My Travels with Tintin – Indonesia

I have one Tintin album in Indonesian, “Si Kuping Belah” (The Broken Ear). It published in 2008 by Gramedia Pustaka Utama, as part of a full 24-album series released between 2008 and 2009.

My trip to Indonesia:

I’ve only been to Indonesia once, from July 26 to 31, 2016. However, part of me feels like it’s not quite legit because I’ve only been on a vacation to Bali.

If you don’t know, Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world by population – over 280 million, and the largest Muslim country… except Bali is the only Hindu-majority province in Indonesia, with 86.40% of the population adhering to Balinese Hinduism. So… it’s a bit like only visiting Quebec and saying you’ve been to Canada. True… but not… completely true.

Still… Bali.

On the one hand Bali lives up to its billing as a tropical paradise. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been… but on the other hand, everyone knows that too. Right from our arrival at the Denpasar airport to our shuttle bus to our hotel I had a feeling I wasn’t going to enjoy this trip as much as I’d originally hoped. While the weather was superb, and much better than our previous trip to Vietnam, I was a bit dismayed at just how… commercial Bali was. There was something a bit disconcerting about the tropical island paradise acting as a backdrop for “Happy Hour Wings and Beer” and all the Australian Rules Football you could ever want to watch. Given how successful Bali’s been as a tourist destination, I suppose that’s to be expected, but the “boy reporter” in me is always more interested in seeing something interesting and new rather than looking for all the comforts of home while I’m away.

For the most part our trip to Bali was centered around the beach vacation and associated activities. In fact, there’s not much to report from our first day. We played in the ocean and on the beach… we walked down the beach to the Discovery Shopping Mall… had some lunch… bought a kite shaped like a ship… and then flew the kite on the beach. Overall, a very enjoyable and restful day. That evening we walked down the street near our hotel, looking for dinner. Whenever we travelled as a family when my son was quite young, one of the most important things we needed to accomplish on the first day was finding something he’d actually eat. Luckily in Bali the “signature” dish was Nasi Goreng. Often considered Indonesia’s national dish, Nasi Goreng is literally “fried rice”, but with a unique savory-sweet flavor and a distinct dark coloring that comes from the sweet soy sauce, shrimp paste and chili. Simply put, it was delicious!

The next day, July 28, we signed up for an all-in-one package event day. That, in retrospect, was a mistake. Part of the mistake was that when you sign up for a package, the service providers try to cram the minimum amount of activities into the minimum amount of time. We were picked up from the hotel and crammed into a small and cramped mini-bus shuttle. Then we were just dropped off into the middle of a chaotic scene with several Chinese tour buses unloading hundreds of people onto a beach. With no real clarity as to what we were expected to do or where to go, we had to ask questions until we were eventually shuffled off to a guy who ran us through the activities one by one. A tube-ride? Sure. We got on a large inflatable plastic “sausage” and then did two very short laps in the bay behind a boat. We were done in 10 minutes.

Of course that was just the warm up for the “main event” activities, so I was willing to cut them some slack. However, the reef snorkeling activity was even more of a disappointment. You come to Bali and sign up to snorkel with the fish… it creates a picture in your mind’s eye… a nice beach, swim out, see some fish. Instead what we got were leaky masks and snorkels and dropped over the side of a boat and told to swim inside a ring of anchored boats that was no where near the choral reef. I spent more time trying not to get pushed into one of the slimy anchor chains while holding up my wife and son by turns as their masks and snorkels filled with water. There might’ve been fish there, but I didn’t see them.

Next up was a ride in a glass bottom boat on our way to “Turtle Island” Tanjung Benoa – so surely we’d be able to see some fish there, right? Well, I assume the bottom of the boat was glass… but you couldn’t really tell because the area in the middle was full of lifejackets that no one was wearing. When we got to the Turtle “conservation” park we were asked to pay again – obviously this was a separate price we were told – and then we immediately questioned how much conservation was going on. It might have been doing some good work, but with the amount of people paying to handle the animals… well, I have my doubts. Again… a HUGE disappointment.

The next day, we decided to skip any more “activities” and just see some of the sights. It was a bit better, but still, very pushy and commercial. Regardless, we did have a nice trip out to see Mount Agung. It’s the highest point on Bali (reaching an elevation of approximately 3,142 meters), and an active stratovolcano. It was our first time to see a real live volcano, so it was certainly something to see. You can go on hiking trips, but with a seven-year-old in tow we didn’t think it would be a great idea. After seeing the mountain, we stopped by to see the Tegallalang Rice Terraces. Again, it was another beautiful scenic vista that was somewhat lessened by the tourist experience that went with it. On the one hand, you could look out over the a beautiful vista… lush green rice paddies sitting on terraces cut into the side of the hill. However, the glut of tourist trinkets and hawkers that lined the streets of the nearby village really took the edge off the experience. It seems likely that rice production is a secondary economic concern and that tourism is really the local driver.  Of course, it’s hard to begrudge the locals for pandering to the tourists… after all, we were there, and we weren’t the only ones… but it certainly didn’t offer much of the local cultural experience that we were more interested in. Again, another disappointment.

However, after two very disappointing days, things started looking up on our third day in Bali. We signed up for a river rafting experience. Instead of trying to include several things in a package we opted to do almost a full day on the Ayung River. The guide picked us (and several other people) from our hotel and drove us out to a site out in what seemed like the middle of the jungle. After a bit of a hike down the riverbank we were bundled into some whitewater rafts and launched off into the water. We had a local guide – who both kept us from falling overboard into the rapids, and who explained to us the local sites and sounds of the river. The weather was still beautiful, and it was nice to be under the cover of the trees. We even had a few monkeys come to watch us from the trees. Luckily they didn’t try to grab anything and negotiate a fee-for-return. I’ve heard the monkeys in Bali can be quite enterprising… but then again, they weren’t the only ones… so, when in Rome, right? The boat ride was just the right amount of lazy drifting on a hot morning/afternoon and exciting whitewater splashing – especially when you’ve got a seven-year-old on board. We stopped for a light lunch and then had a more robust “early dinner” after the the rafting was done. All in all, it was probably the most pleasant experience we had in Bali.

Our last day in Bali was spent more or less the same as the first… swimming in the ocean, playing on the beach, shopping at a mall (where I found my Tintin book!), and eating Nasi Goreng. Despite the disappointments, our trip to Bali was still enjoyable and memorable… but there’s a reason we chose Langkawi, Malaysia for our next beach vacation.