Indonesia

I spent my vacation on vacation, i.e. the planned relaxing beach days and a little culture in Indonesia, with my friend Stephie. What little there was in terms of culture turned out to be a series of temple visits. The journeys in the car, which we imagined would be much shorter (well, we could have planned and researched a bit more in detail beforehand), also took some time, but we also saw a lot, especially of Java. Our driver Danar was a funny guy (we were sure at the beginning that he must have smoked something!!) and quickly introduced us to various vocabulary and the local hip-hop culture of Jogja (the abbreviation of Jogyakarta, is pronounced as follows). : "Tschoggtscha", accompanied by a cool look and an unmistakable pride in one's own city). Here is the chorus of his favorite song by the Jogja Hip Hop Foundation, which we were able to sing along to after a few repetitions:

We are from Jogja, the heart of Java, our rhythm is mantra, flow down like lava!

There was also a funny moment in the car when we asked to turn the air conditioning up a little. "What do you mean with higher?" A look at the blue-red wheel told us that the cars for the Asian market are produced without any heating. "If you want the heater, just open the window!"

Indonesia or Java as the first stop was initially surprising because everything can be read here again, so our western script is also used. At the same time, Islam is the predominant religion here, which means that many women wear headscarves. As a country with the most Muslims in the world and the previous travel reading including the comments that it would probably be very difficult to order alcohol, I had formed a completely different, much stricter picture of society in advance. Surprisingly, the interaction is very informal and I imagine that, despite the veil, people laugh a lot more here than in Germany with followers of the same religion. At the same time, our casual driver also adheres to the prayer 5 times a day and night (yes, we heard the muezzin's voice several times at night) very consistently. The Dutch past of the colonial era can be seen here from time to time, and one can assume it based on some vocabulary, but without concrete evidence it would not have been possible to tell.

Tourism doesn't seem to be very widespread on Java yet. Very often we are looked at from the side and very bold compatriots ask if they can take a photo with us. Or they just shoot one out of the lameng and we don't think we notice. Danar told us that they were fascinated by both our skin color and our large and long noses. OK, oh well!

In addition to temples, we also have the Sultan's Palace (the previous Sultan seems to have been bored and fathered 78 (!) children with official and unofficial wives over the course of his life. Is there still time for anything else??), the water castle, the bird market with many animals that were unfortunately not kept in a species-appropriate manner that were for sale, a volcano whose gases were more than poisonous according to my lungs, and a coffee plantation.

And then we took the ferry to Bali. And my birthday was coming up! I really had a wonderful day! At breakfast, the assembled hotel crew, including a guitar, sang me a serenade and presented me with a cake, which we then ate in the afternoon after a massage at our own small private pool. The restaurant, including the service and the food in the evening, was simply top notch! A very special day! Thank you Stephie and everyone else who influenced him!

Apart from that day, you no longer feel like a VIP in Bali. Everything is designed for tourists. All in all, it is a lot more colorful here than in Java and the traffic is much more relaxed than the constant overtaking maneuvers on the narrow streets with scooters, cars, animals and people all at the same time. The men here also wear sarongs, especially when they have a ceremony, and ceremonies can be found almost everywhere at this time, as the end of a certain period will soon take place and will be celebrated with a big festival.

We saw a lot here too. Rice terraces that only appear in travel brochures, a local market, a botanical garden, some temples and of course a volcano including a sunrise couldn't be missed. This time without the risk of sulfur poisoning, but with breakfast cooked on hot steam!

The absolute dream destination in the end should be Lombok and Gili Trawangan, where we want to relax and do nothing on the white sandy beach and blue water. The doing nothing thing worked wonderfully! In addition to a beautiful pool and fantastic views of the sea, we also had very luxurious hotels (my highlight is still the open-air bathroom!) where you could relax. However, as is sometimes the case in life, the ideas were a little different and unfortunately a little disappointing compared to what we had experienced so far. It's certainly very nice here, but a lot of care is taken to ensure that enough money is made from tourists. And I think that's a shame, because I'm happy to leave money in the country, but not if I'm put in seemingly hopeless situations and want to force me to do so. So, a little with an aftertaste. On the other hand, there are also a lot of service staff (unfortunately not always the most attentive, then we would like to consume more) who are really very friendly and with their constant "Excuse meeeee!" "Thank yoouuuuuu!" "You are welcome!" Singing is very common. By the way, the variant on Gili Trawangan is to respond with “okay” or “yes” instead of “Thank you” with “You are welcome”. Somehow someone misunderstood something. By the way, in Indonesian the dialogue is called “Therima kasi!” "Sama sama!".

The highlight, besides the beautiful sunsets, was the snorkeling trip on the last day. All in all, Indonesia was worth visiting. Due to the differences between the individual islands, you have to have seen a few of them to get an impression of Indonesia, so the four islands out of 17,000,20,000 are certainly not enough!