It’s May 1, 2018 – the 60th day of our 60 day Indonesian visa. We could have extended our visa but for now we end this chapter of our adventures. My interest in visiting this vast, and totally unknown to us, country, started with a chance meeting- in about November 2014- with an Indonesian woman teller, at a random bank, I had gone to for a notary in a city,  that I don’t recall, in Maine. In a spontaneous discussion about where she suggested I  must visit the  two most beautiful islands and  she wrote down the locations “Lombok” and “Raja Ampat”. This discussion peaked my interest and once I saw how vast and varied Indonesia is I was hooked. 

Missy retired in September 2015. Being in love with Guardian and knowing of his love for the Alps, and fascinated by the French, she had always wanted to go hiking in  the Alps and spend a good amount of time in Paris. We did this starting August 2016. Our travel blog chapters 1-16, are about this adventure.  

Soon after returning from France, the planning for our extended travel to Indonesia began. Many chapters of our travel blog (19-30) chronicle our fascinating adventures in Indonesia. This is the epilogue. 

I had read about nearly all the places we ended up going but never even attempted an itinerary. We knew we would start in Bali but from there we would go where it made sense. A plan without a plan!

Awesome doesn’t begin to say what a wonderful country Indonesia is. With shop workers and hotel workers typically making and living on $200 a month, Indonesia is a poor country but you could not tell looking at the people.  Indonesians are warm, generous, friendly, inquisitive, kind and genuinely nice. The people are nicely and modestly dressed, the streets  are generally free from litter, there is little graffiti, and for the most part even the very modest homes are maintained. I/we felt safe and I don’t think we ever sensed that we were somewhere we shouldn’t be. 

Transportation is good. I never understood the idea of having a driver. In most places we found a driver (with a car)  for basically $10/hour. We didn’t need one often but when we did it was well worth it. Our driver was happy we were happy. All in all a win-win deal. I can’t imagine trying to locate the many places we went using public transportation. And heaven forbid my driving a motorcycle. Grab an Uber like taxi are  found in many places. You really appreciate paying $1 when your only other choice is to walk, in a congested and crowded road for over an hour. We also used the Blue Bird taxi through it’s app. In some places we used motorcycle taxi or a motorcycle buggy. 

I think every day we connected with someone who brightened our day (people that we referred to as our angel for the day.) Today, our last day was no exception. As it turned out our terminal (for flight from Jakarta to Bangkok) had changed without warning or signage in any language. Mercy, a woman from the Philippines saw our problem and helped us get across the airport. A typical occurrence for us here is finding angels everywhere you go!!!!. 

We typically paid $30-$50 a night for a room. Sometimes very simple and sometimes very nice. But again wherever we stayed we were  served by genuinely friendly and caring staff. 

Yesterday for the first time I saw the slightest aggressive behavior. While in Taxi another car honked and muscled ahead of us. This was in some of the worst traffic I have ever seen(Two hours to go 12 miles in Jakarta). I was tired as a passenger, how the driver dealt with it is beyond me. 

The weather is hot or hotter (and humid) every day. But we managed great. A shirt was only good for a day usually. We had a little rain but not much. When it rained, our small portable umbrella was all we needed. 

After 60 days in Indonesia our impression is very positive. The people, the sites, the nature, the transportation, accommodations are all fantastic. The food is ok. Lots of fruit and some excellent dishes. It is possible that we just did not know what to order.  The poverty is not apparent but you know it’s there. If there is corruption,  we didn’t see it. Only a few pushy vendors and those we kinda brought on ourselves, because when you encourage one the others want a piece of the actions. 

So here were are on the plane on our way to Thailand. Indonesia is now behind us. We plan to return to Indonesia in August. That will be the test of our appreciation of Wonderful Indonesia. Whatever happens we will  always remember our wonderful and ever so varied experiences in six of the 1000s of the Indonesian islands in the past 60 days.