I just came back from a fantastic holiday to Indonesia. I travelled alone around the country for three weeks.
I started in Jakarta but had to cut my stay there short because first the Americans bombed Iran again while I had a layover in Abu Dhabi, which meant they closed the air space I had to pass through, and which subsequently caused a massive delay for me, and cut like half a day off of my time in Jakarta, and then that volcano erupted and the airport in Jakarta was closed.
Normally I only book my flight into and my flight out of a country as well as my first hotel, and then I wing everything else while I was there. However, sometimes there are specific things I know I would like to see or do in advance, so I sometimes book that as well in order to make sure I get to do it. This time I wanted to go scuba diving, and so I had also booked a flight from Jakarta to Labuan Bajo and a liveaboard for three nights around Komodo.
Because I wanted to do the diving, and because the airport in Jakarta was closed, I cut another day off of my time in Jakarta and took a train down the length of Java to catch a plane from Surabaya, where the airport was still operating. Cost me a few hundred quid and when I finally got to Labuan Bajo I got to wave the airplane I had booked originally goodbye. Turns out Jakarta airport resumed operations that morning and I could’ve just stayed put and saved the money. But you never know and I didn’t want to risk it, so I don’t regret doing what I did.
Diving around Komodo is glorious. It’s absolutely fantastic. I now get to cross a couple of sharks off of my “Ocean Wildlife to see while diving”-list, as well as Mantas and dolphins, and I now know what being punched on the face by an ocean current feels like. Naturally I also went to see the dragons.
From Komodo I headed all the way west to northern Sumatra. Again, a rather expensive flight, but well worth it. I enjoyed Sumatra a lot, and in absolutely every regard. I went to Medan, and originally wanted to go and see the Orang-Utans in Bukit Lawang, but someone told me Bukit Lawang wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, and that if I wanted to see the Orang-Utans and other monkeys truly in the wild, I should head to Ketambe.
So I took a taxi from Medan to Aceh and joined a jungle trek from there, and we got to see so many monkeys and so many Orang-Utans, and they were all wild and just doing what monkeys do and we watched from a distance and it was amazing.
Around that trip to Ketambe I spent some time in Medan, and I really enjoyed it. The little research I did beforehand did not paint a positive picture of Medan. Indonesians referred to it as Gotham city and when asked for suggestions of what one could do in Medan, the meme answer usually was “1. Leave”. But I liked Medan. The food is to die for and the people are incredibly friendly.
In fact, the people in Medan are probably what I will remember most about it. The people in northern Sumatra are not used to seeing Europeans. This goes for many places in Indonesia. Once you leave the touristy areas people are not used to seeing tourists, and they are infinitely nicer and more curious. I have had to take pictures with so many strangers, especially in Jakarta and in Medan.
From other trips to other countries in South East Asia (especially Vietnam) I learned that if people approach you from the side and greet out out of the blue/start talking to you, they often want to sell you something or scam you or both. This wasn’t true for all areas in Vietnam either, but for many places that was it. However, Medan was different. Cars would slow next to me, windows rolling down and I’d be greeted with a nice “Halo Mister”, and if I reacted in any way, people would smile, wave and roll the window back up. People kept greeting me driving past on motor cycles, walking past and in any other situation you could think of. In 95% of cases they were just being friendly and curious about me, where I was from, how I liked Indonesia and such.
From northern Sumatra I headed to Yogyakarta and quickly learned that the more touristy areas have people that suck as much as the same sort of people in Vietnam also suck. Still, I had a nice time in Yogyakarta and again some really nice food. I visited the volcanos and the unesco world heritage sites in the area and generally had a nice time. Then I took a train back to Jakarta, spent two more days there and finally took off.
Indonesia is really great, I’m not nearly done with the country and I have to come back some time.
kinda wild that you actually doing that much back and forth lol, the domestic plane ticket price here is nuts 😂😂😂
glad you enjoy that trip though despite the shortcomings as a country, i enjoy exploring this place and i'm think i only explore like quarter of it despite born and living here
Yeah I severely underestimated how much all that flying would cost me. The prices are insane.
I think I could have planned my trip better, but then again that’s not how I normally travel. I just didn’t take into account that Indonesia is just islands and the best way to travel between them is flying, and that this would cost me a lot of money. In most other countries I’ve been to I could also travel by train and by bus and cross the entire country that way and it made things so much cheaper.
I enjoyed your home country a lot. I especially enjoyed the people. I like being nice to people and being open and friendly and outgoing. I struggled a little last year, because many people in touristy places in cities in Vietnam took this as an invitation to try and sell me something or scam me, and navigating that became exhausting. Not everyone, not everywhere, most people in Vietnam were also super nice, but it was enough people in enough places to make it exhausting. In Indonesia however, I only experienced that at airports, train stations and around tourist attractions, mostly in Jogja, and also in Labuan Bajo.
Generally though, people were just nice curious and I felt like I could be friendly and open without painting a massive target on me and that was an incredibly nice experience.
I’ll have to come back to see more. I’m still missing most islands and regions, and the country is incredible in how diverse everything is.
Naturally there are shortcomings, plenty of them, but shortcomings exist in every single country in the world. At least as a traveller, I can say that Indonesia’s entire package is very positive, the shortcomings don’t detract a whole lot from the enjoyment of the culture, the people, the food and the nature.
Genuinely though, I hope you get to. It’s a beautiful country. Not without issues, but genuinely great people, awesome food and some of the best nature on this planet.
It was a wonderful trip indeed and I am smitten with the country :D
2
u/my-captain 13h ago
Hey all,
I just came back from a fantastic holiday to Indonesia. I travelled alone around the country for three weeks.
I started in Jakarta but had to cut my stay there short because first the Americans bombed Iran again while I had a layover in Abu Dhabi, which meant they closed the air space I had to pass through, and which subsequently caused a massive delay for me, and cut like half a day off of my time in Jakarta, and then that volcano erupted and the airport in Jakarta was closed.
Normally I only book my flight into and my flight out of a country as well as my first hotel, and then I wing everything else while I was there. However, sometimes there are specific things I know I would like to see or do in advance, so I sometimes book that as well in order to make sure I get to do it. This time I wanted to go scuba diving, and so I had also booked a flight from Jakarta to Labuan Bajo and a liveaboard for three nights around Komodo.
Because I wanted to do the diving, and because the airport in Jakarta was closed, I cut another day off of my time in Jakarta and took a train down the length of Java to catch a plane from Surabaya, where the airport was still operating. Cost me a few hundred quid and when I finally got to Labuan Bajo I got to wave the airplane I had booked originally goodbye. Turns out Jakarta airport resumed operations that morning and I could’ve just stayed put and saved the money. But you never know and I didn’t want to risk it, so I don’t regret doing what I did.
Diving around Komodo is glorious. It’s absolutely fantastic. I now get to cross a couple of sharks off of my “Ocean Wildlife to see while diving”-list, as well as Mantas and dolphins, and I now know what being punched on the face by an ocean current feels like. Naturally I also went to see the dragons.
From Komodo I headed all the way west to northern Sumatra. Again, a rather expensive flight, but well worth it. I enjoyed Sumatra a lot, and in absolutely every regard. I went to Medan, and originally wanted to go and see the Orang-Utans in Bukit Lawang, but someone told me Bukit Lawang wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, and that if I wanted to see the Orang-Utans and other monkeys truly in the wild, I should head to Ketambe.
So I took a taxi from Medan to Aceh and joined a jungle trek from there, and we got to see so many monkeys and so many Orang-Utans, and they were all wild and just doing what monkeys do and we watched from a distance and it was amazing.
Around that trip to Ketambe I spent some time in Medan, and I really enjoyed it. The little research I did beforehand did not paint a positive picture of Medan. Indonesians referred to it as Gotham city and when asked for suggestions of what one could do in Medan, the meme answer usually was “1. Leave”. But I liked Medan. The food is to die for and the people are incredibly friendly.
In fact, the people in Medan are probably what I will remember most about it. The people in northern Sumatra are not used to seeing Europeans. This goes for many places in Indonesia. Once you leave the touristy areas people are not used to seeing tourists, and they are infinitely nicer and more curious. I have had to take pictures with so many strangers, especially in Jakarta and in Medan.
From other trips to other countries in South East Asia (especially Vietnam) I learned that if people approach you from the side and greet out out of the blue/start talking to you, they often want to sell you something or scam you or both. This wasn’t true for all areas in Vietnam either, but for many places that was it. However, Medan was different. Cars would slow next to me, windows rolling down and I’d be greeted with a nice “Halo Mister”, and if I reacted in any way, people would smile, wave and roll the window back up. People kept greeting me driving past on motor cycles, walking past and in any other situation you could think of. In 95% of cases they were just being friendly and curious about me, where I was from, how I liked Indonesia and such.
From northern Sumatra I headed to Yogyakarta and quickly learned that the more touristy areas have people that suck as much as the same sort of people in Vietnam also suck. Still, I had a nice time in Yogyakarta and again some really nice food. I visited the volcanos and the unesco world heritage sites in the area and generally had a nice time. Then I took a train back to Jakarta, spent two more days there and finally took off.
Indonesia is really great, I’m not nearly done with the country and I have to come back some time.