edit Indonesia Travel Guide

• Yogyakarta - Java's cultural hub and the access point to the mighty temples of Prambanan and Borobudur
• Bali - A beautiful island with great culture and art.
• Bunaken - One of the best scuba diving destinations in Indonesia, if not the world.
• Mount Bromo - Some of the scariest volcanic scenery on the planet.
• Surfing - From ultra crowded outside of a high class resort to empty and ferral on your own island, Indonesia is a surfer's paridise...

Visa Requirements

Customs and Immigration

By plane

By car

By boat

By train

Economy

Banking

Currency

Indonesia's currency is the rupiah (IDR), abbreviated Rp. As of 2006 you need more than Rp 9,000 to buy one US dollar.

Credit Cards

Be careful when using credit cards, as cloning and fraud are a major problem in Indonesia. Visa and Mastercard are widely accepted, but American Express can be problematic. At smaller operations, surcharges of 2-5% over cash are common.

Tax

Tipping

Shopping

Costs

Living in Indonesia is cheap — as long as you're willing to live like an Indonesian. For example, Rp 10,000 (~$1) will get you a meal on the street, two packets of kretek cigarettes, three kilometers in a taxi or three bottles of water. But as a tourist it's absolutely necessary to chaffer a minimum of 50%-70% off the initial price, otherwise you will spend your money quick.

Fancy restaurants, hotels and the like will often slap on a 10% service charge plus 6-11% tax. This may be denoted with "++" after the price or just written in tiny print on the bottom of the menu.

Holidays and Celebrations

Language

The sole official language is Indonesian, known as Bahasa Indonesia. Written phonetically with the Latin alphabet and with a fairly logical grammar, Indonesian is generally regarded as one of the easiest languages to learn.

Many educated Indonesians understand and are able to speak English. While Indonesian is the lingua franca throughout the archipelago, there are thousands of local languages as well, and if you really get off the beaten track you may have to learn them as well.

Most educated seniors (65 years/older) in Indonesia understand Dutch.

Educated Indonesians who graduated from Islamic Religious Institutes/Islamic Universities understand and are able to speak Arabic.

Types of Restaurants

Types of Food

Etiquette

In Indonesia eating with your hand (instead of utensils like forks and spoons) is very common. The basic idea is to use four fingers to pack a little ball of rice, which can then be dipped into sauces before you pop it in your mouth by pushing it with your thumb. There's one basic rule of etiquette to observe: Use only your right hand, as the left hand is used to clean yourself in the bathroom. Don't stick either hand into communal serving dishes: instead, use the left hand to serve yourself with utensils and then dig in. Needless to say, it's wise to wash your hands well before and after eating.

Eating by hand is frowned on in some "classier" places. If you are provided with cutlery and nobody else around you seems to be doing it, then take the hint.

Drinks

In popular travel destinations like Bali and Jakarta accommodation options run the gamut, from cheap backpacker guesthouses to some of the most opulent five-star hotels and resorts imaginable.

The Darmasiswa Program is a scholarship program funded by the government of Indonesia and open to all foreign students from countries with which Indonesia has friendly relations to study Indonesian languages, arts, music and crafts. Participants can choose to study at any of the state universities and colleges participating in the program. Some foreign students from Australia, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Poland, and Nigeria study Indonesian Language and culture at Universitas Gajah Mada (UGM) in Jogyakarta.

You can find many schools offering curriculum in foreign languages (mostly are, of course, English), one of the most notable of which is Sekolah Pelita Harapan in Jakarta. Some foreign government sponsored schools can also be found in Jakarta, teaching either in English or in their foreign native language. For university education in English, one can consider studying at Swiss-German University, Universitas Pelita Harapan, or President University, all of which are located in Jakarta.

In Indonesia, salaries vary from US$70/month - US$1500/month for the local people. The sales clerks that you see at luxurious shopping malls like Plaza Indonesia earns between US$60 - US$80. This is very small even for the Indonesians. Many adults above 20 stay with their parents to save money. Those who don't stay with their parents and earn less than US$200 usually have a second job.

Expats usually earn higher salaries. An English teacher could make between Rp. 7,500,000 - Rp. 8,000,000 (US$800 - US$850) and that is considered high by the local standard.

Phones

Internet

Alas, Indonesia has been and continues to be wracked by every pestilence known to man: earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, terrorism, civil strife, corruption and crime make the headlines on a depressingly regular basis. However, it is important to retain a sense of proportion and remember Indonesia's vast size: a tsunami in Aceh will not cause the slightest ripple on the beaches of Bali, and street battles in troubled Central Sulawesi are irrelevant in the jungles of Papua.

Crime

The crime rate has increased significantly in recent years, but fortunately it remains mostly non-violent and guns are rare. Robbery, theft and pickpocketing are common in Indonesia, particularly in markets, public transport and pedestrian overpasses. Avoid flashing jewelry, gold watches, MP3 players or large cameras. Thieves have been known to snatch laptops, PDAs and cellphones from Internet hotspot areas.

Crime is rampant on local and long-distance public transport (bus, train, ships). Do not accept drinks from strangers, as they may be laced with drugs. Choose your taxis carefully in cities (hotel taxis are often best), lock doors when inside and avoid using cellular phones, MP3 players, PDAs or laptops at traffic lights or in traffic jams.

Do not place valuable items in checked baggage, as they may be stolen by baggage handlers. Do not leave valuable items in an empty hotel rooms, and use the hotel's safe deposit box instead of the in-room safe.

Do not draw large amounts of cash from banks or ATMs. Guard your belongings carefully and consider carrying a money clip instead of a wallet.

Emergency

Dial 118 for ambulance.

Police

Dial 110.

Fire Department

Dial 113.

Hospitals

The local Indonesian health care system is not up to western standards. While a short term stay in an Indonesian hospital or medical center for simple health problems is probably not markedly different to a western facility, serious and critical medical emergencies will stretch the system to the limit. In fact, many rich Indonesians often choose to travel to neighboring Singapore to receive more serious health care. SOS Indonesia (24-hour emergency line +62-21-7506001) specializes in treating expats and has English staff on duty, but charges are correspondingly high. In any case, travel health insurance that includes medical evacuation back to a home country is highly recommended.

If you need a specific medicine, bring the medicine in its container/bottle, if possible with the doctor's prescription. Indonesian custom inspectors may ask about the medicine. If you need additional medicine in Indonesia, bring the container to a pharmacy (apotek) and if possible mention the active ingredients of the medicine. Drugs are usually manufactured locally under different brand names, but contain the same ingredients. Be careful about the proper dosage of the medicine.

For routine traveller complaints, one can often find medical doctors (dokter) in towns. These small clinics are usually walk-in, although you may face a long wait. Most clinics open in the afternoon (from 4 PM). The emergency room (ER) in hospitals always open (24 hour). There are clinics (poliklinik) in most hospitals (8 AM-4 PM). Advance payment is expected for treatment.

Be warned, though, that the doctors/nurses may not speak English well enough to make an appropriate diagnosis -- be patient and take a good phrasebook or a translator with you. Ask about the name and dosage of the prescription medicine, as doctors over oversubscribe to inflate their own cut, with antibiotics handed out like candy.

Gays and lesbians

Illicit drugs and prostitution

Indonesia has extremely harsh punishments for drug offenses — visitors are greeted with cheery "DEATH TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS" signs at airports and recent cases have seen long jail terms for simple possession — but drugs are still widely available. By far the most common is marijuana (known as gele or cimeng), which is not only sold to tourists but is used as food in some parts of the country, notably Aceh. Magic mushrooms are advertised openly in parts of Bali and Lombok, and hard drugs are common in the Jakarta nightlife scene. Still, it's highly advisable to steer well clear or, at very least, be very discreet as entrapment and drug busts are common and you really, really don't want to get involved with the Indonesian justice system; thanks to the anti-corruption drive, you cannot even count on being able to bribe your way out anymore.

Smoking

Indonesians smoke like chimneys and the concept of "no smoking", much less "second-hand smoke", has yet to make much headway in the country. Normal Western-style cigarettes are known as rokok putih ("white smokes"), but the smoke of choice with a 92% market share is the ubiquitous kretek, a clove-laced cigarette that has become almost a national symbol, and whose scent you will likely first encounter the moment you step out of the plane into the airport. The main brands are Djarum, Gudang Garam, Bentoel and Sampoerna (234), and a pack of decent kretek will cost you on the order of Rp 6000. Note that the cheapest brands don't have filters!

Kretek are lower in nicotine but higher in tar than normal cigarettes. Most studies indicate that the overall health effect is roughly the same, but obviously they're not exactly good for you either and, combined with pollution, go a long way to explain why every other city resident seems to have a persistent cough.

There is a new rule against smoking in public places in Jakarta. The smoker will be fined up to US$ 5000. If you want to smoke, ask other people first: "Boleh merokok?".

By plane

By train

By car

By bus

By thumb