Indonesia is one of the largest island nations on earth, spreading from Irian Jaya in the east, Sumatra in the west, Timor and Roti in the South, and Kalimantan (former Borneo) in the north; these 13 000 islands stretch almost 5 000km. The history, culture and beliefs of these islands could easily warrant about 600 blogs and huge voids would still be evident. I just hope to intrigue those who have never been to Indonesia enough to entice them to visit. Indo is truly one of my favorite places on earth – my opinion may, however, be swayed by the over abundance of world class surf.

The islands of Indonesia are spread over such a large expanse of water, that the histories of each island are very different. This blog is just a brief introduction to the whole island nation and may not necessarily be true to each individual island.

First occupied by the “Java Man”, who migrated to Java, via historical land bridges, almost a million years ago, Indonesia has been explored, exploited and abused. Formerly as a colony of European powers and now under the leadership of some of the most corrupt officials in the world.

At the turn of the century, lured by cargo loads of sandalwood and beeswax, the Chinese landed in Timor in search of resources. They brought with them techniques of irrigated rice production, ritual buffalo sacrifice, bronze casting and the erection of large monument stones. This was the beginning of the influx of foreign nations using Indonesia as a natural resource source.

At the beginning of the 16th century, the attention of the world was shifted to the spice islands of the Moluccas (now called Moluku), and every seafaring European nation was sending ships and navigators to secure, not only cargo loads of spices, but also any piece of land in the name of their relative monarchies. Cloves, nutmeg and mace were once so rare and expensive that they greatly out valued gold. The Portuguese, Dutch and British were the first to square off to spread their influence over the islands. These bloody wars were not limited to killing Europeans but untold numbers of native islanders died as these three nations spared no morality or followed no rules of gentlemanly conduct in their vision of complete domination.

In the end, the Dutch ruled for almost 350 years and Indonesia was raped and pillaged in order to prevent bankruptcy in the Netherlands. They drew huge fortunes from rich fertile soil, producing huge crops of rice, coffee, sugar, tobacco and teak. Before WWII, Indonesia supplied most of the world’s quinine and pepper, over a third of its rubber, a quarter of its coconuts products and almost a fifth of its tea, sugar, coffee and oil. Indonesia made the Netherlands one of the major colonial powers.

The movement towards Indonesian independence was just beginning to gain momentum when WWII broke out. After the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbour, they went on a spree down South-East Asia, finally taking the capital of Indonesia, Batavia, in 1942. They promptly renamed the city Jakarta and set about destroying all signs of European occupation. While keeping the top political positions to themselves, the Japanese trained Indonesians to rule and defend themselves. Therefore, at the end of the war, Indonesian independence was quickly declared before the Dutch could return to the colony. Regional differences in religion, tradition, morals and heritage soon began to affect the newly created Republic of Indonesia. There was no national consensus across the country of the next line of action or the political party who should lead them through this time. Coalition governments failed time and time again.

Out of the ashes of these coalition governments, Soekarno rose to achieve completely domination over the political animal in Indonesia. He dissolved the elected parliament and appointed a new one himself. He continued to live a life of extreme luxury and reign as a dictator over the starving masses until 1968, when his chief military advisor Soeharto was “elected” as president. The story of Soeharto and his rule over Indonesia is very interesting and, if interested, a quick google search brings up more reading material than one thought possible. Long story short, he continued to accumulate as much wealth as possible at the expense of the Indonesian populace. Indonesia still struggles to find complete democracy, but given its tumultuous history and the extreme levels of corruption, this is no wonder.

So why visit Indonesia given all of the above? We were just discussing this in the cockpit of Khulula, and given the fact that all of us have only traveled to Indonesia with the idea of surfing in mind, we realized that none of us had any great views of other activities to complete in Indo. We are aware that there are incredible volcanoes to climb, Komodo dragons, Orangutans, phenomenal scuba diving, huge mosques and temples, etc etc etc… but none of us have any first hand experience with any of it. Again, google is incredible.

So why are we here ? Surf. Indonesia is home to numerous of the world’s best waves. In fact, I don’t think any other country in world has more world class waves than Indonesia. It is the perfect location for me to be able to study the reefs and waves that break along them to further understand the science behind breaking waves. No wave flumes or tanks, just the original best waves in the world. It also just happens that Indonesia has some of worst garbage management issues I have ever seen. On previous trips, I was disgusted by the shear volume of garbage dumped in the sea and the complete lack of care about the state of our oceans. It is going to be a very very interesting stay….