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Mr Anhar's Monumentally Memorable Hotels Anhar Setjadibrata, one-time medical student and lawyer, developed a consuming interest in preserving Indonesia's cultural heritage, then found he needed somewhere to showcase his irreplaceable collections. The avid antiquarian became a highly successful hotelier, the creative genius behind several of Indonesia's most distinctive boutique hotels, spas and restaurants.
Couples, not Cowboys, at Kuta The villa accommodation boom is leading Bali's renaissance as a top-end destination. Self-contained, fully-serviced villas suit couples, and groups of family and friends; providing affordable luxury, privacy, exclusivity and independence, ideal for repeat visitors. As more discerning visitors forsake the old backpacker/beach haunts, outlying districts like Seminyak, come to the fore; and there are some welcome surprises awaiting around the coast, or inland at Ubud. Gasp...splutter...cough... Quick, wet your shirt, cover your mouth! Unfazed by sulphur fumes, a lone Javanese edged up the precipitous track towards us, bent under the heavy load suspended across his shoulders. Far below, ant-sized figures continued to load their baskets with rock sulphur in readiness for the climb up from the depths of Kawah Ijen, East Java's 'Solitary Crater'. Sulphur fumes, volcanic ash and earth tremors are hazards far more immediate here than any perceived threat of terrorism. Coffee plantations usually conjure up images of indigenous workers toiling in tropical heat for a few pennies a day. At Losari Coffee Plantation Resort, a former Dutch colonial plantation surrounded by smouldering volcanoes in the Indonesian heartland of central Java, work is a distant memory. I am luxuriating in my free-form bath, watching the equatorial rain pelt down outside the picture window; the coffee bushes must be flourishing... Chill out at Cisolok Ratu Kidul, the Ocean Queen of Javanese lore, lends her name to a
popular retreat on Java’s Indian Ocean coast. Check out this and other short breaks from Jakarta. The
Big Durian: South East Asia’s favourite fruit
provides an apt metaphor for a city which no longer deserves to
be dismissed as squalid, dirty and charmless. However, a rich feast of sticky, custard-like flesh awaits those eager enough to withstand the noxious smell of this football-sized fruit and wrest open the formidable spiked carcass. The Batak, the
Sundanese, the Minahasa, the Irianese and the Javanese are all
pieces of the ethnic jigsaw making up Ibukota Jakarta, Indonesia's Mother City.
Javanese
Wedding An invitation to a full-scale traditional
Javanese wedding means participating in five ceremonies, three
days of pomp and circumstance, switching between three languages.
Java
by Train: Amidst Java’s teeming millions, a
comfortable express train is a capsule of calm . Off
The Edge On the southern coast of New Guinea lies an ill-explored
region where snow-capped ranges fall abruptly towards trackless
forests and pandanus swamps, down to the tidal shallows of the
Arafura Sea. West Papua (Irian Jaya is the last
frontier in Australasia: a little-known land where
Muslim Asia coexists uneasily with Melanesia; a little-known
land which long concealed the world's richest deposits of copper
and gold.
Order any of the above stories by contacting Philip Game