Nostalgia trip on Indonesian cruise

Our extensive cruise around Indonesia's islands is a kind of pilgrimage, recalling my mother's visit to the Dutch East Indies as a young girl.

As children, we were regaled with her stories and faded black and white photos of her adventure in "the Far East". The daughter of prosperous North Queensland graziers, it was the thing to do "the tour" after finishing school in Melbourne.

So Mother was sent off on a ship with her younger sister with their cousins chaperoning them. She returned with magnificent carved camphor wood boxes, fine pottery and brass artefacts, and never tired of telling us about Java's temples, Borobudur, Bali and especially Surabaya.

We're on Holland America's gracious 17-year-old standard- bearer MS Rotterdam on a 14-day cruise around Indonesia from Singapore - clouded with smoke haze from its neighbour's forest burning.

The ship is the sixth in an historic line to bear the name, dating back 141 years, my mother's era brought to mind by an Art Deco poster between decks promoting a Rotterdam 1926 cruise: " . . . 67 days of delightful diversity (where) the Ritz Carlton Room, rising two decks, will be the centre of gay nightlife".

The current Rotterdam's passenger capacity is 1404. Not surprisingly, on our cruise Dutch passengers are, at 350, the biggest contingent among passengers from 35 nations, most mature-aged, many like me on a similar pilgrimage, recalling ancestral roots and the grandeur of colonial times. Australians, at 142, are the fourth-biggest number, after Americans and British.

We've cruised on more modern Holland America ships and, while Rotterdam has fewer staterooms with balconies than the line's Vista ships, it has much the same elegance, including $2 million in artworks and antiques, and all the fine dining, facilities, activities and entertainment to pamper cruisers.

I'm not surprised to see unsmiling Customs officials and little sniffer dogs checking passengers as we step ashore at our first port, Tanjung Priok, gateway to Jakarta. And while expecting poverty, I am surprised at the extent of the destitution.

Our shuttle, caught in the melee of battered trucks, dusty buses and scooters, passes seemingly endless lines of slum shacks and dark little shops. Yet everywhere we're greeted with smiles, particularly from schoolchildren - spontaneous and genuine warmth. Even the street sellers who swarm around us are friendly, persistent but not aggressive.

We're dropped off in South Jakarta at a waterway-lined modern shopping centre, topped with model camels. Kids swim in the brown waterway.

The Welcome statue in downtown Jakarta.

At Semarang, Borobudur, with its ancient temples of Buddhist kings, is a nine-hour excursion by train and coach in 30C-plus heat. I decide on less strenuous options but reflect that perhaps I've let my mother down.

We're taken by ferry to a secluded little village on Komodo Island, where the people, goats and chickens live together in a cluster of houses on stilts, huge satellite TV dishes dotted on the ground around them and national election posters ushering in the modern world. At the school, the children are neatly turned out in brown uniforms.

Small boats take us across the way to crystal-clear waters where passengers swim among coral and reef fish. It's still hot, a long walk from the jetty and we're offered a choice: go on another extensive walk with rangers in Komodo National Park or return to the ferryboat.

I reluctantly return to the boat; those who go on the walk are rewarded with sightings of the fierce, blood-smelling komodo dragon, the dinosaur-like monitor lizards which are unique to the island, more than 3.5m long and weighing about 136kg.

However, in Surabaya, I feel that the gentle ghost of my mother approves as we tour this lovely city of wide streets, gardens, colonial buildings, and houses and apartments with russet-coloured roofs. It's Indonesia's cleanest city, our guide Saroni tells us, thanks to mayor Mrs Risma who's been in office for four years.

Saman dance, Aceh, typifying Indonesia's unique culture.

The mayor welcomes us at the city hall with dancers in weird masks and towering peacock feathers on their backs, the men receiving traditional Javanese hats, the women long shawls from strikingly beautiful attendants speaking fluent English. Mrs Risma personally greets each passenger and provides sandwiches, cakes and drinks.

Our bus takes us to a park where, for the equivalent of $1, you can crawl through a mounted Russian submarine which guide Saroni tells us was used by the Indonesians "to liberate West Papua", formerly Dutch New Guinea, in the 1960s. I refuse to be outdone by a young Fleet Street journalist and follow him, back arched, through the entire length of the sub.

We tour a museum and cigarette factory producing Surabaya's 234 brand cigarettes, a room probably half the size of a football field with multiple lines of hundreds of women hand-rolling Indonesia's clove cigarette of choice, at the rate of 325 per person each hour.

Philip Morris became a majority shareholder in the mid-2000s. Photography of the women at work is banned. The cigarettes cost about $1 for a packet of 12: "Indonesia is a paradise for the cigarette companies but not for us," Saroni says.

Surabaya is the birthplace of first president Sukarno and Indonesia's independence movement's "city of heroes". We're greeted warmly throughout the city, even by a line of uniformed personnel - soldiers or police - being addressed by a capped officer who breaks ranks to wave.

I ask Australians and others what appealed most about Indonesia. The response is unanimous, confirming what Rotterdam's location guide Spencer Brown tells the audience in one of his informative lectures: "The smiling people are the heart of Indonesia."

FACT FILE

MS Rotterdam has a similar 14-day Passage to the Far East, cruising extensively around Indonesia, departing from Singapore on February 17, calling at Tanjung Priok (Jakarta), Semarang, Bali (overnight), Lombok, Komodo Island, Ujung Padang, Surabaya and Singapore (overnight). Prices start from $1998 per person twin share. hollandamerica.com or 1300 987 322.

John Coleman was the guest of Holland America.