Our four islands holiday (4): on to Indonesia
After two days and three nights in Singapore as a stop-over arrangement, it was time move to Indonesia for our main holiday. Our flight from Singapore to Jakarta on Java island was again with Singapore Airlines, this time on an Airbus A350-900 which only took 1 hour 30 mins.
Later we learned that, three weeks previously, the airport at Jakarta was closed for five days due to an eruption by the volcano Anak Krakatau (Child of Krakatau), a descendant of the famous 1883 explosion. So we dodged a bullet – so to speak.
We were met at the airport by out local guide, 60 year old Daniel Sukamto, a Catholic in a nation mostly of Muslims. He was very friendly and helpful but we struggled with his strong accent. Our hotel was the Santika Premiere Slipi. Strangely, we seemed to be accommodated in a hotel where there were very few other guests. Apparently, on weekdays – it was Sunday – it is used by government officials.
Some introductory information on Indonesia …
Historically, the Dutch controlled what is now Indonesia for roughly 350 years and the territory was known as the Dutch East Indies. The country gained its independence from The Netherlands in 1949.
Much of the country’s independence was dominated by two dictators: Sukarno (1901-1970) who was president from 1945-1967 in a model which he called “Guided Democracy” and Suharto (1921-2008) who was president from 1967-1998 in an era he called “New Order”.
Since 2004, the country has been a functioning democracy and the presidency of Joko Widodo (‘Jokowi”) from 2014 to 2024 was particularly important because he was the country’s first president not to emerge from the political or military elite.
Indonesia is huge both in terms of geography and population.
It comprises a mind-boggling 17,000-plus islands spread over almost two million square kilometres (about 735,00 square miles) making it the 14th largest country by area. The country is so extensive that it has three time zones.
Indonesia has an estimated population of 288M – roughly four times that of the UK – who speak over 700 living languages (about 10% of the world’s total). The official language is Indonesian but less than 10% speak this as their first language.
Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world (after India, China and the USA) with the largest Muslim population on the planet (87% of people are Muslim). There are an incredible 1,340 recognised ethnic groups, the largest being Javanese (40%) and Sundanese (15%).
Geologically, Indonesia is stretched along part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Of its many volcanoes, 129 are active. In 2004, an offshore earthquake caused a tsunami which killed over 160,000 Indonesians.
Now a little information on Java …
While Java is not the largest island in Indonesia – that is Sumatra to the north-west – Java is the most populous island in Indonesia and indeed the most populous island on Earth. At some 160M, it has about 56% of the country’s population.