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Initially we were quite daunted by the prospect of Indonesia – India had been such a trial for us we weren’t looking forward to another third world country. We were horrified to hear that as many as 90% of Indonesians carry some form of parasite – in fact our guidebook advised “Never, ever, under any circumstances, to drink the tap water, even in cities, or to even use it to brush your teeth“, and “not to shower bare-foot“.
However, despite a few annoyances such as the heavy smoking (by almost every man on the street!) and hassle from touts in the tourist areas, we need not have feared. People were friendly, accommodation was fairly clean and adequate, and food was nice and cheap, very similar to Malaysian fare. We were warned about some of the weirder delicacies such as fruitbat, snake, and rat, so in most places we stuck to good old favourites of sate ayam (chicken on sticks with spicy peanut sauce), nasi goreng (fried rice) and mie goreng (fried noodles). The coffee (kopi susu) was heavenly – even in the most run-down establishments – not really that surprising considering Indonesia produces some of the best coffee in the world. The Indonesians have a very sweet tooth, liking their pastries and their coffees sickly-sweet – a left-over from the Dutch colonial rule.
It seemed to us that every Indonesian seems to have a creative streak – from buskers who file on to the buses strumming their guitars to the arts and crafts that are on sale in the most unlikely of places (e.g. in the middle of an off-the-beaten track rice field!!). Amongst the most famous are Indonesian batik paintings (painting one colour at a time using wax to block off areas of the canvas already painted – as many as 10 layers of painting is required depending on the complexity of colours and designs), puppets made out of leather (for shadow puppet-shows) or wood, fine silver filigree works, extremely detailed wood and stone carvings, ceremonial masks, and all manner of other hand-made products.
Indonesia is still suffering from the effects of the ’98 Southeast Asian financial crash, and resorts such as Bali from recent terrorist bombings. There has been a huge level of change in politics recently – the country has made great strides towards democracy but things are still unsettled, and there is a long way to go.
