Additional Information
Indonesia and our tour packages
Here are some useful information to give you a richer in-depth understanding of the places you will be visiting and the food you will be enjoying.
Let’s start with food and our signature welcome snack box which you can see featured in every tour package. Everything in the box is homemade, and all vegetarian. We simply want you to have a taste of what Indonesians enjoy as snacks at any time through the day or night. Below are photographs and brief explanations of how the various items are made and the main ingredients used.
The locals we engage with for your tour are proud to show you their typical hospitality and friendliness and assure you of a warm welcome.
Contents of Our Snack Box
Photo shows the contents of our snack box which will typically contain one each of the following: Nagasari, Kue Lumpur, Kue Sarang Semut, Wajik and Peanut Cookie.
Nagasari is a really rich yummy snack consisting of banana wrapped in rice flour dough formed with coconut milk. The whole is then wrapped in banana leaf and steamed thereby infusing into the rice flour dough with the natural flavour of the banana leaf..
Kue Lumpur is jackfruit cake made with plain flour and egg. As with most cakes and deserts in Bali, it is steamed.
Kue Sarang Semut (Ants Nest Cake). It is a bouncy and chewy cake with a strong caramel flavour traditionally made with plain flour and coconut sugar or palm sugar.
Wajik is a sticky rice cake made with coconut milk and palm sugar. In Javanese culture, (also practised in Bali) it is the traditional ceremonial cake offering by the prospecting groom to his future bride at her home.
Peanut Cookie. The heart shape was the traditional shape but now replaced by the round shape. It is a simple recipe made with peanut, egg and flour and still generally made at home by the older generation but unfortunately, the younger set prefer the convenience of store bought cookie.
Buffet meals
“Buffet” in Indonesia has a very different meaning to what we mean in Australia where the restaurant lays out a huge spread of various types of food including soups, starters and desserts. The restaurant keeps topping up their serving dishes whenever one runs low.
We pay a set price per head and we we are supposed to eat as much as we can to get our money’s worth!
Not so in Indonesia. Each table (seating 6-12) will order 4, 5 or more dishes and these are laid out along the middle of the table for sharing among the diners at the table. When a favourite dish is finished, that’s it! No topping up.
It is really simply a custom-made set menu we order for what we estimate we will eat. The advantage is that the kitchen will produce your dishes fresh and just for your table. There is no big mass-production kitchen involved and dishes are cooked in much smaller portions thereby keeping quality high.
To enhance the value we give to members of our groups, whenever we can (if not too far from markets) a New Places Tours staff member will buy the seafood and have the restaurants cook for us to further guarantee freshness.
Seafood buffet at a Jinbaran Beach restaurant
The sensation of Indonesian Spa
Wherever our packages include Spa in our itinerary, you get 1 hour’s traditional Indonesian style massage. Please be aware that different regions of this sprawling archipelago have different styles of massage but be assured that they are all very relaxing and rejuvenating.
The Story behind the White Monkey
In the Uluwatu Temple there resides (in a cage) a white monkey. This monkey joins in the Kecak dance every evening and then goes back to his cage.
The Kecak Dance at the temple which some of our packages include, is the short retelling of the epic Hindu story of Ramayana which dates from some 1,500 BC. Read more about it here.
The White Monkey, Hanuman, was the general of the monkey army that came to the aid of Rama in his effort to rescue his wife Sita from the evil and powerful Ravana.
The show at Uluwatu Temple Amphitheater has been described as “mesmerising” and “unmissable”. However, the seating is uncomfortable (we advise, bring your cushions) and tightly packed. Make sure you get in early but the sun beats down right to the start of the show at sunset. So, be prepared for a tight squeeze and some discomfort but the experience of this show will be worth it.
Despite the discomfort, the spectacle is certainly worth it.
Kecak Dance at Uluwatu Temple
An actor performing the dance of the White Monkey, the monkey general who helped rescue Sita.
Ganjuran Church
This fascinating church is highly regarded and revered by the Javanese largely because of its concept of emphasising Javanese culture in the Catholic Church. Together with a Catholic school and a Catholic Hospital, it sits in a predominantly Muslim area.
Its very inclusive nature, design and attitude is appreciated by the Muslim community which even allow extra parking spaces in their mosque and their yards for church attendees during major Catholic events. Their mosque’s Youth even help in security and act as parking attendants for these events.
The church itself has been the scene of miraculous cures, with one such miracles passing through the hands of our own Nita some 12 years ago. It has a row of 9 taps for washing ritual with many experiencing the water drying up immediately upon them leaving the taps.
The church was established in April 1924 (this is therefore its 100th year anniversary) but its original building was completely destroyed, apart from the Shrine, in the May 2006 earthquake which struck its province killing over 5,700 people.
Read more about the event at Wikipedia and AGU which stated “The destructive consequences of the earthquake were unprecedented in this region, with hundreds of thousands houses destroyed or damaged, including destruction of the historical Hindu temples of Prambanan (9th century A.D.) and the Sultans tomb (17th century A.D.) at Imogiri. The total loss is estimated at over 3 billion U.S. dollars [CGI, 2006]. There are no written records of similar devastating earthquakes in this region.“
View the church without walls and the wonderful Javanese celebration of a annual special mass.
Everything is Javanese traditional style