INDONESIA Java (1) – TRAVICARIOUS

March 23 to April 9, 2026

Gate1 Travel with Tom from San Francisco

4 planes/5 airports there (40 hours) ; 2 domestic flights; 4 planes/5 airports back (35 hours) all the while avoiding flying over the war in the Middle East. (we flew up and over close to the Artic Circle)

DAB to Charlotte, NC, to Chicago (for 11 hours); to Norita, Japan to Jakarta, Indonesia. Then Bali to Hong Kong to Toronto (6 hours) to Charlotte to DAB. (WHEW!!)

There are 17,300 islands making up Indonesia. This seems impossible. But they count a bit of sand with one palm tree growing on it as one of the islands. So most of the islands are uninhabited and there are only five huge islands that have people on them. We visited two of them — Java and Bali.

The majority of people who live in Java are Muslim and the people who live in Bali are Hindu.

Oh. May I start out with how I left my own backyard. This is a six and a half foot alligator that lives in our tiny pond and decided to come to our side and park himself on my neighbor’s property. I am not pleased. If he continues to do so, I’m calling the authorities. Dad says I’m an old lady.

My 40-hours flight schedule started at 2:00 PM on a Monday and ended at 1:00 a.m. Thursday. Man! What a way to spend three days!! And it really messes up your pill taking because you never know what time your body thinks it is.

It also included an 11-hour layover in Chicago with the temperature of 34°. Thank goodness I never had to go outside. I left Florida from 80° weather to Jakarta, Indonesia with 90° weather; but flew through Chicago. Bizarre.

While I was in the Charlotte Airport I booked a hotel room in the O’Hare Hilton for $350. So my room was waiting for me at 1:00 a.m. When I arrived and I was gone before checkout time. Even though I did not have access to my suitcase, I was able to take a shower and get six lovely hours of sleep before heading back to TSA to catch my flight. Was a godsend and worth every penny.

This is what sunrise looks like at 34°. I was excited to see the Japan Airline plane waiting for me that morning.

I was originally supposed to fly through Doha, Qatar, but I changed my flights and ended up going west instead of East, Chicago to Narita airport in Japan.

Oh yeah. These photos remind me that I was in a window seat for 15 hours (UGH!!) . Because my flight got changed just weeks before my trip, I was happy to settle for anything. Needing to go to the bathroom while your two partners sleep is not a happy thing.

I did get some very interesting photos of what the world looks like from Chicago to Japan. I was very shocked to see the snow and then the snowy mountains as we flew all across Alaska.

I arrived at my first 5-star hotel an entire day early and thoroughly enjoyed it. I met my travel guide, Eka. She is in her 40s and has a 15 year old daughter. She walked me to an ATM machine not because it was dangerous for crime but because the sidewalks are sometimes non-existent and traffic is dangerous.

These ATMs either gives large bills or small so I was so happy to get $100 worth of 50,000 bills (worth three dollars and 75 cents US). It’s a perfect amount for tips to hotel maids.

You know you’re in a Muslim country when you hear this at Daybreak. It is the call to prayer to remind Muslims to do their first of five prayers during the day. It should also be done toward Mecca which is found in Saudi Arabia. Depending on which country you’re in, you face different directions. Because Indonesia is in the southern hemisphere you face North and possibly West.

Every place I’ve traveled since 2019 seems to have a myriad of cables and electric wires through their cities. It’s what modern times and TVs and Wi-Fi does to a city.

This is the presidential Palace and a close-up of guards that are standing there. Also gives you an idea of what the roads of the city look like. Saw these motorcycles and remembered I had just left Daytona Beach and the 500,000 motorcyclists of bike Week for fun. These motorcycles are for people’s family transportation. They are often called scooters and they are everywhere.

This shows police presence but is probably just because some bigwig was coming to town. And this is Murdeka Square housing the National Monument. Their day of independence is August 17th 1945. However according to the Dutch, the date was 1949. But in their eyes they didn’t call it Independence until all of their Dutch people had left the country in 1949.

Here is a picture of their president whom always looks very angry.

The national museum was very interesting. It had its boring archaeological artifacts as any other City. However they also had the anthropological artifacts housing the first homo erectus man discovered in Indonesia. And I always love touching stuff.

Very cool.

This is a model of the first Homo erectus but I’m not sure if it’s a man or a woman.

Can you tell I love the god statue of Ganesh, the elephant God. He is the god that removes obstacles.

Also the second tall statue was buried in the ground and only it’s lower thigh and knee stuck out. The local people used it to sharpen their swords and knives before they uncovered the entire statue and realized they were using it’s as a sharpener. Too weird.

This country is quite intent on getting their ancient artifacts back from countries that have taken them. U.S. has returned several of them also.

They had a lot of gold jewelry and this is the dress of the male and female elite.

In the museum, here was a room of just books. Here’s the biggest one in the room and the tiniest. And one very dog-eared.

Interesting caricatures of their leaders, along with their head pieces.

There is a section of Jakarta called Kota Tua, the Old Town area that is tucked away from the hustle and bustle ofthe modern capital. It was left by the Dutch settlers and called Batavia. It was in disarray until recent years when the city revamped it into a shopping mall. I thought the bikes were very cute. That poor tree has been hacked to its core and yet it continues to live. Impressive.

And I always love to see what’s for sale on the street – fruit, eggs and bouncy houses for the children.

We had a puppet show of puppets they make from animal skins, sanded down to make it thinner, then punched out with awls into beautiful people and scenery. Many things to buy and a very cute puppet show behind a sheet in silhouette.

Goodbye to Jakarta and hello to the Surakarta, the traditional capital of the old Japanese kingdom. We flew Garuda Airlines which is a local Indonesian Airline and got a bun filled with meat.

We visited the Danar Hadi museum in Lawean Village containing the world’s finest batik textiles both antique and current royal textiles from Java, China and beyond. These were the tools used in making the batiks along with the wooden carved stamps to make the print of the batik textiles.

We were lucky to have the carriage building open to us while we were there. So interesting to see the vehicles royals use. And this girl had worked for this Palace for 16 years. The workers are all dressed very well and their hair is all put together very nicely. We met two women that were coming out of there homes and going somewhere that were also very well dressed because they were Royals.

It was supposed to rain every day while we were in Indonesia but luckily we only had to deal with it twice during our trip. We were at the ornate Mankinagaran Palace set within Lush Gardens and sparkling fountains founded by a dissident Prince who in the 18th century was awarded a portion of the king’s fiefdom to ensure he remained loyal. This is a painting of the current 28-year-old prince. Hmm. I wonder why he is not married.

I just love this picture of this beautiful Indonesian woman running in the rain.

There’s a picture of a calendar because I thought it was a very strange way to depict a weekly calendar.

We went to an area of the city to learn how they make Batik artwork. The little pot was filled with melted wax and you had a little cup-like thing with a spout that you would drizzle hot wax onto a white piece of cotton that hardened and then we painted different sections of the cloth with different colors.

We cheated because the wax design had to be put on the opposite side of the cloth also and again painted. We did not have the time so we left our top design and the people who worked in that little Factory did the back for us and filled in the background color and sewed the hem. Two days later they all arrived very nicely folded at our hotel room.

I took this picture because it was like Mount Fuji. If you saw it you’re extremely lucky and if you didn’t take a picture of it you may never see it again during your trip. Very excited to see this volcano. Most the time they would point at it, tell you it was there, and all you’d see is clouds.

This was very interesting and I didn’t know it was happening when I was in the middle of it. We went down to dinner at our leisure to a wonderful buffet and hung out there past 7:30. The waiters came to tell us that the lights were going to go very dim but we did not have to leave.

Once we did leave dinner, there was a big flutter of people in the lobby and workers helping us be able to see where we were going getting to the elevator.

Later in my room I found this placard. It was an earth hour that happened to be going on that very day, as in homage to saving utilities for Mother Earth. I guess it was like how we used to celebrate Earth Day on April 22.

Our hotel was a five star and simply luxuriant. And the breakfast buffets are just table after table of any kind of food you could want. Picture was just a small section of the eggs and bread. They usually had chinese food, Indonesian food, some Mexican food with guacamole and then the American fare where they would make you fried eggs or omelets, etc. It had a noodle bar; turned out to be the vegetables you pick out, put in a bowl and then hot broth poured on it — so it was actually soup.

I tried to get a myriad of photos of the smaller towns of Indonesia. Most the fields are of rice and they are hand planted and hand harvested. But they also hand grow corn, tomatoes bananas and papaya.

Interesting to see how they build buildings with bamboo instead of 2×4 lumber.

This is a Kemuning Tea Plantation. All tea , green tea, black tea, oolong tea, is from the same plant. Just depends on when you pick it in it’s growing season and if you oxidize it.

And this was the beginning of constant picture taking of the quintets from Bulgaria. They live in Chicago and they’re all friends but they have very heavy Bulgarian accents and speak Bulgarian between themselves. There was a Bulgarian man with them who is a professional chef. And often declined getting his picture taken though.

Yes I’m wearing a hat because it was constantly listed on our things to bring list, along with sunscreen and bug spray. But I finally figured out I never wear a hat at my house so why would I wear a stupid looking hat anywhere else.

I have seen this sausage tree in other countries and think it is just crazy.

Yep. I can’t seem to get away from terrifying hairpin turns on my trips. Glad I don’t have mountains where I live.

This is a typical way for families to get around.

This is the Parang Ljo waterfalls surrounded by colorful flowers and ferns.

Eka is one of the best tour guides I’ve ever had. She is organized, thoughtful, very forthcoming with her personal life matters and always happy and laughing.

I am getting very jaded in my travels. So this waterfall was a piddly little stream compared to the Iguassu falls in Brazil or some of the waterfalls in Iceland. It was still a beautiful walk up the mountain.

This is the 15th century Sukuh temple (Candi Sukuh) on Mount Lawu and shaped like an ancient pyramid. Is called an erotic Temple and it is thought that a fertility cult once dwelled here. I don’t know why we had to wear those silly checkered skirts.

I had fun climbing to the top and looking out from above.

I’m not sure if Tom was trying to commit suicide down below or what.

Ah the Bulgarian group again..

I love this picture that I caught of the photographer doing what he could to get a good shot.

A good depiction of what the rice feels look like at different times of the year. Planting their flooded with water but then they drain the water off and let the plants grow and then people get in there and just pull up the plants by hand and process them