Flights in Indonesia are straight from the worst nightmare

Waiting at the airport

When i created an itinerary to visit 6 regions in Indonesia in October 2015, little did i know of its reputation as the “worst place to fly” on earth. Just last year, The Telegraph published an article explicitly illustrating the dangers of flying in Indonesia, a country which has seen at least 40 air crashes in the past 15 years, highest for any single country. Continue reading

Extraordinary tropical sunsets of Bali

Bali

If you’re a meticulous planner like me, you’ll know what a nightmare, an unplanned trip can be. That’s exactly how we ended up visiting Bali.

Ever changed your itinerary after landing in a foreign country?

Without any idea to where to stay, what to do, see or eat or how much will it cost, but  convinced about visiting that unplanned destination? If you’re a meticulous planner like me, you’ll know what a nightmare it is. But that’s exactly how we ended up visiting Bali. Continue reading

3 days in Ketambe: where to go, what to do and what to eat

Click to enlarge.

West of Sumatra Island is vastly known for two reasons- palm plantations and orang-utans. If Sumatra and seeing orangutans in the wild is on your wishlist, then I’d say head to Ketambe. It is often a battle between Bukit Lawang and Ketambe for orangutan spotting; the difference is that the former is more organized and orangutans are often tamed/bred there. Ketambe on the other hand is wilder. Continue reading

Raja Ampat for non-divers

Photograph by Abhinash Jena. Click to enlarge.

After days of research for our upcoming trip to Indonesia, I had almost given up. Raja Ampat looked like a diver’s paradise because I couldn’t see much else than pictures of colorful fishes and corals. Raja Ampat is a life-changing experience in more ways than one. Excellent diving spots and beaches aside, it has many small islands that are inhabited by natives living in small villages. Most of them live without modern-day distractions like cell phones and iPods but they are ever so happy and content. Every year thousands of people from all over the world arrived here to see the diversity under the sea; what were non-divers like me, who had only snorkeled twice in much friendlier waters of Thailand before, to do there? It looked rather expensive too. Continue reading