Travel: Planning Two Weeks in Indonesia

Indonesia has been number one on my bucket list for as long as I can remember.  I’ve had the guide book since I asked for it for Christmas in 2010 but somehow it’s never worked out until now.  Andrew and I considered it for the honeymoon but decided we wanted to go for a safari (largely because it was more expensive and therefore more justifiable for such an important trip!).  So we planned it for this year instead.

Booking our flights

We booked our flights well in advance because I had some air miles I wanted to use up before they expired.  But after that we didn’t really think about what we wanted to do until March.  We popped into Trailfinders to see what they could recommend, but (in contrast to how they helped us on our honeymoon) I wasn’t impressed with what they said.  So we only ended up booking a small part of the holiday with them.

Sumatra or Java?

Andrew and I both love animals so our initial thought was to go to Sumatra to see the orangutans and visit an elephant sanctuary.  However, once we looked into this a bit more, we realised that the practices surrounding these so-called sanctuaries didn’t seem to have the animals’ best interests at heart.

So on we looked at Central Java.  This is the bit that we booked with Trailfinders.  We fly into Jakarta and are then transferring straight onto Yogyakarta where we start a six day tour around Borobudur, the Dieng volcanic Plateau, Ambarawa and around a coffee plantation.

We’ve got 6 days with a private driver and I can’t wait.

Bali

Before I properly looked into Indonesia, I had a vision that Bali was a tropical vision of white sand and turquoise, crystal clear waters.  However, I soon realised that this wasn’t actually the case!  A lot of the beaches there are reported as being really dirty and I’ve also heard that places like Kuta are the equivalent of Magaluf for Aussies, complete with strip of bars.  Not what Andrew and I were looking for.

The one place that did get consistently amazing reviews was Ubud – dubbed the cultural heart of Bali.  We’ve booked three nights here in a guesthouse and got a fair list of things to do, including a cooking class, the Sacred Monkey Temple and cycling around some rice paddies.

Nusa Lembongan

So where did we decide to go for our beach action?  We did A LOT of research into this and ended up booking a tiny island between Bali and Lombok called Nusa Lembongan.  It is meant to have the beautiful beaches not necessarily found in Bali and looks like the perfect place for us to just kick back and relax.

We’ve got nothing planned here apart from eating, drinking, reading our books, sitting on the beach and maybe dipping our toes in the ocean to go snorkelling.

And that’s it – what we’ve got planned for our two weeks in Indonesia.

Have you ever been to Indonesia?

♥ JH

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