An Abode of Peace
The Far Middle East From the chaos of Jakarta, capital of the world’s most populous Moslem nation, it’s just a short hop northeast across Borneo to Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of the Islamic Sultanate of Negara Brunei Darussalam, the “State of Brunei, Abode of Peace” or just Brunei as the tiny...
Jurassic Lark
We leave Yogyakarta, its confusing spelling (should those be “y’s” or “j’s” or some combination?) and its magnificent thousand year old Buddhist and Hindu temples behind us and fly 1500km east to Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores. Labuan Bajo, once little more than a sleepy fishing village is the...
Hati-Hati
Sadly bidding farewell to our new orangutan friends, we head back down river to catch the return flight to Java. Our destination this time is Jogja, Yogyakarta “the soul of Java”. Or to be more precise, the Yogyakarta region of Central Java where our base for the next few days is to be close to the...
Forest Folk
Just a short flight from the smoggy megapolis that is Jakarta and we find ourselves in Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan, a province of the Indonesian section of the island of Borneo. Pangkalan Bun is the gateway to Tanjung Puting National Park, a vast protected region of the southern tip of Kaliman...
Traffic Clogged And Sinking....!
Showing remarkable lack of foresight, the Dutch East India Company decided the build Batavia, the capital of their new colony on a marsh. Seemed like a good idea at the time - the early 17th century. There had been a settlement in the same area for several centuries and the site offered a great natu...