INDONESIA – GENERAL

Money
1.00 USD = 16,693.07 IDR
1.00 CAD = 12,048.74 IDR

HISTORY
Early history. The Indonesian archipelago has been inhabited since the time of Homo erectus or “Java Man,” with fossils dating back 2 million to 500,000 BCE. Fossils of Homo floresiensis, found on Flores, date around 700,000 to 60,000 BCE, while Homo sapiens arrived around 50,000 BCE. Sulawesi and Borneo are home to the world’s oldest known cave paintings, dating back 40,000 to 60,000 years, and megalithic sites such as western Java’s Gunung Padang,
Around 2,000 BCE, Austronesian peoples began arriving in Southeast Asia from the island of Taiwan, gradually displacing native Melanesians to the far eastern part of the archipelago as they spread east, and would eventually form the majority of Indonesia’s modern population. Favourable agricultural conditions and advancements like wet-field rice cultivation by the 8th century BCE enabled the growth of villages and kingdoms by the first century CE. The archipelago’s strategic location fostered inter-island and international exchange with civilisations from the Indian subcontinent and mainland China, profoundly influencing Indonesian history and culture through trade.
By the 7th century CE, the Srivijaya naval kingdom thrived on trade, adopting Hindu and Buddhist influences. The 8th to 10th centuries saw the rise and decline of the Buddhist Sailendra and Hindu Mataram dynasties, leaving monumental legacies like the Borobudur and Prambanan temples. After the failed Mongol invasion of Java in the late 13th century, the Hindu Majapahit kingdom rose to dominate much of the archipelago under Gajah Mada‘s leadership—a period often called the “Golden Age” of Indonesian history. Islam arrived in the 13th century in northern Sumatra, and following gradual adoption in other islands, it became the dominant religion in Java and Sumatra by the 16th century, blending with pre-existing traditions to form a distinct Islamic culture, particularly in Java.
Colonial Era. In 1512, Europeans began arriving in the archipelago, led by Portuguese traders under Francisco Serrão, to seek a monopoly of the lucrative spice trade in the Maluku Islands. Dutch and British traders soon followed, with the former establishing the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC) in 1602, which eventually became the dominant European power for almost two centuries. After the VOC’s dissolution in 1799 during the French Revolutionary Wars, the Dutch East Indies was established as a nationalised colony, marking the beginning of formal colonial rule by the Netherlands.
Over the next century and a half, Dutch control over the archipelago was tenuous, as they faced continuous rebellions from local leaders like Prince Diponegoro in central Java, Imam Bonjol in central Sumatra, Pattimura in Maluku, and fighters in Aceh. Dutch dominance only extended to Indonesia’s modern boundaries in the early 20th century. with the establishment of Dutch posts in New Guinea.
During World War II, the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Indies ended Dutch rule and encouraged Indonesia’s independence movement. Only two days after Japan’s surrender in August 1945, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta issued the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, and they became the country’s first president. The Netherlands attempted to re-establish their rule, prompting the start of Indonesia’s war of independence against the Dutch. The conflict lasted until 1949, when the Dutch recognised Indonesian independence
Post-World War II. Sukarno shifted Indonesia from democracy to authoritarianism and maintained power by balancing the opposing forces of political Islam, the military, and the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). Tensions between the latter two culminated in an attempted coup in 1965, leading to a violent anti-communist purge led by the Army’s Major General Suharto that killed at least 500,000 people and imprisoned around a million more. The PKI was blamed for the coup and destroyed, weakening Sukarno’s power. Suharto capitalised on this, becoming President in 1968 and establishing a US-backed “New Order” military dictatorship, which fostered foreign direct investment and drove three decades of substantial economic growth.
In 1975, Indonesia’s invasion and subsequent occupation of the former Portuguese colony of East Timor drew international condemnation. Indonesia was the country worst affected by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which brought widespread discontent with the New Order’s corruption and political suppression and ultimately ended Suharto’s rule. In 1999, East Timor seceded after a 24-year military occupation that some scholars classified as genocide.In the post-Suharto era since 1998, the country has strengthened its democracy by granting regional autonomy and holding the first direct presidential election in 2004. Political, economic and social instability and terrorism were persistent in the 2000s. The economy has performed strongly since 2007, although corruption remains a chronic issue. Relations among the diverse population are mostly harmonious, but sectarian discontent and violence remain problematic in some areas. A political settlement to a separatist insurgency in Aceh was achieved in 2005.

GEOGRAPHY
It is a transcontinental country, spanning Southeast Asia and Oceania and is the world’s largest archipelagic state, stretching 5,120 kilometres (3,181 mi) from east to west and 1,760 kilometres (1,094 mi) from north to south. The exact number of Indonesia’s islands varies from 13,000 to 17,000, with around 922 permanently inhabited. Its five main islands are Sumatra, Java, Borneo (shared with Brunei and Malaysia), Sulawesi, and New Guinea (shared with Papua New Guinea).

INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE
Cultural practices and expressions linked to Balafon and Kolintang in Mali, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Indonesia. The balafon (in Mali, Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire) and kolintang (in Indonesia) refer to a set of wooden xylophones of different lengths. The kolintang is played during religious ceremonies and rituals and is associated with philosophical, ethical and aesthetic values that establish ties between people of different backgrounds and with nature.
Gamelan is the traditional ensemble music made up predominantly of percussive instruments. The most common instruments used are metallophones (played with mallets) and a set of hand-drums called kendang, which keep the beat. Other notable instruments include xylophones, bamboo flutes, a bowed string instrument called a rebab, and a zither-like instrument called a siter. Additionally, vocalists may be featured, being referred to as sindhen for females or gerong for males.
Jamu wellness culture is a form of herbal medicine and treatment that has been practised in Indonesia since the eighth century. It is based on the belief of curing hot diseases with medicines of a cold nature, and cold diseases with medicines of a hot nature, with a healthy condition being a balance between hot and cold elements in the body. The colours and shapes of plants are also associated with the colours and shapes of the organs whose health they promote. Jamu aims to increase immunity and maintain health. Most Jamu makers are adult women. The medicine is prepared using herbs and spices often planted by Jamu makers themselves, who then concoct recipes tailored to each customer’s age, lifestyle, and health concerns.
Noken multifunctional knotted or woven bag, a handcraft of the people of Papua
Pantun is handmade from wood fibre or leaves. Men and women use it for carrying plantation produce, catch from the sea or lake, firewood, babies or small animals as well as for shopping and for storing things in the home. The process requires great manual skill, care and artistic sense, and takes several months to master.
Pinisi, the art of boatbuilding in South Sulawesi, is a type of rigging with seven to eight sails on two masts, and the sails are ‘pulled out’ like curtains along the gaffs which are fixed at around the centre of the masts. It does not describe the shape of the hull of a vessel that uses such sails.
Reog Ponorogo performing art is a centuries-old theatrical dance performed during disaster aversion ceremonies, village cleansing events, weddings, Islamic and national holidays, circumcisions, thanksgiving ceremonies, public festivities, and when welcoming guests. Dancers dress as kings, war commanders, knights and horse-mounted warriors to narrate the story of the Bantarangin Kingdom and its king. Reog is characterized by the Dadak Merak, a large mask resembling a tiger’s head with a peacock perched on top.
Saman dance (the dance of a thousand hands) is usually performed to celebrate important occasions. The dance is characterized by its fast-paced rhythm and common harmony between dancers. It is relatively easy to learn.
Three genres of traditional dance in Bali
Traditions of Pencak Silat
Wayang puppet theatre refers both to the show as a whole and the puppet in particular. Performances are accompanied by a gamelan orchestra. The dramatic stories depict mythologies, such as episodes from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, as well as local adaptations of cultural legends. Traditionally, a wayang is played out in a ritualized midnight-to-dawn show by a dalang, an artist and spiritual leader; people watch the show from both sides of the screen.
Kebaya: knowledge, skills, traditions and practices is an upper garment opened at the front that is traditionally made from lightweight fabrics such as brocade, cotton, gauze, lace, or voile and sometimes adorned with embroidery. The front is secured with either buttons, pins, or brooches. The lower garment for the outfit is known as a sarong, a long piece of cloth wrapped and tucked around the waist or under the armpits, either made out of batik, ikat, songket or tenun.
Batik is hand-dyed cotton and silk garments known as Indonesian Batik permeate the lives of Indonesians from beginning to end: infants are carried in batik slings decorated with symbols designed to bring the child luck, and the dead are shrouded in funerary batik. Clothes with everyday designs are worn regularly in business and academic settings, while special varieties are incorporated into celebrations of marriage and pregnancy and into puppet theatre and other art forms. The garments even play the central role in certain rituals, such as the ceremonial casting of royal batik into a volcano. Batik is dyed by proud craftspeople who draw designs on fabric using dots and lines of hot wax, which resists vegetable and other dyes and therefore allows the artisan to colour selectively by soaking the cloth in one colour, removing the wax with boiling water and repeating if multiple colours are desired. The wide diversity of patterns reflects a variety of influences, ranging from Arabic calligraphy, European bouquets and Chinese phoenixes to Japanese cherry blossoms and Indian or Persian peacocks. Often handed down within families for generations, the craft of batik is intertwined with the cultural identity of the Indonesian people and, through the symbolic meanings of its colours and designs, expresses their creativity and spirituality.
Angklund is a musical instrument that is made of a varying number of bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. The tubes are carved to produce a resonant pitch when struck and are tuned to octaves, The base of the frame is held in one hand, while the other hand shakes the instrument, causing a repeating note to sound. Each performer in an angklung ensemble is typically responsible for just one pitch, sounding their individual angklung at the appropriate times to produce complete melodies.
Kris is a Javanese asymmetrical dagger with a distinctive blade-patterning achieved through alternating laminations of iron and nickelous iron. The kris is famous for its distinctive wavy blade, and is one of the weapons commonly used in the pencak silat martial art. The kris itself is considered as a cultural symbol of Indonesia.
Pantun is a form of Malay verse used to express intricate ideas and emotions. Pantun has a clear a-b-a-b rhyme scheme and may be transmitted in music, song and writing. Seventy per cent of verses are devoted to expressing love of a romantic partner, family, the community, and the natural world. Pantun offers a socially acceptable way to express oneself indirectly in a polite way.
Three genres of traditional dance in Bali: sacred, semi-sacred and those meant for enjoyment by communities at large. Traditional Balinese dances are performed by male and female dancers dressed in traditional costumes consisting of brightly coloured cloth painted with gold floral and faunal motifs, with gold-leafed and jewelled accessories. The dances are inspired by nature and symbolize particular traditions, customs and religious values. They combine a variety of different movements including a basic posture with the knees outward and the stomach held in, locomotive movements in different tempos and directions, transitional movements with dynamic changes, and facial expressions with eye movements revealing happiness, sadness, anger, fear and love – all accompanied by the music of the gamelan. In addition to being technically-skilled dancers, performers must have charisma, humility and discipline and a special spiritual energy that enlivens the performance.
Traditions of Pencak Silat. In addition to their sporting element, Traditions of Pencak Silat also encompass mental-spiritual, self-defence and artistic aspects. It is a group of martial arts with many similarities: costumes, musical instruments, and traditional weapons.

admin

I would like to think of myself as a full time traveler. I have been retired since 2006 and in that time have traveled every winter for four to seven months. The months that I am "home", are often also spent on the road, hiking or kayaking. I hope to present a website that describes my travel along with my hiking and sea kayaking experiences.