Bali is home to the bulk of Indonesia’s foreign visitors, and is located on one of the over 17,000 islands. Drive some hours in most directions and you’ll discover living funerals, spice islands that once dominated world trade, and reefs sparsely populated with any other boats. These seven are the ones that you can find in the plane for a premium flight.
1. Tana Toraja, Sulawesi
The Toraja people have elaborate multi-day funerals that can take years to fund and organise in the Sulawesi highlands. It is one of the most culturally unique areas in Southeast Asia, featuring buffalo-sacrifice sites, cliff-face burials and soaring tongkonan houses that have been carved. Although visitors are welcome at ceremonies, a local guide and small gift is expected.
2. Flores
These three crater lakes exist side by side and, as mineral chemistry varies, change colour, one after the other: turquoise, black, olive. Inland, the village of Wae Rebo is a three hour hike up hill to a cluster of conical thatched houses in a bowl in the mountains. Flores is mainly a transit point for travelers traveling to Komodo, hence its low traffic volume.
3. Tanjung Puting, Borneo
You sleep on a wooden klotok riverboat and go upstream through Kalimantan peat forest. Camp Leakey and other feeding sites provide first-hand and faithful observations of wild and rehabilitated orangutans. The standard time is 3 days, and proboscis monkeys are free along the riverbanks.
4. Nusas, Maluku
These were the only source of nutmeg in the world for centuries, and European powers waged wars for them. Today there are virtually no divers, volcanic slopes, colonial mansions, and Dutch forts to be found. To get here involves a flight to Ambon and ferry and that’s the friction.
5. Sumba
Southwest of Flores, Sumba is still based on ancestral religion called Marapu and megalithic tombs are found in the villages’ squares. The beaches have no inhabitants and the Pasola festival held every spring has mounted riders throwing wooden spears. Outside of the resorts, there is little infrastructure; hire a driver.
6. Bunaken and Togean Islands, Sulawesi
The vertical coral walls of Bunaken dive into deep blue and are easily accessible within an hour from Manado. Further south at the Togeans, they strive to get there and the rewards are jelly fish lakes and sea nomad villages of the Bajau built on top of the water.
7. The Mentawai Islands are found on Sumatra.
Boat charters are offered from April to October at world-famous surf breaks. Clans do continue tattooing practices and live in longhouses, and there are community based operators that can be found inland, where multi day jungle stays with local families are available.
Making It Work
Allow Buffer Days
Regional flights are cancelled, ferries are parked because of the weather, and one missed connection equals two days. Don’t make an early international flight following an overland journey.
Book Guides Locally
Community operators retain funds in the region and offer access not provided by independent travel. A local intermediary is not an option in Toraja and Mentawai.
Carry Cash
ATMs are not widely available and may be unavailable outside of the main towns. Take the money out to go further in Makassar, Manado or Ambon.
Bring modest clothing that emphasizes modesty.
Most of eastern Indonesia is conservative both Muslim and Christian. Shirt should cover shoulders and knees in villages; always ask permission before taking a photograph of a person or ceremony.
Bali will remain there. The rest of the nation is another journey completely – slower, more difficult to arrange, and remembered for much longer.