Traveljunkieindonesia.com – Found the meaning of life yet? One for the travel junkies, this 2700 – oddkilometre route takes in the Orangutans of magical Tanjung Puting National Park and the Dayaks of Kalimantan’s interior, before skipping over to Sulawesi for Toraja funeral ceremonies, river rapids, mountain treks and marine life.
Traveljunkieindonesia.com – Helsinki Beyond Dreams is a book about new urban culture and how it can make a difference.
Helsinki Beyond Dreams explores new perspectives on a city in transition. The Finnish capital of Helsinki, recently cited as the world’s most livable city, is bubbling with new ideas and creative endeavors.
Helsinki 2012 (Image courtesy of visit Finland)
Traveljunkieindonesia.com – Living for the city. Great cities adapt and change like their residents. The process of finding a favorite has been a global undertaking that confirmed and renewed our love of exciting urban centres. The following make up TJI’s top 10.
Geisha (Image courtesy of visit Japan)
Traveljunkieindonesia.com – Japan and the Japanese are famed for their intricate social codes of conduct. First time visitors can come unstuck before they’ve even left the airport. It can seem intimidating but fear not, the Japanese, as well as being incredibly ceremonial, are also the politest people in the world and you will never be barked at for “not understanding”. That said, a few basic rules of etiquette will come in handy and a small gesture of understanding local custom goes a very long way.
These are 10 basic Japanese customs to get you started. One thing to always bear in mind if you’re baffled – if you take a step back, watch what everyone else is doing and gently follow suit, you’ll never go too wrong.
Mount Fuji (Image courtesy of visit Japan)
Traveljunkieindonesia.com – Japan is rock! Traveling in Japan, whether for business or leisure, is always a pleasure and it’s hard to do even the simplest of tasks or trips without being charmed in some way. Over the course of putting our guide together, TJI kept track of the details and idiosyncracies that make Japan so special.
TJI confident you’ll come across a million of your own but here are 50 things to spot, sample and savour along the way.
Traveljunkieindonesia.com – Japan. It’s like a dream. From the rocky wilds of Hokkaido to the sandy beaches of Okinawa and all the buzzing cities in between, these are some of the places TJI visited on our travels around the diverse and fascinating islands of Japan.
Drama TV original soundtrack of Japan (Ordinary People, Tokyo Love Story, Love Generation, First Love, Beach, and many more) became our theme songs for this trip.
Wonderful Baliem Valley (Images courtesy of Diego Vergés)
Traveljunkieindonesia.com – Indonesia is full of things to do for outdoor adventure travelers with mountains, rain forests, coral reefs, beaches and unique wildlife. Being an island there are plenty of water sports including surfing, white water rafting, snorkeling, kayaking, sailing, even diving with whalesharks, and ice climbing.
So, here are top ten adventures in Indonesia – Travel Junkie Indonesia’s selection.
The rocky coast of Komodo Island, Circa 1926
Traveljunkieindonesia.com – The world is getting smaller every year. Komodo dragons were first documented by Europeans in 1910, when rumors of a “land crocodile” reached Lieutenant van Steyn van Hensbroek of the Dutch colonial administration.
Widespread notoriety came after 1912, when Peter Ouwens, the director of the Zoological Museum at Bogor, West Java, published a paper on the topic after receiving a photo and a skin from the lieutenant, as well as two other specimens from a collector.
Traveljunkieindonesia.com – The Tanimbar Islands are part of the Banda Sea Islands moist deciduous forests ecoregion. The Tanimbar Islands, also called Timur Laut, are a group of about 65 islands in the Maluku province of Indonesia, including Fordata, Larat, Maru, Molu, Nuswotar, Selaru, Selu, Seira, Wotap, Wuliaru and Yamdena. The Indonesian phrase timur laut means ‘eastern sea’.
It is hard to reconstruct much of Tanimbarese history due to the lack of indigenous records before the twentieth century. Although the islands were claimed by the Dutch in the mid 1600s, Dutch presence in the islands was limited until the early 20th Century.
Traveljunkieindonesia.com – TJI visit to Komodo National Park this time was not in purpose. Blowing only 5 hours to explore this national park was definitely unsatisfactory, according to me. Yet, what else I could have done, my friend from Sweden would be going back to her country the next day.
After I arrived in Labuan Bajo, I directly run off the short itinerary that we had made before in Bali and used the 5 hours available even better to enjoy this coolest national park ever exist in Earth.
Mawan Beach (Image courtesy of Nungki Nugroho)
Traveljunkieindonesia.com – I love Lombok! I brought my friends and the tandem bike to south Lombok from Senggigi – with its amazing, sweeping, postcard-perfect views of Rinjani mountain, magical rice fields and exotic villages. Tropical Loveland by ABBA became our theme songs for this trip.
South Lombok is blessed with the island’s best beaches, from dramatic cliff-backed coves to oceanic expanses that catch world-class waves.
Surfers are drawn here by the world-class waves, but the village has a languid charm of its own with some delightful hotels and a succession of dramatic bite-shaped bays nearby.
Traveljunkieindonesia.com – Bali may be small in size – you can drive around the entire coast in one long day – but its prominence as a destination is huge, and rightfully so. Most places regularly visited in West Bali, like sangeh or Tanah Lot.
I brought my friends and the tandem bike to Pura Tanah Lot. Balawan Album became our theme songs for this trip.