Some curious facts about Indonesia

Indonesia is a country that surprised us in many ways. I thought I knew how Indonesia was, as I have been in Bali years before, but Bali is very different from the other places we visited.

Indonesia is the 4th biggest country in the world with regards to its people, so it is easy to imagine how much variety it has to offer. We summarized 5 curious facts about Indonesia.

Fact #1 Photographs

In Indonesia, we definitely took more pictures than in other countries, but not with our camera. Many of the locals wanted to have a picture taken with us, much more than in China or in India, which sometimes felt quite funny. Once we’ve been stopped by the police as they wanted a selfie with us. You might think they are so crazy for pictures because they do not see tourists or „white“ people very often, but no no no, they ask tourists for pictures in order to get more likes on Social Media. But while most people asked nicely for a picture, many times pictures of us were taken in a sneaky or pushy way what we did not like. We do not take pictures of other people either without asking them.

Fact #2 Islands

To discover Indonesia takes a lot of time, as the country is the one with the most islands in the world. In total, the country counts more than 18.000 islands and more than 900 of them are inhabited. The biggest ones are Borneo, Papua/New Guinea and Sumatra. The capital Jakarta is located on the island of Java, the most populous island in the world.

Fact #3 Big bigger Indonesia

Indonesia’s biggest Islands are also some of the biggest ones in the world. And not just the islands are big, but also one of the biggest stadiums (Gelora Bung Karno Stadium) in Asia is located in Indonesia. Lake Toba in Sumatra is the biggest volcanic lake in the world and Jakarta is the biggest city in South East Asia and the second biggest conurbation city in the world. Borobudur temple in Central Java is the largest Buddhist temple in the world with more than 500 Buddha statues. Indonesia is also home to the biggest Muslim community in the world. Also, the biggest flower and the biggest snake are found in this country.

Fact #4 Volcanoes

The volcanoes are a magnificent part of the country and of the well-known “ring of fire”, which stretches along the Pacific Ocean’s coast and sum up more than 60% of the active volcanoes in the world. In total, Indonesia counts around 150 active volcanoes.

Fact #5 Durian

Indonesia was the country where we had our first encounter with the Durian fruit. The fruit looks similar to the Jack fruit but has a terrible smell, similar to sulfur. It smells so bad, that in trains and hotels it is forbidden to eat it. I tried it and I cannot say I liked it. However, there are some people that like it very much and I guess it is depending also on the fruit itself if it is ripe enough or not.