indahnesia.com

The southern edge of Yogya: Rice farmer becomes onion farmer

20 April 2008

YOGYAKARTA - In the soaring heat of the countryside just north of the southern beaches near Yogyakarta I was driving towards the east on a small countryside road. This road is the only way out for the area directly west of the Opak River which causes the area to be fairly quiet until today. There are no main roads here, no buses and trucks but palm trees, open rice fields, parked bicycles and a strait black asphalt road which seems to disintegrate ...

The southern edge of Yogya: The eroded beach of Samas

13 April 2008

YOGYAKARTA - Some days you will most likely not have a full agenda so you can finally do something that has been waiting for some time. Earlier this month I had such a day, I have more than one a month fortunately, but I can not always do what I want because the weather often has to be nice as well. This time it was jack pot; a nice blue sky in the early morning and some small clouds at the time ...

Indonesia; a country without Playboy and porn

28 March 2008

YOGYAKARTA - In between breakfast and lunch yesterday, Indonesian lawmakers gave their support for a law that is officially named 'Electronic Information and Transaction Law'. This indirect anti-porn legislation will be effective two days from now. Because of the quick pace this new monster against (press-)freedom was pushed ahead, there is little attention for it in mainstream Indonesian media. It almost looks like something that happens every day here, but it is completely absurd that a law that has been approved yesterday ...

Queueing up to pay your electricity bill

12 March 2008

YOGYAKARTA - It is nothing more than a monthly returning event if you look at it; paying your electricity bill. Somewhere in the last two days of the month an employee from the Indonesian state-run electricity company PLN (Perusahan Listrik Negara) comes to write down the current meter reading on the card and also enters these numbers in his handheld computer. After that he walks through the garden to the neighbors to continue his way. You would say that most work is done ...

Destruction of Sumatra forests driving global climate change and species extinction

28 February 2008

PEKANBARU - Turning just one Sumatran province's forests and peat swamps into pulpwood and palm oil plantations is generating more annual greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands and rapidly driving the province's elephants into extinction, a new study by WWF and partners has found. The study found that in central Sumatra's Riau Province nearly 10.5 million acres of tropical forests and peat swamp have been cleared in the last 25 years. Forest loss and degradation and peat decomposition and fires are behind average ...

When life is made impossible

04 February 2008

PARANGTRITIS - Together we are sitting below a blue plastic cover that is used as roof for a bed and some personal possessions. That is all that Kudasi has left. Together we look back at the earthquake that struck some one and a half year ago first. It caused the death of several thousand people and tens of thousands ended up in the same situation as he is in now. He was lucky then, in Parangtritis, a village at the southern beach ...

Wilders endangers his fellow countrymen all over the world

22 January 2008

YOGYAKARTA - Many are waiting for the moment - unfortunately a big part of the people is only waiting for it for negative reasons - the short move made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders about the Koran, the holy book for Muslims. He wants to show the world that Islam is a religion of violence and that 'their book' - the Koran indeed - is a source of fascism in the religion. That is the very short story and I'm sure other ...

Indonesian beaches ravaged by 2004 tsunami still eroding

21 January 2008

CORVALLIS (US) - The catastrophic damage of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was mostly done within a few hours, but that was just the beginning of a different process that may take up to a decade or more to complete - the stabilization of new beaches and landforms in areas ravaged by this disaster. In continued studies, researchers at Oregon State University and the U.S. Geological Survey are finding that the beaches may continue to shift and change for several more years, as ...

Wet feet in North Jakarta, 3

14 January 2008

YOGYAKARTA - It didn't get better when I carefully lifted the plastic flap and reached outside with my head. A driver on a motorbike which was in some kind of a hurry could hardly avoid me. In front of us a long row of red lights in the streets. Between the vehicles I could mainly see water and more nearby I heard the water gush out of the draining canal onto the pavement and the street. Ooh well, it must be raining ...

Wet feet in North Jakarta, 2

13 January 2008

YOGYAKARTA - All of a sudden I got a rush that I would be able to find a bajaj - a terrible orange noise factory on three wheels - driver who was to drive me around through these 'floods', the water was less than 30 centimeters high, so it didn't seem that terrible through my untrained eyes. My girlfriend wanted to join me as well, but not directly because she wanted to see it, but mainly because I had a stupid idea ...