No one loves Jakarta’s traffic as much as Trisno. It’s his bread and butter. His clients leave the office at the end of the day, their briefcases swinging in the breeze, take one look at the gridlock and wave him over. As an ojek driver he has everything you need to run a successful business: [...]

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Herwan’s shirt keeps the paint from dripping on his face. He figured out how to wrap the turban on his first day, two weeks ago when he took up the brush in an effort to slap a fresh coat of paint on Jakarta. Underneath the Semanggi flyover, tiny drops of white paint are sprinkled in [...]

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On a sunny Wednesday morning in Kebayoran, Edi Sukandi is going through the motions. His dark wiry arms work without thought. He looks off into the distance at the sound of a car horn before lowering his head and focusing on the road again. Then like a pendulum, his traditional broom swings and lifts withered [...]

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Taufan might be the strongest kid you’ll ever meet. He’s seven-years-old now, but he’s been fighting leukemia since he was five. He won’t back down. His strength gives the other kids strength. Taufan is actually so strong he doesn’t have to stay at Rumah Sakit Cipto, in Salemba, anymore. Cipto normally houses anywhere between 40 [...]

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In the shadow of Pasar Baru in Central Jakarta sits the coup de grace of every departing expat—Jalan Gedung Kesenian—and its row of caricature artists. If you’ve never attended a going-away party and seen the work of Kang Edi and his counterparts, you’re not a real expat. But what made Edi, a 48-year-old father of [...]

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There are two kinds of men in the world: those who can pull off a moustache and those who can’t. Movember, a month-long campaign to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancer around the world, is a great way to let those men who are clearly nowhere near Burt Reynolds or Tom Selleck, dabble for [...]

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Prince John Dive Resort isn’t in Palu. It’s about an hour up the road, in a tiny place called Donggala. The road skirts off to the right and you hear the tires crush and crunch ancient corals announcing your arrival at the easy-to-miss entrance. The resort is nothing if not simple. Simple cabins. Simple tone [...]

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It’s hard to put your finger on what makes Ben Hil (short for Bendungan Hilir), right at the heart of the city, the go-to spot for street food. Maybe it’s the atmosphere—the perpetually wet streets, the howl of the bemo, the ubiquitous banci whose Adam’s apple bobs as she points her chin at you and [...]

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When it comes to New Year’s Eve parties, there are only two corners of the room: The corner where some eyebrow-raiser is busy trapping girls and trying to impress by asking if they have any idea what “Auld Lang Syne” means and the one on the other side of the room, chock-full of people plugging [...]

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There are two kinds of people in Jakarta: the ones that eat street food and the ones that don’t.   The ones that do boast about late-night haunts, one-of-a-kind stalls and meals so good you’d sell your mother for another bite.   The ones that don’t eat street food are, well…forgettable. If the fact that [...]

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If you plan on walking into a department store this week and dropping Rp 3.2 million on a six-foot tall fake Christmas tree, don’t read this story. But if Christmas tree haggling is something you pride yourself on, if you look at the whole thing more like Christmas tree hunting than shopping, by all means [...]

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The naturalist John Muir is credited with a quote most mountain climbers have memorised and tend to recite after a few beers or moments of beauty and sheer awe. Climb to the top of Rinjani in Lombok and you might hear a few of the brave souls who left camp at 2am to make the [...]

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Kyle Blakeway’s love of the ocean runs deep: it started when he earned his junior open water dive certification —he was ten years old— blossomed over the years as his passion took him to Egypt and the Gilis and finally manifested itself in the purchase of the “Cecilia Ann,” a 60-foot ketch rigged sailing boat, [...]

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