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Early Payment Discount !
Early Payment Discount on Daily Rental Rates on all products!
If you book and pay in full by 10th September 2010
Only Available for bookings valued over $1,000
(Offer only applies if you pay by Bank Transfer, Cheque or Cash)
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* Terms & Conditions apply, please contact us for details.
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Indonesia Information
Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world that straddles the Equator between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. While it has land borders with Malaysia to the north as well as East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the east, it also neighbors Australia to the south, and Palau, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand to the north, India to the northwest.
Indonesia is the sleeping giant of Southeast Asia. With 18,110 islands, 6,000 of them inhabited, it is the largest archipelago in the world. With well over 210 million people, Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world — after China, India and the USA — and by far the largest in Southeast Asia. Indonesia also has the largest Muslim population in the world.
Indonesia markets itself as the ultimate in diversity, and the slogan is quite true, although not necessarily always in good ways. Indonesia's tropical forests are the second-largest in the world after Brazil, and are being logged and cut down at the same alarming speed. While the rich shop and party in Jakarta and Bali, after decades of economic mismanagement, the country is the only member of OPEC that has to import oil, and 53% of the population earns less than US$2/day (note because of declining oil production, Indonesia recently withdrew from OPEC). Infrastructure in much of the country remains rudimentary, and travelers off the beaten track (pretty much anywhere outside Bali) will need some patience and flexibility.
The Indonesian people, like any people, can be either friendly or rude to foreigners. Most of the time, though, they are incredibly friendly to foreigners who make it off the beaten track.
Regions
The nation of Indonesia is almost unimaginably vast: More than 17,000 islands providing 108,000 kilometers of beaches. The distance between Aceh in the West and Papua in the East is more than 4,000 kilometers (2500 miles), comparable to the distance between New York City and San Francisco. Laying on the western rim of the Ring of Fire Indonesia has more than 400 volcanoes, of which 130 are considered active, as well as many undersea volcanoes. The island of New Guinea (on which the Indonesian province of Papua is located) is the second largest island in the world.
Provinces are usually grouped by around larger islands and include smaller surrounding islands. The listing below follows this practice:
Sumatra (incl. the Riau Islands and Bangka-Belitung)
Wild and rugged, the 6th largest island in the world has a great natural and cultural wealth with more than 40 million inhabintants.
Kalimantan (Borneo)
The vast majority of this, the world's third largest island is covered by the Indonesian province. Uncharted jungles, mighty rivers, home of the orangutan, a paradise for the adventurer.
Java (and Madura)
The country's heartland, big cities including the capital Jakarta, and a lot of people packed on a not-so-big island. Also features the cultural treasures of Yogyakarta, Borobudur and Prambanan. One of the most populous island in the earth with more than 120 million inhabitans in a land equal to New York state.
Sulawesi (Celebes)
Strangely shaped, this island houses a diversity of societies and some spectacular scenery, Toraja cuture, rich flora and fauna, world class diving site, finest undersea scenery.
Nusa Tenggara (Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Komodo and West Timor)
Also known as the Lesser Sunda Islands, the "Southeast Islands" contain scores of ethnic groups, languages and religions, home to Komodo lizards and one of the best undersea coral site.
Maluku (Moluccas)
The historic Spice Islands, largely unexplored and almost unknown to the outside world.
Irian Jaya (Papua)
The western half of the island of New Guinea, with mountains, forests, swamps, an almost impenetrable wilderness in one of the remotest places on earth.
Cities
* Jakarta - the perennially congested capital which is also the largest city of the country
* Bandung - university town in the cooler highlands of Java
* Banjarmasin - the largest town on Kalimantan
* Manado - Christian town at the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, famous for diving
* Medan - the main city of Sumatra
* Surabaya - Indonesia's second largest city
* Ujung Pandang (Makassar) - the gateway to Sulawesi
* Yogyakarta - Java's cultural hub and the access point to the mighty temples of Prambanan and Borobudur
Other destinations
The following is a limited selection of some of Indonesia's top sights.
* Anyer - Beach on in Banten province, near Mt. Krakatau and Ujung Kulon National Park.
* Bali - A beautiful island with great culture and art.
* Baliem Valley - the home of the famous penis-gourded Dani warriors
* Bintan - Resort island just south of Singapore
* Borobudur - A huge temple dedicated to the Buddha in Central Java which is Indonesia's most visited site.
* Bunaken - One of the best scuba diving destinations in Indonesia, if not the world.
* Lake Toba - Beautiful lake on North Sumatra province.
* Mount Bromo - Some of the scariest volcanic scenery on the planet.
* Tana Toraja - Highland area of South Sulawesi famed for their extraordinary funeral rites.
Culture
There is no one unified Indonesian culture as such, but the Hindu culture of the former Majapahit empire does provide a framework for the cultural traditions of the central islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali. Perhaps the most distinctively "Indonesian" arts are wayang kulit shadow puppetry, where intricately detailed cutouts act out scenes from the Mahabharata and Ramayana and other popular folk stories, and its accompaniment the gamelan orchestra, whose incredibly complex metallic rhythms are the obligatory backdrop to both religious ceremonies and traditional entertainment. Indonesia is culturally intertwined with the Malay, with notable items such as batik cloth and kris daggers, and Arabic culture has also been adopted to some degree thanks to Islam.
Modern-day Indonesian popular culture is largely dominated by the largest ethnic group, the Javanese. Suharto's ban on Western imports like rock'n'roll, while long since repealed, led to the development of indigenous forms of music like dangdut, a sultry form of pop developed in the 1970s, and the televised pelvic thrusts of starlet Inul Daratista in 2003 were nearly as controversial as Elvis once was. Anggun Cipta Sasmi is a talented Indonesian singer who became a famous singer in France. Her single "La neige au sahara" became a top hit on the European charts in the summer of 1997.
Most Indonesian films are low budget B movies. "Daun di Atas Bantal" (1998) is an exception; it won the "best movie" award at the Asia Pacific Film Festival in Taipei, Taiwan (1998).
Indonesian literature has yet to make much headway on the world stage, with torch-bearer Pramoedya Ananta Toer's works long banned in his own homeland, but the post-Suharto era has seen a small boom with Ayu Utami's Saman breaking both taboos and sales records.
Holidays
Multicultural Indonesia celebrates a vast range of religious holidays and festivals, but many are limited to small areas (eg. the Hindu festivals of Bali). The following covers public holidays applied nationwide regardless of their belief.
The most significant season of the year is the Muslim fasting month of Ramadhan. During its 30 days, devout Muslims refrain from passing anything through their lips (food, drink, smoke) between sunrise and sunset. People get up early to stuff themselves before sunrise (sahur), go to work late if at all, and take off early to get back home in time to break fast (buka puasa) at sunset. Non-Muslims, as well as Muslims travelling (musafir), are exempt from fasting but it is polite to refrain from eating or drinking in public. Many restaurants close during the day and those that stay open (e.g., hotel restaurants) maintain a low profile, with curtains covering the windows. During Ramadhan, all forms of nightlife including bars, nightclubs, karaoke and massage parlours close by midnight, and (especially in more devout areas) quite a few opt to stay closed entirely. Business travellers will notice that things move at an even more glacial pace than usual and, especially towards the end of the month, many people will take leave.
The climax at the end of the month is the two days of Idul Fitri (also known as Lebaran), when pretty much the entire country takes a week or two off to head back home to visit family in a ritual is known locally as mudik, meaning going home. This is the one time of year when Jakarta has no traffic jams, but the rest of the country does, with all forms of transport packed to the gills. All government offices (including embassies) and many businesses close for a week or even two, and traveling around Indonesia is best avoided if at all possible.
Other Muslim holidays include Idul Adha (the sacrifice day), Isra Mi'raj Muhammad SAW, Hijra (Islamic new year) and Maulid Muhammad SAW. Christian holidays include Christmas, Ascension Day, Good Friday, while the Hindu New Year of Nyepi (March-April) bring Bali to a standstill and Buddhists get a day off for Waisak (Buddha's birthday), celebrated with processions around Borobudur. Non-religious holidays include New Year (1 Jan), Imlek (Chinese New Year) in Jan-Feb and Independence Day (17 Aug).
The dates of many holidays are set according to various lunar calendars and the dates thus change from year to year. The Ministry of Labor may change the official date of holidays if they are close to the weekend. There is another official day off for workers, called cuti bersama (taking days off together), which is sometime close to the Idul Fitri holidays.
Climate
Upon arrival and disembarking from the plane, one immediately notices the sudden rush of warm, wet air. Indonesia is a warm place. It has no spring, summer, fall, or winter, just two seasons: rainy and dry, both of which are relative (it still rains during the dry season, it just rains less). While there is significant regional variation, in most of the country (including Java and Bali) the dry season is April to October, while the wet season is November to March.
In Papua island, there are snow covered peaks: Jayawijaya Mountains: Peak Trikora (Mt. Wilhelmina) - 4730 m. Sudirman Mountains: Peak Jaya (Mt. Carstensz) - 5030 m.
Time
Since the country is very large, Indonesia is divided into three time zones:
GMT +7: Western Indonesian Time (WIB, Waktu Indonesia Barat)
* Sumatra, Java, west/central Kalimantan
GMT +8: Central Indonesian Time (WITA, Waktu Indonesia Tengah)
* Bali, south/east Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara
GMT +9: Eastern Indonesian Time (WIT, Waktu Indonesia Timur)
* Maluku, Irian Jaya
Driving in Indonesia
Indonesian driving habits are generally atrocious. Lanes and traffic lights are happily ignored, passing habits are suicidal and driving on the road shoulder is common.
That said, renting a car in Indonesia is cheap compared to renting in other countries, and despite recent fare hikes gas remains cheap (fixed price for gasoline is Rp 6000/litre and price of diesel fuel is Rp 5500/litre). To drive a car yourself, an International Driver Permit is required, but it is strongly recommended that you consider renting a car with driver, because the additional cost is quite low and having a traffic accident in Indonesia will certainly spoil your trip.
Road condition and road maintenance in Indonesia is poor. If you go outside major cities, you should use a four-wheel drive car (Kijang jeeps are popular). During rainy season, major roads in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi are flooded for several weeks. Several important, old bridges in Sumatra had collapsed recently.
Traffic moves on the left in Indonesia.
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