John Boyd Macdonald
John Boyd Macdonald
I’ve previously written about the beauty and tourist attractions of Pantai Ngandong, located on the south coast of Central Java, in the Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta (the ‘Special Region of Yogyakarta). But besides tourism there is also an active fishing industry in…
The little seaside village at Pantai Ngandong sits snugly in the limestone karst landscape of Central Java. It’s actually located within the ‘Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta’ (the Special Region of Yogyakarta), but it’s over two hours’ drive southeast from the city…
To the foreign observer, the Indonesian attitude to drug use may appear to be, well… inconsistent. On the one hand, according to the World Health Organisation, there are 95 million ‘active’ tobacco smokers in Indonesia. Indonesian cigarettes are the cheapest…
Indonesia has a sweet tooth. Syrupy snacks and cakes are hugely popular, and it can be challenging to order a cup of tea or coffee without it being liberally dosed with sugar. I’ve been asked, somewhat incredulously: “Apakah Anda benar…
The Mahakam River runs right across the province of Kalimantan Timur, from the Muller Mountains of Central Borneo to the east coast, downstream of Samarinda. At 980km, it’s the second longest river in Indonesia (after the Kapuas in Kalimantan Barat).…
Two of the large and rather imposing trees in the Tane’ Olen forest upriver of Setulang, North Kalimantan, Indonesia. One (and possibly both) of them is a Yellow Meranti (Shorea faguetiana). They grow TALL – the biggest recorded one is…
There are about 15,000 species of flowering plants on the island of Borneo, around 5,000 of which are endemic (i.e. they aren’t found anywhere else in the world). And amongst that number are known to be at least 1,700 varieties of…
If you take a short cut through the forest, it’s only about 500 metres’ walk from the Visitor Centre at the Kebun Raya Balikpapan to the Orchid House (Rumah Anggrek). But this morning it took me nearly an hour. There…