Advantages: Lot to see and do. Generally cheap. Culture. Arts
Disadvantages: Internal travel is difficult. Bureaucracy. Corruption

...by 2004. Important origin markets for foreign visitors include Japan, Taiwan, Germany, the US and the Netherlands but there are plans to entice more visitors from China, South Africa, West Asia and Eastern Europe. More and more young Briton’s , Australians and Americans are also including a visit to Indonesia during their travels in South East Asia. The overwhelmingly dominant tourism destination in Indonesia is,however,not Sumatra but Bali. The wonderful beaches, temples, cultural and artistic traditions of the Balinese are a major pull factor for foreign tourists. Other popular tourism destinations in the Republic include the capital Jakarta, which attracts business tourists as well as leisure tourists, Yogyakarta, Lombok and Bintan Island in Riau. The latter is especially popular with visitors from neighbouring Singapore... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Cheap flights, friendly and experienced staff
Disadvantages: They keep you on hold for decades, do it face to face. They may not really understand the processes involved in altering tickets and make it out to easier than it really is.

...Usit Campus Travel offer tickets to worldwide destinations at special student rates. I got a very unconventional 'round-the-world' ticket at he price of £1,000, when other places were quoting a lot more. It was very easy for me to do things like change destinations in order to avoid riots in Indonesia and change the dates of the flights. Whats more, the staff at the call centres are very helpful and genuinely friendly, and they seem to have a knoledge of at least some countries from personal experience. There are only two drawbacks that I can think of. 1.) You may have to wait for around half an hour trying to get through to them on the phone, all the while listening to a very annoying audio loop that advertises their latest deals. 2.) They make it sound easier than it is actually is to change the details of you tickets whilst en... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Simple layout, accurate conversions, lots of currencys.
Disadvantages: Sometimes have to click through the first page to get the currency I want.

...xe.com is a currency conversion website, useful for checking currency rates in almost every currency in the world, even obselete ones, I'm not sure what these obselete currency checks are for, possibly research, but other users to the site will be currency dealers and general public wanting to check how much they should get for their holiday cash exchanges. Personally I find it useful, and almost always have it in my recent sites drop down bar, because i'm often checking hotels or airlines online that don't list prices in GBP. The only thing I find with the site, is that I nearly always have to go to 'view more currencys' in the drop-down menu, because, for example, the indonesia rupiah isn't on the first list, I understand why though, it's not good practice to make a huge drop down list on a website. There isn't much else to say... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Big city, bright lights
Disadvantages: Smelly and crowded

...Jakarta is on the island of Java and is the capital city of Indonesia (an archipelago of about 14,000 islands with Java being the main island). As a capital city it is very noisy, busy, dirty and exciting. There are quite a few things to do in Jakarta, whether you are there working or playing. The majority of past times however, seem to include drinking copious amounts of alcohol and crawling from one bar or club to another. If you idea of fun is not suffering from a permanent hangover, you may want to try some of the other past times, such as shopping at any one of the big shopping complexes (Blok M, the Hilton, etc) or try visiting Indonesia’s answer to Sea World or Taman Mini (Indonesia in miniature). This city is well worth seeing, and is constantly changing so it’s different from one year to the next. However, I would only... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Cheap, beautiful and relatively untouristy
Disadvantages: A bit out of the way

...how few people who go to Indonesia bother to go to Sulawesi. Okay, it's a little off the beaten track (a 24 hour boat ride from Java, or a short plane hop from Jakarta) but it's just so interesting. Ujung Pandang (which, by the way, has been renamed Makassar) is home to the Bugis people among others, who have a well deserved reputation for the best seafood cooking in Indonesia. Check out Pantai Losari (losari beach), the longest restaurant in the world - over a kilometre of food stalls running along the harbour edge - and you'll understand why. Accommodation is also cheap, tho beware - many cheap hotels are placed too close to mosques, and if you don't ask you won't find out till 5am when the call to prayer wakes you up. For shopping, check out the silver shops for the local silver filigree work from Kendari - it's exquisite and MUCH... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Detailed, informative, great website
Disadvantages: Go out of date fast

...'ll always need to double check if buses still go to a destination, if there are still eight a day or whatever the book says, and you'll find almost without exception that the price will have gone up. This isn't actually a criticism of the RGs themselves, its an occupational hazard when compiling this kind of book. It does have to be said, though, that I have generally found the practical information on offer to be less complete and accurate than that in LP. To give a minor example, during my recent travels in Indonesia I discovered very usefully that it is possible to get a ferry from Cirebon in Java to Kalimantan, which enabled me to save a lot of money by not flying - in my Indonesia guide, Cirebon is not even listed as a ferry port and in fact the entry says it's pretty pointless trying to get a boat to anywhere useful. Downright untrue... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Breathtaking country!
Disadvantages: Rascals, unemployment, thieving

...I spent 16 years in one of the most beautiful countries of the world and although I loved living there I wouldnt recommend it as a tourist destination. Papua New Guinea is an island located north of Australia. Half of the island belongs to Indonesia and is called Irian Jaya. The other half is Papua New Guinea. Within PNG there are 2 distinct areas - the coast and the highlands. The coast is your typical island paradise. The highlands are a little more primative and saw their first white man less than 100 years ago. Having grown up in PNG I was well aware of the crime and how to deal with things. Only too often I saw tourists (or terrorists as we called them :) ) being ripped off, having passports, cameras and anything else of value stolen. Crime in PNG is rampant! As a resident, there are places that you wouldnt go and things that you... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Killing thirst and easy to find.
Disadvantages: Some rumours say that Coca-Cola is not good for our health?

...Coca-Cola is a well-known soft-drink company. It has succeeded in marketing their products. And about its history, I would recommend you to read Angus’ opinion at the following link: http://www.ciao.co.uk/CocaColaReview5158114 . Here is about Coca-Cola in Indonesia. TASTE FOR INDONESIANS When I read some opinions on Ciao UK about Coca-Cola, I got surprised. I did not think that there were various kinds of Coca-Cola. In my country – Indonesia we know only one kind (taste) of Coca-Cola. For most Indonesians, it tastes like ‘something new’. In other words, it gives specific taste of which is not found in other kinds of our foods or drinks (though you / most Europeans know that the main substance of Coca-Cola is Cola). In brief, we have never seen or tasted Cola. We drink cool Coca-Cola or with ice. It is not too sweet for me. I... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Easy to get to, cheap
Disadvantages: Crowded

...if you're javanese, when I say that after much consideration and thought, not to mention time here, I say that I don't like Java very much. This is not to say that there are not spectacular things here to do and see, or that the ancient and colourful Javanese cultures are not fascinating. It is, if anything, simply because I think that other areas of Indonesia have more to offer and are nicer places to visit. First, the basics. Java is a long, thin island to the north west of Australia, between Sumatra and Bali. It is the central of Indonesia, whose capital Jakarta is to be found near the Western tip. It is divided into three main provinces - West, Central and Eastern Java and is almost completely muslim. Three main local languages are spoken here of which the oldest, classical Javanese, is one of the most complex in existence. Okay... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Introducing my own culture to friends
Disadvantages: Nothing to loose to learn foreign cultures

...pure. The symbol of this republic is an eagle, called Burung Garuda Pancasila. [if you are interested in seeing the figure of our national symbol and some further explaination, feel free to visit the following link: http://home.wanadoo.nl/hbruch/garuda.html] UNITY IN DIVERSITY? Yes, it seems to work. A national language plays an important role to unite us. In our daily conversation, we tend to use Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) as a communication language. At schools – teachers use the language to teach, at works we use the language as a formal language. We just use our own native languages at home and it makes our own identities, especially native cultures exist, but just at home and other relatives in certain circumtances or occassions. A good communication creates a nice condition. Now I am in trouble … (Lol). Okay, let me continue. I... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful