Indonesia [Paperback]

Dalton Bill (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 412 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 4 edition (October 30, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9622176763
• ISBN-13: 978-9622176768
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Well written, beautiful photos, but lacks info, December 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Indonesia (Odyssey Guides) (Paperback)

I bought this book in Jakarta, where I live, since I wanted an updated book for my business travels around Indonesia. There have been so many changes in this country during the past two years that you need the latest information. Bill Dalton ("Indonesia Handbook" etc. etc.) and Kal Muller (the "Passport Regional Guide" series, etc. etc.) have separately written some of the best guidebooks available on Indonesia. But I was disappointed with this one. Its beautiful, to be sure, with fantastic photos by Muller (many of which are found in this other books). Its a perfect bedtime companion, and a very good introduction to the complexity of cultures and sights in Indonesia. It will help you determinine where you want to go --- and don't you ever want to go after reading this book. But the book will not help you how to get there or where to stay. For instance: there are no hotels mentioned in Nusa Dua on Bali or any hotel outside of Mataram on Lombok, or outside of the major cities on Sumatra. And most hotel prices do not reflect the past two years drastic inflation. I would recommend travellers to Indonesia to wait for the next edition of Indonesia Handbook, or buy Muller's very detailed regional books (my favourites). But then again, the book is beautiful, so you might want to pick it up just to dream away about paradise.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Backpacker Turned Expatriate, June 11, 2000

By 

Kevin Cullen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moon Handbooks: Indonesia (6th Ed.) (Paperback)

A Canadian friend got me to abandon my English teaching business in Madrid for the promise of an "oil patch" job in Indonesia in 1980. I can still hear him today "The first thing to get when you go through London, is get Dalton's Indonesian Handbook. Don't wait until Singapore or Jakarta - it's banned out there.

So this young man did indeed go east. The job my friend assured would be waiting was nationalized in the few months the intervened between our vinos in Madrid. "I hope you didn't come all this way just to work for..." read his letter I picked up Post Restante in Penang. Undeterred I managed to find another and better oil patch job. I spent the next three years working out of Jakarta and Balikpapan - Kalimantan's Jewel in the Jungle.

And I used the Indonesian Handbook extensively. Across Java, the lakes of Sumatra, Bali and Lombok and my favorite Indonesian destination: Tanta Toraja in central Sulawasi. (If you see just one thing on the archipelago, see Torajaland.) This backpacker, now a newly minted expatriate executive, always took the old black cover edition on his business trips.

So why do I like Dalton's book - and the Handbook travel series in general? I really appreciate the concise yet detailed "briefs" of key subjects. One small example . During a visit to Yogakakarta, I became interested in batik. A quick read of Dalton's brief two page "primer" I learned the history, fabric and style types. And I leaned a half a dozen key Indonesian terms. When I hit the market I was amazed at how well I could get the vendors' attention. Novice bargaining by Westerners is typically based on price. Savvy Asian peddlers know this. They usually display or direct a foreigner's attention to inferior goods. Experienced market hunters will talk quality first. The Handbook's brief's quickly got me up to speed fast - and got me some great batik pieces at great prices.

I often contrast the Moon Handbooks with more popular Lonely Planet series. Marketed as a "travel survival guide" that's exactly what LP guides are. But surviving is only the first phase in traveling. Perhaps that why the LP books have become the "backpackers bible." But if you are looking to do more than eat and sleep in Indonesia, give Dalton's Indonesian Handbook a try.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Changed My Life, September 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Moon Handbooks: Indonesia (6th Ed.) (Paperback)

In 1977 I used the 1st edition of Indonesia Handbook (then called 'Indonesia, A Traveler's Notes') on a two-month backpacking trip around the archipelago. I sent Bill some reader feedback and we began corresponding. A year later I was ready to leave on a five-month trip around the Pacific and offered Bill some traveler's notes on the South Pacific for inclusion in his Indonesia guide as a kind of appendix. He answered 'no' and said a separate guide was in order, and that became the 1st edition of South Pacific Handbook published in 1979. Twenty years later my South Pacific Handbook is in its 7th edition and Bill is still over there in Southeast Asia doing what he was doing when we first got together. His handbook is a masterpiece to which all other guides to Indonesia are indebted and a copy should be on the shelf of anyone seriously interested in that great country.