot of it...And since the boat [View Full Entry]

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Not all that much happens on the Banda Islands. The days of crazy foreigners falling over themselves to set foot on the islands - all for a little brown nut - are long gone. The Bandas are a forgotten backwater if ever there was one. Not surprisingly therefore, the docking of a ship as large as the Bukit Siguntang at a port as tiny as Neira Island's is an event. A big event. Arriving in the Banda Islands aboard a PELNI liner is quite a surreal experience. As the islands come closer into view, the ferry suddenly seems disproportionately large. Surely [View Full Entry]

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Eyes still heavy with sleep, I extract myself from my little niche to have a look around. No sooner has my head risen above the edge of the parapet that a terrifically strong wind threatens to blow me off the ferry ! It must be about 6am, and our destination is in sight, dead ahead. A place I have dreamt of visiting for years - the Banda Islands. The Bandas are a small cluster of islands about 200 kilometres south east of Ambon, comprising six inhabited and four uninhabited islands spread out over 50 kilometres in the deep Banda Sea. Centrepiece [View Full Entry]

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“Fly is cheap”. That’s the confidence-inspiring slogan printed on the front of our Lion Air tickets. Still, here’s hoping the money they save on corporate image goes towards decent aircraft maintenance. Lion is one of a vast number of recent start-ups in the Indonesian regional airline business. With these airlines, whether your flight departs or not is a matter of luck. Whether your flight arrives or not is, I fervently hope, somewhat less dependent on luck. Having said that, Lion operate a useful direct flight from Surabaya to Ambon, our next destination. Am [View Full Entry]

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The next morning a small van - called a travel in this part of Indonesia (the range of names for these little vans is extraordinary - angkot, colt, bemo, pete-pete) - awaits us just outside the homestay for a nine-hour drive eastwards to the very Javanese-sounding (as you should now recognise) town of Probolinggo. Driving parallel to Java's fiery spine, we pass numerous volcanic peaks. Actually, we are heading for one of Java's most famous volcanos: Gunung Bromo. The drive takes us through a mish-mash of rice fields and sprawling industrial towns, all to the tune of Java's ubiqui [View Full Entry]

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A legacy of the Dutch administration, a train carries us from Yogyakarta to the neibouring town of Solo, a little further east. Together with Yogya, Solo (officially known as Surakarta although nobody uses that name) is one of Java's "royal cities". Indeed, for centuries this part of the world has been ruled by small kingdoms that have come and gone. Mataram, Sriwijaya, Majapahit, Mataram Islam...empires that flourished for a time before disappearing into nothingness. By the time the Dutch turned up on Java around the 18th Century, the Mataram Islam kingdom governed most of Java. As ever in th [View Full Entry]

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Java, Java, Java...The name alone never fails to conjure dozens of images in my head. Images of rumbling volcanoes, tumbling rice paddies, crumbling temples. Images of coffee plantations shrouded in mist. Of graceful dancers, shadow-puppets and mythological epics. It conjures the sound of the gamelan wafting through the Sultan's palace. Modern Java offers all of these things, of course. But that is only half the story. This long, thin island, only two-thirds of the size of Great Britain with over twice its population, is at the heart of 21st-century Indonesia, its seat of government and [View Full Entry]

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Hopping back to the city of Miri from Gunung Mulu National Park, we have another free day before we are due to continue our journey towards Indonesia via Singapore. We decided to venture out to the Niah Caves National Park, a couple of hours west of Miri on the Sarawakian coast. This park contains (yet another !) cave, this one decorated in part with numerous examples of prehistoric art - sounded like a very worthwhile day out. Getting to Niah without your own car, even from as near as Miri, is not a piece of cake. Everything in Borneo runs to [View Full Entry]

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After our exploration of Borneo's underwater offerings, time to see what lies above the surface ! As if Sabah didn't sound exotic and mysterious enough, our next destination is Sarawak, which to my mind conjures up vivid images of tribal villages deep in the jungle, accessible only by longboats along steamy, brown rivers. How close to this is reality going to be ? We leave the marine delights of Sipadan behind, flying from Tawau to the Sarawakian city of Miri, with a short stop-over in Sabah's capital city, Kota Kinabalu (we decided not to climb Mount Kinabalu - too eas [View Full Entry]

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