Three Week Visit to Seven Indonesian Islands with Stop-Over in Hong Kong (2019)

Borneo, Java, Bali, Flores, Komodo, Rinca, Kelor

The trip begins with a 0030 hrs. departure on a 14 hour long LA-Hong Kong Cathay Pacific flight. With a kick-off, dinner and a couple Ambien I got some reasonable sleep and was feeling fine upon early morning arrival in Hong Kong.

On the bus into the city I met Amy, arriving from Temple City, Ca. and her brother Charles whom she was arriving to visit. They went out of their way to help drag my bags about 3 blocks from the A10 bus stop on West Hong Kong Island to my Ramada Harbor View Hotel. Then they helped find the 15 bus stop to go to the top of Victoria Peak, 1^st on every tourist agenda. And it is truly spectacular, reminiscent of Sugar Loaf in Rio but different because it is an integral part of the city with high-rise residences clinging to the sides all the way up. Sugar Loaf is about 1000 ft higher, but less embedded in the city. Hong Kong is truly a jungle and I found quite difficult to learn to navigate. Buses seem to go everywhere with good connections, but very complex to learn in a one-day visit. Hundreds of double decker buses on very complex interwoven routes. Inquiring, it seems the locals, when departing from their everyday familiar commute, rely on a phone app. This is 2019, but what did they do 20 years ago? Trolleys are so high they might topple! On some outer islands where construction is newer, sometimes 10 – 15 identical 20 to 40 story residences clustered together. In my short time was quite busy just visiting the “Peak”, riding the Star Ferry to Kowloon, and wandering around HK Island waterfront on foot. My room at the Ramada is clean and neat but very Spartan, with no desk no chair, no hanger space or drawers. Smallest I can remember including many China and Japan visits.

Departing Sunday from Hong Kong Airport I find myself at gate 10 on a ‘long’ linear concourse, with a couple herring bone wings at the far end, and my gate is 68! After traversing this ‘mile’ and hanging out for about one and a half hours I accidently learn my gate has been changed to 50 far back up the line – just in time to make it back to my flight. Longer walking than I can remember at any airport, even Miami! Hong Kong Album Later one Indonesian, Jakarta, airport had a similar long linear layout but with a golf cart track and an optional ride to one’s gate.

Monday, April 20, Indonesia, some 17,000 islands, 5 major (Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Bali, Papua) and 6,000 inhabited. Up at 3:30 am in the Swiss-Belhotel near the Jakarta Airport to catch a plane off to Pangkalan Bun, on Borneo. After landing in Borneo we immediately transfer to Kumai and board a klotox river boat on the Kumai River enroute to Tanjung Puting NP. Soon branching to the Sekonyer River along which we proceed for maybe 8 miles to the NP. We are fortunate to be here early in the season as we are the only boat on the river while our guide indicates later the river might have a line of boats every quarter mile or so. The next two nights are at the Rimba Orangutan Eco Lodge. We sleep at the lodge, but all meals are on our klotox for the next two days. Back in the town of Kumai a thriving business is made of husbanding Indian swiftlets. These birds make nests of their solidified saliva. The nests are harvested and exported (as caviar of the Orient!) to China at very high prices as the basis of bird nest soup. On a midafternoon excursion from Rimba we visit a feeding station for orangutan being rehabilitated to the wild, the best chance to see these apes close up. The orangutan are fruit eating vegetarians with adult males weighing 180 lb. and females half that. They live to about 65 years the females giving birth every 7 – 8 years. They have many characteristics like humans such as life span, weight, size and gestation period. Tuesday we travel on our klotox to several good orangutan viewing sites. Today there are many klotox along the river. They are pretty much all the same with a crew and kitchen deck below and passenger deck above where we spend our time and eat. They have about 12 ft. beam and approximately 60 ft. length. We have 9 tourists but many that we pass seem to have only 2 to 4 tourists and mosquito net enclosed beds as well as the dining area on the top deck. The Sekonyer is quite narrow with often just room for two klotox to pass with both shores lined with dense jungle with vegetation that radically changes character as we move upstream from the brackish to fresher water. Twice we stop to take long hikes into the jungle/forest to orangutan viewing locations. Here they are being fed by park rangers and there is a better show than Cirque du Soleil as the animals arrive and depart through the tree tops – climbing and swinging on vines and trees. A 6” diameter tree can have its top 40’ up being swung back and forth 20’ or more as an orangutan gets it swinging enough to jump to the next perch. Also along the way we encountered many proboscis monkeys. and a few gibbons, yet another type of ape, as well as a variety of other animal and bird species. Borneo Album

Friday, April 24. After spending Wednesday night in the town of Pangkalan Bun, on Borneo (called Kalimantan by locals) and flying back to Java Thursday afternoon, today we explore Jakarta. A walk before dinner gave us a chance to taste mangosteen, durian, and sample the delicacy cobra blood, I passed on the latter. Saturday we fly to the mid-Java city of Yogyakarta, then spend the afternoon motorcycle touring some of the city, including the palace of the King of Yogyakarta or Yogyakarta Sultanate, only remaining king in Indonesia. A visit to Borobudur Temple about 30 mi north, largest Buddhist temple in the world takes up most of Sunday. Java is the island of volcanos with about 45 active. Dinner at the home of Gunan Zunan and spent some time learning to play the angklung, a traditional Indonesian bamboo instrument. Monday, walk around the “village” adjoining the Santika Hotel, great lunch in Jogja, then Prambanan Hindu Temple. This temple once comprised 240 separate “temples” but many were tumbled to piles of stones, that remain, by repeated earthquakes. Only perhaps 15 or so have been restored. Another highlight of Jakarta was lunch at the Batavia Café, an excellent lunch, and the café displays a long history of celebrity visits with photos – you might think you ate in Rick’s in Casablanca.

Among the first political remarks we heard, was that the US freed Indonesia with the bomb at Hiroshima – no regrets here as Indonesia was occupied and grossly mistreated by the Japanese. After the war Indonesia was given independence from Dutch colonial status. The first democratically elected president, Sukarno served 1945 to 1967, followed by Suharto until 1998. Both had their detractors and brushes with corruption, but they did hold the country together for more than 40 years. Most recently, President Joko Widodo was elected in 2014, and just reelected in April with the final vote counting and winner declaration apparently occurring in our 1^st week in Indonesia. He is not Muslim but has appointed conservative Muslims to major offices to enhance support from the people and perhaps limit radicalization. He is quite well thought of by the common people in Indonesia – in the opinion of our guide, Jumena. Jakarta Album. Yogyakarta Album

Tuesday, April 28. Flew to Bali this morning followed by long drive up the east coast to Candidesa (ten temples?). Along the way a very enjoyable 2 hour stop at a Balinese dance school. Arrived early evening at Hotel Alila Manggis. This hotel is a little bit of heaven, on the warm northern Indian Ocean with lush jungle and fresh water coy ponds winding all around. A trip to Sideman to see Balinese ikat textile crafting and lunch at the Tirta Gangga summer water palace make a great day outing. On Maui, the road to Hana is a bit longer, but just a primer for the road to Sideman from Candidasa. Along the way we encountered and stopped to learn from a collection of half dozen of more folks harvesting rice. They cut large double hand-fulls with a hand sickle. Then they beat this bundle over a makeshift wooden trestle to thrash out the rice grains that are collected on an underlying tarp. Water management is handled by the Subak which allocates and controls water release sequentially from higher paddies to lower areas. Farmers have to control their plantings and harvest accordingly.

One third of the world’s Muslims are in Indonesia. On Java 85% or so of the population is Muslim, while on Bali this fraction is Catholic and many of the remainder are Hindu. Our guide says the farther east in Indonesia the greater the fraction of Christian. Balinese Hindus still have a caste system indicated by their name, but unlike the Indian system, this has little meaning except with regard to marriage.

At the Candidesa restaurant tonight we heard a strange animal call several times from seclusion behind the ceiling. The proprietor claims it was a gecko – I thought the only talking gecko was Warren Buffet’s GEICO gecko! Candidasa Album

Thursday on to Ubud and the night at the Plataran Hotel, which might be one of the neatest hotels I have ever been in. Three infinity pools surrounded by lush healthy rice paddies and that surrounded by luxurious healthy manicured looking jungle. Good way to visit Ubud, a very busy inland tourist destination, as private traveler will be to get a room and a motor bike (scooter ~$10/day). While in Ubud we visited the Sacred Monkey Forest, a large forest with thousands of monkeys frolicking for the visitors – a really fun and interesting park. An excursion to the north to Lake Bator in the shadow of active volcano Kintamani and a visit to an isolated primitive Bali Aga tribe, Trunyun, who place their deceased out in the forest under little bamboo shacks to - - - (you figure it out) as opposed more popular burial or cremation.

More fun was our next day excursion to the Jatiluwit rice fields. The trip was made, much of it in the rain, in 1968 vintage convertible Volkswagen “Things.” These minimalist vehicles were popular for about 10 years and someone on Bali has collected a fleet to rent to travelers. What a spectacle of our 4 Things parading around the winding narrow country roads of Bali in the rain! At Jatiluwit we toured the manicured rice paddies with a chance to learn about the 5 major rice categories, plain white, (harvested above), brown, black, red, and sticky. The paddies are bordered by stone ‘paved’ walkways and narrow aqueducts appearing to be centuries old. Some of these are harvested in a much more labor intensive process of cutting each head from the stalk individually with a primitive type of scissor. We comment that the rice growing cycle is about 4 to 6 months, first sprouting in a small seed bed, then transplanted to a flooded field, paddy, which is kept immersed for one to two months, finally drained for the final maturing month(s) before harvest. The stubble and perhaps straw is often burned off after harvest in anticipation of the next crop. There was no mention of the snails and the rent-a-duck business encountered elsewhere on this web page in Thailand. Free range chickens are currently popular in US while the cages they are free from are controversial and becoming subject of laws. So how about this caged chicken rearing style that we saw all over Indonesia? Ubud Album

The day continued traveling to the city of Lovina on the north shore. A mountain range splits Bali south and north causing Indian Ocean winds to rise and drop rain producing tropical jungle in the south and a much drier climate in the north – much like Maui is climatically split east to west by Mt. Haleakala. Dropping down the 4000 ft. from the ridge to the north shore over 30 km (18 mi) is the longest steepest set of continuous switchbacks every few hundred feet known to man. This is the only ‘highway’ to the north shore passable in a bus.

Cloves are a very popular product of the north side mountain slopes. The clove spice is the dried flower bud from a large evergreen (leafy and up to 40 ft. high) harvested by propping a latter up on the tree (Can this be correct?). Lovina Album

Monday, June 3. Our layover day at Lovina where we visited a mountain tribe on the north slope and had lunch at the home of a family that collects sap from high in a specie of local (date?) palm tree and renders it into brown sugar. Today also incorporated the requisite OAT trip to a local shaman! Next day we make a brief visit to Undiksha University at Singaraja on the north shore which includes a brief tour and presentation of their capabilities and history. Then driving the bus back up over that 30 km serpentine road over the ridge back to Sanur on the south shore. Near the ridge top we visit Ulan Danu Hindu Temple on the shore of Lake Bratan – the most beautiful temple and gardens on Bali. Next day, from Sanur we visit another temple hung on a high sea cliff, Uluwatu. Cliffside Temple. The temple grounds are populated with mischievous monkeys that steal glasses, cell phones and such, then trade the to attendants for food. On the drive, from a distance, we pass the huge unfinished Garuda Monument and convention complex near Denpasar Airport. Garuda is a mythical Hindu bird. I later learned that we passed within a couple miles of Uluwatu Beach, world famous surfing site that attracts ‘big wave’ surfers from over the world as well as many vacationing amateurs – check it out on Google! Being an enthusiastic windsurfer and learning that Nasu Dua Beach on southeast shore is the destination windsurf spot, I felt the guide shorted us by not including a drive-by stop to these noted attractions since we were just around the corner with time to kill. Sanur Album

Thursday, June 6 Today we fly to Labuan Bajo, 280 nm east, on Flores Island for visits to nearby islands in the Komodo National Park. Air traffic between islands seemed spotty – a couple times our flight would be canceled, perhaps for lack of passengers. However, recovery on another flight or airline was rapid, perhaps they cooperate. On two of the following three days we visited Komodo and Rinca Islands in search of komodos. Our guides preface the visits with lots of cautions that no dragons may be found. But this seems gross over compensation, perhaps to raise the guest’s anticipation level, as we easily saw 10 or more on each island. Some lingering around the park facilities where you might speculate they are every day of the year. However, my remark is, seeing one giraffe is as good as seeing 10 dragons, as the dragons pretty much lay there inert like a log - not at all like Buffet’s animated GEICO gecko. We did lunch on the beach and go snorkeling a couple times on out island visits.

Our guide, Jamena, is from a large country family somewhat inland from the shore and west of Lovina. He still prefers to eat in the county style of putting rice in a bowl, then adding about everything else of the meal, and eating with the fingers and no tools. With our group he always used tools, but a couple nights I and maybe another guest accompanied him to eat from the open-air market in Labuan Bajo. Here you choose your individual fish, then they barbeque it and serve, with rice of course at a nearby picnic table. Reminiscent of a big food court populated with similar little food stands and picnic tables on Penang Island, Malaysia, when traveling with friend Denny. In this setting our guide would resort to just fingers. You’ve already heard about the cobra blood above. I went to Indonesia anticipating some great food based on my experience a few times at an Indonesian restaurant up on Century Blvd. near LA as well as other Southeast Asia visits. Mostly I was disappointed as the food was dominated, first by rice as you expect, but by common not very tasty items like cassava, cassava leaves as vegetable, tofu, breaded and fried items. Unlike other SE Asian locals, it did not appear that spices were cooked into the food to make it exciting, instead, just chile or chile paste served on the side that makes it hot! There were exceptions of course and generally soups were tasty. There are apparently good SCUBA diving locations around Flores and the surrounding islands as there were several dive shops in the small village. I tried to set up a dive day but with other tour constraints, flying constraints that limit diving, along with the dive operators desired to set up an easy dive to assess my skills since my last dive was 2 years old, it all just didn’t fit together. I had the impression SCUBA diving could have been the high point of my Indonesia visit. Labuan Bajo Album

Monday, June 10: Return to Bali for a night and partial day at Kuta, the real tourist resort of Bali located on the southwest beach side facing the north Indian Ocean. This community, just off from Denpasar, is populated with large tourist hotels and faces a very shallow beach so that low tide exposes a half mile of beach and surf rolling in from far in places. It’s close to Uluwatu however. Kuta is where the pretty girls are in Bali.

Kuta is the location of the 2002 coordinated terrorist bombing that killed 202 people, many Australian tourists. An initial bomb was detonated in Paddy’s Pub causing many to flee to the street outside. Then a large car bomb was set off outside the Sari Club, an open-air bar opposite the Pub. We are subjected to security and metal detectors to enter the main shopping center.

How did Bali become such a famous tourist destination? We did not see any particularly attractive beaches on our stay at several beach cities. As a connoisseur of beaches, the best are on Maui, the Caribbean, and eastern Australia, where the water is pristine, the sand is clean and fine, and the scenery is punctuated by rock features, vegetation, and trees. Southern California and east coast US beaches are pretty “average” with just miles of sand and surf. US gulf coast beaches are the same appearance and often one has to walk out half mile to get waste deep in water. Bali beaches that we saw are dominated by these average characteristics along with being not particularly clean. Maybe it’s the girls in the clubs of Kuta? However, our visit to Indonesia was a good adventure and learning experience! The cost of which is OAT getting me up to go in the middle of the night every morning. Judging from a number of such OAT trips this one had the most compatible amiable group of travelers, an Air Force jet pilot and spouse, a retired law professor and spouse, a veterinarian, a vegetarian, an Everglades tour operator, a dance school operator ….

Next day begins the long flight through Hong Kong to Los Angels, followed by a summer on Maui – no bias here!