The sun is shining, the weekend ahead. What better way to spend free time that the course away from the stress of urban living by catching some rays on the beach or cooling on a mountain slope?
The people of Jakarta are spoiled for choice when it comes weekend. There are beaches, nature, indigenous tribes, volcanoes and all close enough history.
Anak Krakatau by Angela Richardson
It must be great to wake up one morning and decides yep, I really need a beach and decides to leave Anyer and Carita on the west coast of Banten province. Feeling the sand between your toes, watching the sunset is definitely one of the advantages of living in Southeast Asia. What makes this more special fishing villages is to know that just on the horizon looms the mean and moody Krakatau.
For the installer, it is a journey into the Baduy home country in Labak in the foothills of Gunung Halimun. They can no longer be isolated tribe they were ten years ago. A growing number of visitors came and left their mark on the Baduy people with increasing signs of modernization in the more accessible villages.
They are still far from becoming a good human zoo. It is possible, with a guide, trekking in some of the villages and attend a life clinging to its old habits. Young barefoot scamper up and down steep slopes with agility and confidence of a mountain goat anything up to a dozen durians across their shoulder carrying.
For the most part, they carry on their lives by taking little interest to visitors who come, take pictures, buy the obligatory shirt before leaving if increasingly opting to spend the night in a rustic, austere villages that allow clients.
Of course Pulau Dua with its numerous feathered creatures, civets and various reptiles is no match for Ujong Kulon claiming the Javan rhino among its residents. Not many of them, of course, and chances are they will not show as easy, but the greatest chance of seeing it ensures a steady stream of visitors to the remote peninsula.
Yeah, lots of things to see and do right at the door of Jakarta.
The problem is that while the Indonesian economy was chugging along very well thank you, investment in infrastructure has failed to keep pace. Foreign investors have long complained bottlenecks at ports and airports. And if Jakarta, the capital, has been struggling to cope while the price the rest of the country pay?
Banten province, home to Surkano Hatta, is strategically located between Jakarta and the neighboring island of Sumatra. The infrastructure connecting the two if the struggles to cope. New delays in the port of Merak on the Sunda Strait are a regular event. The toll road that feeds traffic to the second most populated island of the country is filled with buses and trucks, turning him into a crazy race to the next exit.
In this context, it is small wonder Jakartans look elsewhere for their rest and relaxation. Since the deregulation of the airline industry in Indonesia and the introduction of budget airlines fortunately those looking to get out of town are faced with more and more options.
Bali is of course an obvious choice. Two hours from the airport and you can be driving through sawah photogenic. Two hours outside Jakarta and you're always stuck behind a truck belching noxious black smoke.
peopleBudget airlines are closer to the region as well. direct connecting flights to destinations such as the beaches of Phuket, the history of Penang, Kota Kinabalu mountain and even Ho Chi Minh City.
There are no expatriates, of course. Indonesians are increasingly looking at foreign travel and they are not interested in all the malls and buy fridge magnets.
Why not? For all its faults, the Jakarta airport works well enough and why stay stuck in traffic for hours just to go a few hundred miles when, at the same time, you might be showered and refreshed in another country to enjoy your downtime.
There are large billboards urging people to visit Banten and its attractions and it is quite easy there to keep people occupied for days. Unfortunately, infrastructure, or absence, made many people think twice and it's a shame.
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