Beyond Bali
Everyone knows about the lush tropical islands of Java and Bali. But here's a secret: Indonesia has 17,000 other islands worthy of your attention.
By Chris Tucker
Catherine Heald has nothing against Bali. In truth, says the chairman and CEO of New York–based tour operator Remote Lands, Bali’s culture is just as mesmerizing as advertised: a unique tropical brew of Hinduism, ornate costume and dance, and a spectacularly lavish habitat.
But Indonesia isn’t just about that tourist mecca — or even the neighboring island of Java and the capital city, Jakarta, with 130 million people and attractions like the Buddhist temples of Borobudur. Why? Because there are plenty of other islands for serious travelers to consider — more than 17,000 of them, in fact (6,000 of which aren’t inhabited).
“Bali is absolutely wonderful, a Shangri-la with some of the best hotels in the world,” says Heald, who, along with partner Jay Tindall, organizes tailor-made trips to some of the planet’s less-discovered places. “But if you want to have remote cultural experiences, you have to go where fewer tourists go. For the real traveler, it’s worth it.”
From big-but-overlooked neighbors like Sulawesi, Kalimantan, and Papua to tinier gems like Lombok and Flores, these Indonesian islands are destinations in their own right. “Most Americans think only of Bali,” says Laura Kidder, editorial director for Fodor’s Travel Publications in New York. “But for Australians and more intrepid travelers, this is almost like their Caribbean, because each of these islands has a little something different to offer.”
To be sure, island-hopping through Indonesia isn’t as simple as skipping through Hawaii, from Oahu to Maui and back.
For travelers looking for experiences beyond the usual, Indonesia’s islands represent a virtual buffet of Southeast Asian culture. “Indonesia is all about variety,” explains Tindall, who has traveled to Papua and also spent time with Indonesian tribes, whose customs have remained unchanged for thousands of years. Accommodations on the islands can range from simple losmans, or backpacker guesthouses, to high-end resorts. “There’s the luxury of Bali; the remoteness of Nias, off the coast of Sumatra; and islands that combine ruggedness and luxury in one place,” says Tindall. As such, for your island-hopping pleasure, here are a few remote jewels to consider.
Island: Lombok
Only a stone’s throw from Bali is Lombok. It’s the next island in the eastern Nusa Tenggara chain, and it has the advantage of being less developed while still being able to offer a decent infrastructure for visitors to get around.
“It’s not just for backpackers anymore,” notes Kidder. “There’s still some remoteness to it, but now there are luxury hotels as well.” That means that if you’re not up for more rustic Indonesian traditions like the mandi — where you shower by scooping bowlfuls of cool water over yourself — you can check in at a place like the Oberoi Lombok, where prices can stretch to almost $1,000 a night for the opulent Royal Villa Ocean View.
Most visitors to Lombok congregate around the Senggigi area, a coastal sweep north of the biggest city, Mataram. The white-sand beaches, the Rinjani volcano (Indonesia’s third largest), and the indigenous Sasak culture — perhaps best known for its elegantly designed home furnishings — are all natural lures. An added bonus is the island’s relatively small size (it’s slightly more than 40 miles across), which allows you to experience much of what the island has to offer without having to spend most of your vacation worrying about getting from point A to point B.
Air service to Mataram and regular ferries from Bali bring Lombok within easy reach. But to take things an extra step, check out the Gilis, three tiny islands off Lombok’s northwest coast. The stretches of white sand and plentiful coral reefs make Gili Air, Gili Meno, and Gili Trawangan dream spots for snorkelers and scuba divers, and the islands’ beachside bungalows can make for a gorgeous but affordable getaway.
Island: Sulawesi
This spindly-looking island with peninsulas seemingly spinning off in every direction is almost the opposite of compact Lombok. But the island’s far-flung arms have just as much richness to offer, both above and below the sea.
Formerly known as Celebes, Sulawesi is the world’s 11th-largest island, spanning more than 100,000 square miles. Regular air service from Denpasar and Jakarta (courtesy of Indonesian airlines like Garuda) will get you to the capital, Ujung Pandang, or to Manado, at the island’s northern tip, where the Bunaken Marine Park is said to house one of the most biodiverse coral-reef systems in the world, making the area a perennial favorite of scuba divers.
For a cultural experience like no other, there’s the Tana Toraja area — the so-called Land of the Heavenly Kings. These mountainous highlands north of Sulawesi’s capital are home to villages with traditional tongkonan houses, which are elevated and have dramatically curved roofs. Toraja’s local hub is the town of Rantepao, where upgrades to roads and to hotels in recent years have made it more accessible to visitors.
The truly unique cultural attraction, though, is the area’s funeral rites, which are among the most elaborate in the world, with festivities of feasting and dancing that can last more than a week. Ancestors are honored, too, with effigies placed in man-made caves that have been carved into sheer rock faces — these Toraja tombs have long fascinated anthropologists. In short, says Kidder, Sulawesi is perfect for one particular type of traveler: the culture fiend.
Island: Kalimantan
This famed island is known to the West as Borneo. It’s the world’s third-largest island and is actually divided up among Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. The bulk of the 287,000 square miles, though, belongs to the Indonesian side and is called Kalimantan. It’s also home to one of the world’s richest rain forests.
Those best suited for a visit to this island are ecotourists and people who want to experience this incredible biodiversity before it’s destroyed by loggers eager to harvest tropical woods. Kalimantan is less touristy than Malaysian Borneo (or Sarawak), so the traveling can be slower going, but the deep forests and the indigenous Dayak culture — famed for its communal longhouses — can make it well worth the journey. Having some basic ability in Bahasa Indonesia, the Malay-like national language spoken across the country (in addition to the local dialects), can be helpful in getting around.
Some tourists stick to East Kalimantan and its capital, Samarinda, where you can travel up the Mahakam River by longboat. But probably the most celebrated areas are the orangutan preserves started by legendary conservationist Biruté Galdikas, where you can still see the endangered species (whose name means “man of the forest”).
“Visitors to Kalimantan usually go for the orangutans, and you can even stay in guesthouses near the research camps,” says Meinarti Fauzie, a spokeswoman for the Indonesian Consulate in New York. She suggests flying to Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan’s capital, before you make the 120-mile trek to preserves like the 2,500-square-mile Tanjung Puting National Park, where Galdikas’s renowned Camp Leakey is situated.
Islands: Flores, Sumbawa, and Komodo
Keep traveling along the chain that takes you from Bali to Lombok and you’ll arrive at these three neighboring islands. First, you’ll reach Sumbawa, where the remnants of an ancient sultanate, complete with teak-laden royal palaces, make you feel “as if you’ve stepped back in time,” says Fauzie. There’s also the volcanic Mount Tambora, whose eruption in 1815 wiped out the kingdom of the time and is said to have been larger than Krakatoa’s.
Farther along is Flores, an island with a Catholic-influenced culture (thanks to its history as a Portuguese colony) and renowned for its Easter processions, a rarity in Muslim-dominated Indonesia. Combining those traditions with an unspoiled terrain that some liken to the Bali of decades ago, Flores makes for another unique stop on your itinerary.
Perhaps Flores’s most memorable sight is Mount Kelimutu, a volcano in the island’s central Ende region, with its three neighboring lakes that range in color from turquoise to reddish to dark brown. Another lure is the legendary Komodo Island, right on Flores’s doorstep. The Komodo dragons can grow up to 10 feet long, can weigh as much as 200 pounds, and can eat six pounds of meat in a minute, so “you definitely want a guide,” laughs Fodor’s Kidder.
Travelers often opt for cruises that combine visits to all these islands rather than take them on one by one, which is more difficult. Travel in this region can be rustic, but you can recharge at the Amanwana resort on the nearby island of Moyo. The resort is made up of 20 air-conditioned, hardwood-floor tents in the middle of a rain forest; the getaway is part of the Amanresorts chain, so it’s an ultra-luxe wilderness experience. The resort also offers a live-aboard cruise — seven days on a luxury boat that takes you through the local seas.
Island: Papua
Even if you haven’t heard of Papua (which was previously known as Irian Jaya), you may know the area already: It’s actually the western half of Papua New Guinea, the huge island just off the northern tip of Queensland, Australia. And while Papua New Guinea takes better advantage of tourist dollars, Papua offers a more unspoiled look at tribal culture.
“It’s very authentic, and you can still go to places where tourists haven’t been yet,” says Remote Lands’ Tindall. “It’s incredibly different, with people still living Stone Age customs. It’s a very basic traveling experience but very fulfilling.”
Because the island doesn’t have a constant stream of visitors, it’s probably best to go as part of a package set up in partnership with local operators rather than to just show up at the airport in the capital, Jayapura. And you will need a special permit in addition to your general Indonesian visa, Fauzie points out. That can be secured at police stations in jumping-off points like Jakarta and Denpasar as well as in Jayapura itself.
The Baliem area is your likely destination, home to rugged mountains and local tribes whose tools still include stone axes and bows and arrows. But Tindall also suggests places like Raja Ampat, off the island’s northwest coast, which is a diving area so pristine that they’re still discovering new species of fish there. Raves Tindall, “It’s among the best diving in the entire world — and no one knows about it.”