The morning’s silence was broken by unrelenting squeaks, penetrating the wooden walls of our cabin. It sounded like hundreds of rats, or birds, I was not sure. I got up from my bed, took my camera and went to the deck upstairs. The sound became […]
All posts filed under: Indonesia
Western Flores: Heading to the Dragons
Dry, hot, flat. As soon as we left the endless verdant hills of Manggarai, a vast expanse of flat plains scorching under the midday sun welcomed us. No more snaking roads with sharp turns along steep slopes. Instead, Dino sped the car on a long […]
Manggarai: Life in The Land of Abundance
Amid the woods just outside the town of Ruteng in western Flores, a village was hidden from plain sight where dirt trails provided the sole telltale of a settlement behind the trees. Children were playing at the village entrance as we drew closer and walked down […]
Wogo and Bena: A Tradition Preserved
Leaving Ende with its mountains and blue pebble beaches we continued our journey westward to Bajawa, the capital of Ngada Regency on the island of Flores. Situated on the slopes of Mount Inerie with its near-perfect cone, the temperate climate of the town made it […]
Ende: The Birthplace of Pancasila
With an area sprawling as far as 5,200 km (more than 3,200 miles) from east to west, dotted with more than 17,000 islands – including some of the world’s biggest, inhabited by more than 300 ethnic groups speaking some 700 languages and following six official […]
Kelimutu: A Dream Fulfilled
“Konde… Ratu… We want to see you…” Dino taught us what the local people say every time they want to see the lakes of Kelimutu, often shrouded in thick mist more than 1,600 meters above sea level in the southeastern part of Flores. Konde, the […]
Sikka: Traces of A Kingdom
Dino skillfully drove the minivan through impossibly narrow roads, sandwiched between steep slopes and the southern beaches of eastern Flores, with patches of renovation work along the way to our destination. Sikka Natar was a sleepy beachfront village where only a little remained from the […]
Flores: From Maumere to Komodo
As the propeller plane flew over the eastern part of the island of Sumbawa – Flores’ big neighbor to the west – Mount Sangeang Api emerged from the Flores Sea, puffing grey smoke from its lava dome. Two weeks earlier the volcano erupted and spewed […]
A Bat Cave Like No Other
Bli Komang took us along the main coastal road in eastern Bali where earlier that day he introduced us to what is now my favorite place on the island: Taman Ujung Sukasada. Passing by trucks loaded with high quality sand from the slopes of Mount […]
The Tale of Two Temples
Set against the rocky coast of western Bali lies a sacred rock topped by a Hindu temple, a creation of the Majapahit priest, Nirartha, who fled Java to Bali in the 16th century. Known as the reformer of Balinese Hinduism concept of deity, among other […]
Anniversary of the Big Durian
“I don’t want to work in Jakarta. Living there seems very stressful.” Those were the words I said to my friends back when we were still in college in Bandung, a big city with temperate climate surrounded by mountains and hills in West Java. At […]
Places of Worship: Beyond the Structure
A massive man-made structure surrounded by green pastures emerged from afar, in the eastern part of Semarang near the city’s suburban region with a volcano lurking from behind. Four pointy small minarets stood on an elevated platform, flanking a white dome over the terracotta-colored roof […]
What an Amazing World! 