Indonesia, part 1 – Java – Adventures of Nisha

Java sounds so exotic, and it is! Java is part of the Republic of Indonesia which is made up of approx 17,000 islands and Java is home to almost half of the population. I have always wanted to visit and loved the sound of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi, but I was ignorant to the fact that Papua and Borneo also was a part of the country.

Both Hinduism and Buddhism are a part of the religious make up of the country, but the most prevalent religion now is Islam. Dutch colonisation arrived in the 1600’s and remained until around 1949 and so much of the Dutch influence is still visible.

I arrived into Jakarta as I wanted to see as much of the country that I could. I arrived early on the Saturday morning and I took the train into the central station where I read that it would be easy to get a taxi to the hotel – wrong!! It was around 10am when I got into the city station and I walked around for about 20 minutes until I got slightly frustrated (after a 20 hour journey) and I asked some police men, in sign language and the word taxi, for help. They were actually great and tried to help but it didn’t work until they asked some people who were stood by the entrance to the station who spoke english. They were wonderfully helpful and one of them booked me a cab with her ‘Grab’ app (like Uber) and waited until the cab came. Turns out that she was from a local tv station and along with her camera person, were asking commuters about how they travel and the rishe of using ‘Grab’! They were my saviours and I really appreciated their help, so much so, that I took a picture!!

To be honest, I dont have any other pictures from Jakarta. I couldn’t check in to my hotel so I left my bags there and took the free tourist bus around the city. Local residents can use the bus so I was ‘treated’ (;-)) to families who gave their kids hand held consoles with loud games and songs with the whole pling sound! I think I probably had a hard time as I was tired and just wanted to shower, but I sat on the tourist bus for around 3 hours with gritted teeth until I could get into my room!

The next day, Sunday, I took a flight to Yogyakarta pronounced Jyogjakarta, to join the Explore group.

Yogyakarta is a self contained region, separate from the region of Central Java, ruled by the Sultan, who is also the Governor and a member of the Indonesian government. The Sultanate remained in place through the Dutch colonisation and the Japanese invasion and was a great supporter of Indonesian Independance. It became the capital from 1946 -1948 when Jakarta fell to the Dutch and as a result, has some lovely architecture, wide roads with white entrance gateways into areas and villages. It had a calm feel to it, even with the traffic!

Rajiv and Tayla had arrived at the hotel earlier and it was great to see them! They had been in Sumatra for the previous week, exploring the jungle area. We stayed at a lovely little hotel, really quirky but very comfortable. It was in the tourist part of town but was calm and tucked away.

The itinerary for the first day was supposed to be the Borobudur Temple but, the G20 Cultural Summit was in town and it was closed for 2 days – the group was not happy and our guide promised to work out a way to get to see the area. Instead, we were to go on a jeep safari around the local paddy fields!

The ‘safari’ was great, we were able to really see the beauty of Java and feel the area, driving through the villages. Unfortunately it was at the height of the heat and so got slightly uncomfortable.

We were able to visit a near by temple and get some views from a look out point around the Prambakan Plain. I honestly thought that all those photographs that I had seen showing the indonesian countryside were of just one area but no, it is how it is, stunning!!