Georeactor Blog

After submitting vacation dates to work, I've been taking the idea of an Indonesia trip more seriously. I booked a Chicago > Jakarta flight with an overnight in Tokyo.

There are a few possibilities for what happens next, but I have to choose from:

• focus on a national park with boat, multi-day camping hike, etc. ignoring that I made a popular video last year about trains in Indonesia
• fly to Medan and explore the region, Lake Toba, and food
• cross to South Sumatra and explore multiple cities and food
• visit the trendy places that I see in Yogyakarta (Java)

It would be difficult to cover Medan, as it's a wheel-and-spoke network and most spokes run only 2–3 passenger trains in each direction every day. Despite OTR making a big Medan video in June last year, there isn't as much there on my todo list.

I'm probably going to cross the Sunda Strait by ferry, and spend some time riding the train in South Sumatra. I could cover the full train network, but I made further cuts so I'll have time to rest, explore, and then fly Palembang > Yogyakarta for a vacation-y end to the trip.

The itinerary in mind:

• Day 0: bus from airport to Serang; Eat indomie
• Day 1: Explore Banten sites in Karangantu; continue to Sunda Strait; ferry and bus to Bandar Lampung
• Day 2: Bandar Lampung
• Day 3: Train to Baturaja (5 hours) or Prabumulih (+2); Eat tahu sumedang; I considered going to a temple ruin, but there are better and closer opportunities later on. I considered more side quests, but this is a lot of train time already, and if I tried touring the train yard in Lahat or recording the abandoned train in Indralaya it could be construed as political content.
• Day 4: Train to Palembang (1 +1/2 hours); Eat pempek and bakso; Light rail in city
• Days up to Christmas?: flight to Yogyakarta
• Yogyakarta: Prambanan Temple (there is a huge outdoor performance here but it's sadly indoors in December), Candhari Heaven, Gamplong Studio Alam (includes historic streetcar), chocolate factory?, Taman Sari, mini sugarcane trains?