The land that tourism forgot

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Indonesia (April 23rd - May 18th 2009)

Bases: Java - Jakarta, Jogja
Sumatra - Padang, Bukittinggi, Maninjau, Tuk Tuk, Medan, Bukit Lawang

Main sights: Java - National Museum, National Monument, Kota, Kraton, Water Castle, Borobodur, Kaliurang, Prambanan
Sumatra - Fort de Kock, Panorama Park, Japanese caves, Clock Tower, Gunung Merapi (Fire Mountain), Rafflesia Sanctuary, Lake Maninjau, Lake Toba, Bohorok Orangutan Viewing Centre, Grand Mosque, Maimoon Palace

Top 3 experiences:

1) Seeing the sun set over Lake Maninjau
2) Dancing in Jakarta
3) Watching orangutans swing by for breakfast in Bukit Lawang

Daily budget (travel, food and accommodation): USD $15 = 9 pounds

My rating: 8.5/10

Overview:

One of the most striking things about Indonesia is the lack of Western tourists. This comes as something of a shock when emerging from the well-trodden backpacker trails of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. And it's not just the back-and-beyond places that make you feel like a novelty, it's the supposedly touristy places like Jogja and Lake Toba too. No matter where you go, Indonesians are forever saying hello, cornering you to practise English and secretly wondering why you're not in Bali.

Bali, it seems, is the alpha and the omega of tourism in Indonesia.

Determined to buck the trend (and find a decent night's sleep into the bargain) we decided to bypass party island altogether and concentrate on Sumatra. First up though was a taster of Java, by far the most densely populated island and home to the capital city.

Now Jakarta is the first major Asian city since Beijing where locals take photos of you just because of the colour of your skin. But whereas in Beijing it happened once or twice, it's a constant here in a country where white skin is so unusal.

It's hard to know precisely how many photos you'll feature in when you visit. Sure, the bolder Indonesians will approach you directly to suggest a photoshoot before organising their family and friends around the 'bule' (foreigners). But many many more Indonesians will fire off a sly photo while your back is turned. Sometimes you'll even catch them training a zoom lense on you, an instant before they turn away sheepishly or concentrate a little too intensely on the pavement beneath their feet.

To be white in Jakarta is to know what it's like to be a celebrity.

If you can adjust to the paparazzi (not just in Jakarta but everywhere in Indonesia), you'll start to wonder why there are so few Western tourists here.

Is it that the country has noticeably more basic accomodation and transport options than mainland south-east Asia? Is it that this fledgling democracy is still getting back on its feet after a brutal 32-year dictatorship ended 10 short years ago? Or is it that Westerners aren't keen on visting a Muslim country where horrific acts of terrorism still linger in recent memory?

Perhaps it's a little of all the above. Or perhaps it's as simple as the fact that few people really know how amazing Indonesia is.

Whatever the reason, there's no doubting one thing - Indonesia is the country that tourism forgot.

Lake Maninjau:

Possibly the perfect illustration of the lack of tourists can be found in western Sumatra. Maninjau is a small town sitting right on the banks of a 136 sq km lake, which was formed by the explosion of a huge ancient volcano.

The volcano may be dormant today but it's left behind some astonishing scenery.

To reach this self-contained little world, you must make your way down a 600m high crater via a series of hairpin bends. 44 of them in fact. This snaking road is a spectacular introduction to the area, winding as it does all the way down to the banks of the lake.

Once in Maninjau, you quickly realise there''s nothing to do here. The village literally takes an hour to explore. The warm placid waters are good for swimming (although they drop with incredible swiftness to a depth of 500m so don't stray too far!). And the beachfront guesthouses are a nice place to sit and read.

For most places, such a lack of activities would be a serious drawback but here it's a blessing in disguise.

For starters, you can't help but be infected by the laid-back atmosphere. Like most guesthouses in Sumatra, those in Maninjau are run more as a gathering place fo the managers' mates than as somewhere for tourists to stay. Every evening, these mates gather in the onsite restaurant, strumming guitars and singing mellow songs till bedtime, utterly oblivious to the outside world and any concept of making money.

The only interruption comes when a resident orders food, at which point one of the ensemble reluctantly detaches from the rest to fetch the ingredients from town while another ambles into the kitchen to rustle up some grub. Fast food, this is not. But it tastes good and the feeling that you've found the edge of the world makes it all the sweeter.

And then there are the sunsets. It's no exaggeration to say that the sunsets in Maninjau are the most beautiful I've ever seen. Frankly, I can't think of anywhere else that comes close.

Lying on the eastern bank of the crater lake, Maninjau is perfectly placed to take advantage of a spectacular natural light show each evening. As the sun goes down, its rays catch the surrounding clouds and bathe them in soft pink, a colour then reflected and deepened by the shimmering lake below. Soon the sky begins to darken, and so too does the water, which races through a million subtle shades of purple and blue. Finally, after the sun dips below the crater rim, it lights up a gap between the mountains that seems custom-made for the purpose and creates a brilliant yellow glow on the horizon, as vivid and unexpected as a fresh blast of lava.

Truly unforgettable.

Jakarta:

Jakarta doesn't have much to offer tourists. Polluted, sprawling, unbelievably congested (and I thought Manchester needed a congestion charge...), it's also remarkably free of sights for a capital city. There's a national monument, which was part closed when we showed up. There's a colonial-era square, which has recently been deprived of the famous cannon that pulled in the crowds. And there's a national museum, which by way of apology for being so fascinating randomly decided to close half its exhibits and replace them with a shopping mall.

It's fair to say that, from a tourist point of view, you can pretty much skip Jakarta.

Thankfully, however, we weren't in town for the sights but because of a last-minute decision to celebrate a friend's birthday. As such, for a few days at least, we got to live like an expat in this most untouristy of places.

With the benefit of local knowledge, we got a crash course in all things Indonesian, starting with the food. Java has the most varied cuisine in Indonesia and one of the most diverse in all south-east Asia. It draws together influences from all the islands as well as India, China and Indochina thanks to its prime position on the shipping routes. So you get curries (jackfruit, pumpkin and goat, as well as the old favourites), Oriental noodles and barbequed meats.

Everything comes with a bewildering number of spices too. These were once known as the Spice Islands, after all. Some are hot-spicy (anything from Sumatra, as a rule) and some are tasty-spicy (such as Barack Obama's favourite, Chicken Rendang). But it's all delicious.

Secondly, the lifestyle. If you want to see what Jakartans aspire to, you could do worse than head to the nearest mall. Don't worry about finding one, they're absolutely everywhere. Now I've already made clear my thoughts on Asia's shopping mall culture, but suffice to say it's every bit as developed in Jakarta.

The mall's security measures are something else as well. Armed guards routinely check the boot of your taxi for explosives, then you must surrender your bags and your person to x-ray machines. Security in your average Indonesian shopping mall is tighter than Manchester Airport. It's a reminder, if any were needed, that Jakarta is a big target for terrorists.

Once inside, you're struck by how Western everything is from the layout to the shops to the brands. Topshop, Rolex, KFC, McDonalds. And those shopping or eating inside wholeheartedly aspire to our lifestyle, more so in fact than most of us.

Perhaps this comes out clearest in the nightlife. As far as I can work out, there's a more or less rigid hierarchy to pulling in the clubs of Jakarta. Top priority is to find a person with white skin, it doesn't particularly matter how old (witness the buzz of people round the 40-something white guys). The next priority, related to the first, is a person with money - Western designer brands are a must, even to the extent of wearing Calvin Klein shoes and socks in the blistering tropical heat. And the last priority, maybe, is whether you like the look of the person.

It's a strange environment to be sure. Not a million miles away from a Western club, except here it just feels so much more blatant.

Finally, there's the football. Hundreds of Indonesians play every night in Independence Square, under the shadow of south-east Asia's largest mosque. And football really is a religion here, with millions tuning in to watch the English Premier League or Spanish Primera Liga. Even the Champions League has a devoted following despite the fact games kick off in the wee small hours of the morning.

There's no shortage of fake Barca shirts around town, or Chelsea, or Liverpool, but the undisputed king of these parts is ManU. As an adopted Mancunian, I can say with absolute certainty that there are far far more rabid ManU fans in Jakarta than in Manchester. They even have one thing Manchester city centre doesn't, the Manchester United Cafe. And, much to my disgust as a loyal Liverpool supporter, it's always rammed.

Bukit Lawang:

According to Friends of the Earth, the wild orangutan could become extinct in little over a decade. Asia's only great ape is currently clinging on to 4 areas worldwide - 3 in Borneo and 1 in Gunung Leuser National Park, Sumatra.

Bukit Lawang sits right on the edge of Gunung Leuser and is home to the famous Bohorok Orangutan Viewing Centre. Note the wording - today, it's a viewing centre whereas up until a few years ago it was a rehabilitation centre. In other words, the emphasis has shifted from the orangutans to the tourists. Sadly, it shows.

When you arrive in Bukit Lawang, you're barraged with information about protecting the orangutans' welfare. You learn from notice boards that you shouldn't approach within 10 metres of an orangutan because common human respiratory diseases can be deadly to great apes.

The viewing centre staff reinforce this message. Yet hypocritically, they don't bother putting food and drink on the purpose-built feeding platform - instead they pass the orangutans bananas by hand and encourage tourists to take close-up photos.Staff say rehabilitation is still their goal, that they hope the orangutans will one day return permanently to the surrounding jungle to forage for themselves. Yet it's hard to be too optimistic when the orangutans are being given milk in tourist-pleasing cutesy plastic cups.

When questionned, the staff shrug their shoulders and mumble vaguely about government interference. And it's clear that the government is busy transforming the place from a wildlife sanctuary into a fully-fledged tourist attraction, complete with entrance fees to match (curiously, it costs 2.5 times more for a camera to enter the viewing centre than for the person carrying it). But a few basic steps from the rangers could radically improve the eco credentials of the site.

Rant aside, feeding time at Bohorok is an incredible experience. You hear the orangutans long before you see them, your anticipation levels building as you listen to them crashing through the surrounding jungle. Then you watch the trees bending and shaking under the weight of the world's largest tree mammals. Finally, the great apes themselves make an appearance, a shock of orange fur in the distance giving way to an amazingly human-like creature swinging towards you through the trees.

Whatever the faults of the viewing centre, those first few moments with an orangutan still make it well worth visiting.

Random facts:

Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country with 200 million followers - 88%!o(MISSING)f the population

6 football fields of Indonesian rainforest are cut down every minute

Indonesia has more volcanoes than any other country - Sumatra alone has 35 active volcanoes and the supervolcano Toba, which nearly wiped out all life on earth 75,000 years ago

Impressions:

The islands of Indonesia sprawl over 5,000km of ocean. To put it into perspective, that's about the same distance end-to-end as the whole of Europe. Indonesia is less a country than a continent in its own right, and what's more this continent is every bit as diverse as our own. The skyscrapers of Jakarta have nothing in common with the shared tribal longhouses of Borneo. The Asian primates in Sumatra are nothing like the Australian marsupials in Papua. And the hardline Islam in Aceh (where shariah law is enforced) has nothing in common with the Hinduism of Bali and the Christianity of West Timor.

With that in mind, it's very hard to generalise about Indonesia.

This is after all a country that still doesn't know exactly how many islands it possesses. There are something like 18,000 islands here - depending on who's counting - 5,000 of which remain unnamed. So many, in fact, the government is considering renting out some of them to countries made homeless by rising sea levels. An astonishing idea, but it makes perfect sense for a country with this much land.

We only explored the westernmost parts of Indonesia, Java and Sumatra, and even then we saw only a fraction of what each island has to offer. Nevertheless they are the most heavily populated parts of the archipelago, so as good a place as any to consider what makes Indonesia tick.

It comes as something of a relief to visit Indonesia after several months in Indochina. There's a radically different feel here in all aspects of life, not least in terms of the attitude towards art.

Whereas the Indochinese largely view art as a propoganda tool or as something to entertain tourists, in Indonesia it's a central part of everyday life. Music is everywhere, with a variety of genres playing in cafes and on car radios, and seemingly no school class complete without half a dozen guitar-toting kids. Traditional performing arts are alive and well with shadow puppetry, theatre and ballet all popular with the locals. And the handicraft scene is thriving with jewellery, batik and one-of-a-kind wood carvings commonplace

Another boon for the flagging backpacker comes from the buildings. By no means am I an architecture buff (frankly, I know bugger all), but the beautiful mosques and outrageously curved roofs are a welcome change after months of traipsing round Buddhist pagodas and Chinese temples in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.

Finally, there's the food. Ah yes, the food. Grub of the highest calibre can be found across Indonesia, with each island boasting its own dishes and its own characteristic flavours. In West Java they love their vegetables, in central Java they have unbelievably sweet tooths and in Sumatra they go wild for hot-spicy satays. Forget the endless rice dishes of Indochina, this is local food you can't wait to eat.

But perhaps my strongest impression of Indonesia is that it's a country of outstanding natural beauty. On Java, the celebrated temples of Borobodur and Prambanan are nothing compared to Fire Mountain in the background. Sumatra also has more than its fair share of awesome volcanoes, as well as some truly stunning crater lakes. On top of that, there's an abundance of wildlife and you can even see the world's largest flower - the metre-wide rafflesia arnoldi.

These are just on Java and Sumatra, remember, there's still another 17,998 islands (give or take a few dozen). Probably no-one has ever seen all this country has to offer, certainly no tourist on a 30-day visa.

Indonesia, a country whose breathtaking size is matched only by its breathtaking beauty.

Next stop: Malaysia

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