WOW! THIS WARNING TAKES THE CAKE!

[tintin]

Correction to my last post.

Sorry, the uncertainties in the distance measurements to the two coasts should read +/- 3.0 kms (not +/- 0.1 km).

 

[Roy]

Well, let’s see Daniel. To quote your favorite reference manual, the Lonely Planet travel guide to Indonesia, “The legendary Krakatau lies in the Selat Sunda straits 50 km from the West Java coast and 40 km from Sumatra.”

Perhaps you should write to the Lonely Planet editors to correct that unacceptable error they apparently made.

In any event, I am going to concede 100% to you in this silly argument and award you the honorary title, “Oom Krakatau.” Fair enough?

 

[tintin]

Well, let’s see Daniel. To quote your favorite reference manual, the Lonely Planet travel guide to Indonesia, “The legendary Krakatau lies in the Selat Sunda straits 50 km from the West Java coast and 40 km from Sumatra.”

So now we know the source of your “expertise” about Indonesia, Lonely Planet: if it is written in there, it has to be true. :lol:

 

[Sanurian]

Dear Oh Dear me...

I re-read this thread to see if I'd missed something crucial with respect to Roy and Tintin's squabbling over whether Gunung Krakatau is closer to Java or Sumatra. What difference does it make, one way or the other?

The jibes about Lonely Planet guides brought back some memories for me. Personally, I have seldom used any guide-books in my travels apart from getting an overall view of where I might be heading if it was unknown territory to me. A kind of "my best way to travel is to go somewhere and get totally lost and hopefully found again". (Of course, one needs ample time to be able to do this depending upon how much time we have to be "lost" for.)

About four years ago, I went to Gunung Lawu near Solo in central Java. After a while there I consulted my Lonely Planet Java book (2nd edition, 1999) only to find a reference to a place called Sarangan, some 18km from Tawangmangu on the mountain road to Madiun. Here is a quote from that guide-book:

"...This picturesque hill town lies on the slopes of Gunung Lawu, with hotels clustered at the edge of Telaga Pasir, a crater lake. At 1287m, it has a refreshing climate, and this is one of the most pleasant hill resorts on Java. It is cooler and more attractive than Tawangmangu, and the lake provides opportunities for boating and water-skiing..."

Sounds enticing enough, I thought, so went to see for myself. It was absolutely dreadful. Even my Indonesian wife was disgusted. No matter - I read a bit more to find this reference:

"...At the top of the village, with fantastic views of the lake, Hotel Sarangan...has colonial charm and is very popular with Dutch tourists..."

We found it and it was a dilapidated dump of the first magnitude. Wild horses couldn't get me to stay there even if they paid me to (and I've stayed in some pretty rough places in my time)..

I was so disillusioned by this that I did write to Lonely Planet and suggested that if they print completely inaccurate drivel like this, maybe they should ensure that their "field-writers" actually went there in the first place. Because no way anybody in their right mind could come up with the printed description. Lonley Planet acknowledged this, thanked me for my comments/observations, promised to update that section with a reference to me as a "contributor in the field", and a free guide-book of my choice from their stable. (I haven't checked to see if they did or didn't "correct" the information.)

The point is this, and even Tony Wheeler, the one who started it all says it often, guide books are just that: "guide books". Things often change rapidly...what may have been good once may not be the case now. That's one reason why Lonely Planet has a web-forum called The Thorn Tree to give travellers up-to-date information about places that they've personally experienced.

And just for the record (this is for Tintin), the geographical coordinates of Denpasar are approximately:
Longitude: 115h 13m E
Latitude: 8 degrees 39m S

8)

 

[Unique]

"Ironic story from Mt Merapi"

Resource: Kompas (April, 26)

"Menghadapi kemungkinan letusan Merapi yang tak pasti, Tim Siaga Merapi yang dibentuk di setiap dusun, beranggotakan 10-25 warga, setiap hari merayu penduduk agar mau dievakuasi. Mereka juga melakukan simulasi evakuasi untuk penduduk yang memilih tetap bertahan di dusunnya."

Local government still try to approach and persuade them to go away from Mt Merapi, but thousands of villagers are ignoring government warnings of an approaching eruption and staying put in their homes on the slopes of Merapi, whose last major eruption in 1994 claimed more than 50 lives and over 1,000 in 1930.

Volcanologists say the volcano may erupt at the end of the month, but many villagers fear losing property and livestock if they go, while some others, particularly older people, say they would prefer to die on their own land.

"They beleived as long as 'wedus gembel' or bad sign have not yet come, it's mean they can stay there."

Some 13 evacuation posts have also been set up but their number might be not enough to accommodate the estimated 30,000 residents set to be evacuated from eruption-prone areas.

 

[tintin]

Hi Saturnian,

No approximations allowed on this forum. Bert requires precision. So, Denpasar is at

8 39' 22.65"
115 13' 19.19"

but where is this point actually located in the capital?

I enjoyed your parallel description of Gunung Lawu and surroundings.

I had a similar experience that you had with Lonely Planet, regarding "le Guide du Routard,". The "Guide" is the bible of the French tourists, no matter where they go, and if it's not in the "Guide" it's not good, and certainly not authentic. It is the most pretentious piece of buang besar sapi (as they say in Indo-American).

One day, feeling in a good mood, I picked up a pen and went over the few pages pertaining to Balinese dances, and also Komodo (why Komodo? I don’t remember). They did send me a thank you note, and later on the new edition of the guide and lo and behold, it included my corrections. I was most surprised by it, given that my remarks to them were not composed in the most diplomatic vein.

A guide, any guide, if seriously done, takes many years to compile, and a minimum of two years to publish. So, all the info. it provides, especially about hotels and restaurants, their prices, etc, is out of date even before being published. Thus a guide can only give you a vague idea about what you will encounter in any foreign places, and that all one can expect.

However, I consider the series of guides published by Gallimard, France, by Knopf, in the US, and by Archipelago, in Southeast Asia, the exceptions. They are works of art. I am sure you are familiar with the Bali one, which hit the stands few years back, but I believe is now out of print in its original, unusual format But it still can be found in Bali, in a more standard format, published by another editor (I forgot th ename, but the book has a green, hard cover).

FYI Roy, I do not own a copy of Indonesia Lonely Planet, but I have a first edition of Bill Dalton’s Indonesian Handbook, which in moments of nostalgia, I still open and enjoy.

 

[Roy]

FYI Roy, I do not own a copy of Indonesia Lonely Planet, but I have a first edition of Bill Dalton’s Indonesian Handbook, which in moments of nostalgia, I still open and enjoy.

One of my many collecting passions for all things Balinese is old tourist guides and early photographs of Bali. To date, my oldest tourist guide book was published by the Orient Touring Company in 1925. The very well photo illustrated section on Bali was written by the British traveler W. R. Foran.

I often quote from it in my writings on Bali, but this one, again keeping in mind that it was written in 1925 is most prophetic:

"Bali, the island immediately east of Java, is so easily accessible that it must inevitable be flooded with tourists."