Java was superb!

Despite having done introductory courses in Bahasa Indonesia (ahem) four times over the past 28 years, and having visited numerous other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, I'd never been to Indonesia. In many Australian minds, Indonesia means Bali … and Bali conjures notions of drunken Australians offending locals and being jailed. So Bali had never been on the wish list, and you hear far less about tourism to other parts of the vast archipelago.

So, when Andrew and I saw an ad for a rail and bus tour from one end of Java to the other, we jumped at the opportunity. The tour, run by Railway Adventures, was just over two weeks long and included both well known Javanese places and experiences (Borodudur Temple, volcanoes, Prambanan Temple, puppet workshops, coffee plantations, mosques) and less obvious activities (musical instrument workshops, railway museums, architecture, rural villages and markets). The transport spanned the gamut, from trains (fast, standard and steam) to coaches, mini-buses, becaks (motorbike taxis), jeeps and golf carts, to a ferry.

It was a fabulous introduction to a country I'd long wanted to visit. We'd like to go back to explore some of its other islands one day.