Travel Indonesia

To say we anticipated any of these passionate emotions would be a lie but we were looking for adventure and adventure is what we found.

Our journey started on the island of Java, it is the fourth largest country in the world and is home to more than 195 million people. Mainly Muslims - with substantial Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities.

Java is "undoubtedly the most fertile, the most productive and the most populous island within the tropics" declared the famous 19th century British naturalist Alfred Wallace. From the air the island of Java is stunningly beautiful, a green patchwork quilt of lush terraced green rice fields, verdant forests and coffee and tea plantations, fill the valleys and splurge up the mountain slopes. Grand volcanic cones breathe wisps of smoke, and picturesque villages peek among the green.

A visit to Jakarta is a must when coming to Indonesia. It is the capital and if you are into big cities with even bigger attitudes this is a place for you. Just be warned the traffic jams, are so solid here, for many, they've become home. Once, in one of these jams on the way from the airport, we encountered the president. It's surprising how unimportant we all look in congestion, and yet he presides over one of the largest countries on Earth.

Indonesia has the world's fourth largest population and is as wide as the Atlantic. At any given time, it has a couple of miniature civil wars bubbling away at either end and its economy, which does not seem to be looking rosy in the media, however it appears to be bulging out of its seams on the ground, with more and more skyscrapers coming out of the earth in the capital.

It is important to stress that a lifetime would not be sufficient even to scratch the surface of Indonesia. Our favourite place has always been the Gili Islands - a world away from the clamour of Jakarta or the tourist trap of Kuta Beach in Bali, although they both add to the diversity of an extraordinary country filled with amazing people.

There is so much more to Indonesia than Java, Bali, and Lombok. There's Sumatra, Kalimantan, and 17,000 other islands to explore. The beauty and resources of Indonesia are plentiful. They just have to be developed and harvested so many can enjoy their wealth and not just a select few.

By land mass size, Java is the world's 13th largest island,and fifth largest Indonesian Island. It was formed mainly by volcanic eruptions and has an east-west chain of them along the island. Java is split into four provinces.East Java, Central Java, West Java, and Banten. Javanese and Indonesian are spoken there.

The Indonesian Constitution guarantees freedom of religionbut thegovernment only recognizes six official religions (Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism).On the island of Java, morethan 90 per cent of the people are Muslims, on a broad continuum betweenabangan(more traditional) andsantri(more modernist).Some parts ofsouth-central Java are strongly Roman CatholicandBuddhist communities exist in Java's major cities.

During the colonial periods of the 17th century, the Dutch introduced the cultivation of commercial plants in Java,includingsugarcane, rubber, tea and coffee.In the 19th and early 20th century, Javanese coffee gained global popularity.This is in fact why the name "Java" iscommonly consideredbeing synonymous withcoffee.

Leaving the sprawling megalopolis that is Jakarta, with its cheap and prolific taxi service, we headed to the harbour in search of one of the Thousand Islands, a cluster of islands which lie just off the coast. The sprawling city with intermittent skyscrapers whisked past the windows of our air-conditioned cab. Scooters are the best way to get around and as the traffic slowed we sat and watched with a tinge of envy as the scooters zigzagged their way through the gridlock and kept on going.

The harbour loomed ahead, a sprawling theme park with fun activities for every make and model of tourist from young to old. However our intentions were firmly set on an Island adventure and we enthusiastically unloaded our bags from the Taxi and waved him goodbye before being escorted to the tourist information desk where our fate awaited us with a big confused looking smile.