Category Archives: Indonesia In Bali, rice is synonymous with food. The word nasi (rice) also means “meal” in Bahasa Indonesia, the lingua franca of the region. But, rice is so much more than that: it is an integral part of the Balinese culture. This little Indonesian island has been inhabited by Southeast Asian Austronesian people since at least 2000 BCE. From around the 1st century CE., […]  The breadth of human culture is amazing to me: as much as there are similarities in the human condition the world over, there are also such differences in how people express themselves. Sumatra is just one of the over-17,000 islands that make up the Indonesian archipelago; just one of the 922 permanently-populated islands. With its numerous ethnic […]  How do a people preserve the important values inherent in their culture – more than just a traditional headdress and a signature food – without sacrificing the good things that participating in the modern world can offer? I often ask myself this when travelling – especially in poorer areas of the world where the people […]  It’s a different world out there… In this day and age where travel is relatively quick and easy, and when communication is virtually instantaneous, it is amazing to me how much diversity still exists. Some ethnic groups have managed to resist the influences around them and to preserve their age-old traditions. Sumatra is just one of the […]  Just two weeks before my husband and I visited the island of Sumatra in February 2014, Gunung Sinabung erupted, killing at least 14 people. The province of North Sumatra is not that big: Mount Sinabung is in the Karo Plateau, only 40 kilometres away from the Lake Toba Supervolcano, and in the general region where we would be travelling. When we arrived at Bukit […] |
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