KOPI DULU

A journey of 15,000 kilometres – by rail, road, on foot and under sail – through about 50 Indonesian islands, shining a light on what has been described as the world’s most invisible country.

From tracking tigers (and the mythical ‘short man’) in the Sumatra jungle to the mystical Dayak tribe that lives near the geographical centre of Borneo, this book touches on some of Indonesia’s most intriguing secrets. The author meets Tana Toraja’s ‘living dead’, the Bugis people (once known as the Bogeymen) who build and sail the spectacular Sulawesi schooners and the villagers who are literally besieged by dragons in the Komodo archipelago. He surfs the legendary reefs of G-Land, Nias and Occy’s Left (and pioneers a previously un-surfed wave in the remote Alor Archipelago). He road-trips across Sulawesi and Flores and sails in the wake of Alfred Russel Wallace around Spice Islands, which have remained largely unchanged for centuries.