Art Deco and a Volcano

Another day, another day trip. This one involved a lot of driving (and a lot of traffic – Jakarta is known for bad traffic, and the fact that they made a four-day weekend out of the holiday might have made it worse), but that gave me time to read up on Indonesia. The official language, Bahasa Indonesia, is an attempt to give a common language to a country with something like 500 languages and 350 ethnic groups (or is it the other way around?). Indonesia has over 13,000 islands and is spread over 3000 miles and three time zones (there was a big earthquake while I was there, but it was as far away from where I was as California is to New York). I think that over half of the population lives on Java, and Jakarta, the capital, is a city with thirteen million residents. It was hard to get used to the exchange rate - $50 was about 500,000 rupiah – it wasn’t hard to divide, but just hard to think in the millions. Until the late nineteenth century, when the Dutch subsumed most of the islands as the Dutch East Indies, the archipelago was a series of unrelated kingdoms and sultanates. I wasn’t sure if the locals harbored resentment towards the Dutch – my father always said the Dutch were the nicest people in the world, but I guess they weren’t the nicest colonial masters – so I did mention that my father had lived there but at first I left it at that. As I got less shy, I learned that many of the tourists are Dutch and they are welcomed. Still, I got lots of mileage out of saying “I’m American – Obama” and that I had been in Morocco (like me, the Indonesians were interested in comparing Muslim countries!).


I had read in Marilee’s Indonesia Footprint book that there are three cities in the world with Tropical Art Deco architecture (I didn’t even realize it was a category!) – Miami Beach, Bandung, Indonesia, and somewhere in New Zealand. So of course I wanted to see Bandung! It’s the third-largest city on Java, elevated and therefore cooler than Jakarta, surrounded by rice and coffee plantations (coffee isn’t nicknamed “Java” for nothing!). There wasn’t quite as much tropical art deco architecture as there is in Miami Beach (in fact, maybe there were five buildings), but what there was, was fun to see.


The main tourist attraction of Bandung, and another rationale for the day trip, is the nearby Tangkbuhan Prahu volcano. There was a lot of traffic, and I found myself questioning the wisdom of continuing on vs. just going back, but when we got to the crater it was worth it. A big, steaming crater! Had there been less traffic (or fewer people!) there might have been time for the two-hour hike around the crater, but it’s just as well – fog was rolling in and it would have been a challenge. Indonesia has a lot of volcanoes and had I had the trekking gear that I didn’t have in Thailand either, I might have climbed one. But for most of the climbs that I read about, you had to leave at 10:00 pm and hike all night – and sleeping in a bed seemed a much better option!