«Travelling in Indonesia, whether you are local or foreign, you’ll hear one question before any other: ‘Dari mana?’ ‘Where are you from?’ It’s perhaps natural in this nation of traders, a way of calibrating what this stranger has to offer, what they might buy from you, how they are likely to behave. But it also […]

«Thought it sounds odd in English, ‘tourism objects’ lie at the core of Indonesian officialdom’s concept of the travel industry. Spectacularly beautiful waterfalls are turned into obyek wisata with the construction of cement tables and stools fashioned to look like cut pine trees. Pristine beaches are walled off behind pink concrete, broken only by a […]

«The Madurese have a reputation for ferocity. No one would rent me a motorbike when I visited Madura, because a few days earlier an itinerant ‘toy-seller’ (‘an outsider, like you’ – from West Java, it turned out) had been killed and its motorbike stolen. ‘Imagine if it happened to you’, said a Maduran woman with […]

«From the point of view of an outsider, there was something slightly comforting about these enforced displays of unity. In every unexplored town there were things you’d recognize». (Elizabeth Pisani, Indonesia etc.) 24 dicembre 2014 Ore 15.51Isola di MaduraBangkanal, Ningrat Hotel Ci svegliamo alle 9.30 e consumiamo la nostra colazione a base di roti bakar […]