Loading ...Padangbai Bali Indonesia Travel
Located on a perfect little bay, tiny Padangbai is the port for ferries between Bali and Lombok, and passenger boats to Nusa Penida. It is also a popular place to break a journey and relax while you plan your assault on Bali or Lombok (depending on which way you’re heading), and it’s a smaller, quieter, more beachy option than Candidasa. It takes about 10 minutes to walk from one end of town to the other. Take time to choose one of the many places to stay and eat; they’re all very close together.
Padang is typical of Sumatra’s modern landscape: a sprawling noisy place circumnavigated by tripped-out opelet blasting squeaks-and-beeps techno music. As the capital of West Sumatra province, Padang might have once been a showpiece, but the economic depression that has followed the 1997 currency crash means that the city’s infrastructure gets used but never renewed. Capital, more so than capability, feeds the modern machine.
Indonesia’s dazzling arc of eastern islands that stretches towards northern Australia is perhaps the most varied and rewarding part of the nation to explore. There are few regions of the world that can compete with Nusa Tenggara for sheer diversity – east of Hindu Bali are the largely Islamic islands of Lombok and Sumbawa, followed by predominantly Catholic Flores with its Portuguese heritage, while Timor and the Alor and Solor Archipelagos have Protestant majorities. On all of these islands, animist rituals and tribal traditions continue alongside the minarets, temples and chapels, particularly in rural areas. Though Bahasa Indonesia is a unifying tongue, each main island has at least one native language, which is often subdivided into dialects.
The most developed island for tourism is the delightfully laid-back Nusa Lembongan, which is free of cars, motorcycle noise and hassles. It has a local population of about 7000 people, mostly living in two small villages, Jungutbatu and Lembongan. Tourism money means that the power now stays on around the clock.
Moni is a pretty village, nestled among soaring peaks, which serves as the gateway to Flores’ main tourist attraction, Kelimutu. It is scenic, cooler than the lowlands and a good place for walks.
Although the distance between the mainland and the Mentawai Islands is not great, nature contrived to keep this island chain isolated. Strong winds, unpredictable currents and razor-sharp corals thwarted navigation and trade with the mainland.
Medan is the capital of North Sumatra and is the third-largest city in Indonesia. Depending on your perspective, you’ll either love it or hate it. If you’re coming from saner parts of mainland Southeast Asia, Medan will be everything that’s wrong with an Asian city: choked with traffic, pollution and poverty. If you’ve worked your way north through Sumatra, Medan is thankfully modern, with air-con, internet and a middle class.
The seaport of Maumere is a pretty forlorn place, but as it’s one of the main gateways to Flores, and well connected with Bali and Timor, you may well end up here for a night. Its crumbling concrete buildings and air of decay brutally betray its recent history – in 1992 an earthquake and resulting 20m tsunami killed thousands here. The city authorities appear to have done little to help the town’s recovery, however: mounds of rubbish line the streets, nibbled by marauding pigs and goats, which only compounds the postapocalyptic air that lingers on.
The capital, and main city on Lombok is Mataram, although it’s actually a conglomeration of several towns – Ampenan (port); Mataram (administrative centre); Cakranegara (business centre), which is often shortened to ‘Cakra’; and Bertais-Sweta to the east, home to the bus terminal. It’s not an unattractive city and it has some broad tree-lined avenues, but, as sights are thin on the ground and there are beaches close by at Senggigi, very few travellers choose to stay here.
In 1844 Manado was levelled by earthquakes, so the Dutch redesigned it from scratch. Fourteen years later the famous naturalist Alfred Wallace visited, and described the city as ‘one of the prettiest in the East’. That was 150 years ago and time hasn’t been kind to the place. Vestiges of the colonial period have succumbed to a swarm of mikrolet and the superb coast has been swallowed by shopping malls. Unattractive though it may be, Manado is a well-stocked base from which to visit the surrounding Minahasan region and islands to the north. It boasts the best wining and dining in North Sulawesi and locals hit the town on weekends.