INDONESIA 2026

A photo tour to some of the most beautiful spots in Indonesia with National Geographic Photographer, and Nikon Ambassador Daniel Kordan. I love his photos and finally we’ve got a spot on this trip. I saw one photo of the Sumba dancing trees and I was hooked, and now we are here, not dancing though, because it is way to hot and humid to move more than you absolutely need to. 

Ahead lie days filled with photography, early rising to catch the sunrises, and a wee bit of relaxing in between.

BALI

MOUNTAIN VIEW

Rise at 4:30, leave at 5am in the pitch dark. It is raining. We drive for about 45min until we reach a lovely little hotel with a beautiful garden facing Mount Agung. It is still dark so we have plenty of time to have a coffee, they even have flat white here, this day is saved ! For a snack we get fried banana, which is very tasty. As soon as the light comes out, well, a little bit of light and many clouds, we try our best. The mountain is no where to be seen for the clouds, hardly any light, but below us are rice terraces, little houses, more terraces, a wonderful scene. Lacking background I focus on the green fields below, which really does look very cool as well. 

Next stop is a Balinese family. We photograph the young lady with a big tower of marigolds precariously balanced on top of her head whilst she elegantly walks down a lane. The whole lane is like a tunnel, overgrown with palms and other green stuff. Every few minutes we have to move out of the way to let a scooter or car pass. After the young lady we get a boy with a yellow kite, he jumps and jumps, very cool also ! We visit the house, get to photograph very old, very wrinkled, very toothless, photogenic grandpa, have a cup of tea, then back to the hotel. 

BARONG DANCE

In the late afternoon we leave for a private palace, the Blahbatuh Royal Palace, where we shall see the Barong Dance. The story of Barong, the dragon and Rangda, the witch queen. It is about the good and bad one, not that one wins, but the balance between good and bad. It was so very cool and the 2 young ladies dancing were so pretty, the monsters so scary and hairy, and the palace itself was absolutely amazing. Love today, and that was just day one !

MOUNT AGUNG

It is absolutely pissing with rain when we leave for another go at Mount Agung. A 45min drive later the rain has stopped and we are at a little coffeeshop, which again serves great coffee and fried banana. The view is miserable, you can’t see the mountain for all the clouds and mist swirls between the trees in the valley, truly a rainforest. The drone people get going, we start off on foot with Odi, it is nice and we do the best we can, but fog between trees is not really a highlight. We do our best at the rice fields. The drone shots on the other hand are magnificent.

BAYAN TREE

At noon we move on to the north. The ride is nice, the roads are all 2-lane and we only do 40km/h at the most, probably more like 30km/h. We pass towns, not seeing where the first ends and the second starts, there are shops and cafe’s, and of course tons and tons of temples and statues. They say every house here has its temple (always in the north-east corner), that must be true, there are so many.  

After about 90min we reach the big Bayan tree, the Wisaga Ragu Putih, it is huge ! The stem is absolutely artistic, curving and bending, big roots, many lines, so very nice. We get 2 kids, a boy and a girl to pose, they look tiny in front of the gigantic tree and so very very cute ! We can hardly tear ourselves away from it, but have to leave at some point. 

Our hotel in the north, the HOMM, wow it is special ! At the entrance a big wooden walkway alias balcony, where you look down on the grounds, Oh it is deep down, Jürg can do the photos, I’m scared of heights and this is bloody high. We go down 3 floors with the elevator, than a steep little conveyor cabin called „the inclinator“ until we reach the bottom. The room is lovely and the bed is again at least 3m wide. Must sleep now, so very tired.

TAMBLINGAN LAKE

An even earlier start today, we leave at 4:45. Shit, rise at 4am because we don’t all fit in the stupid inclinator, so there will be a queue there and it is rather slow. So far this group is brilliant, everybody is always on time, 5min early even, so good. We drive towards Tamblingan Lake to photograph the fort, and there are stars in the sky, so will have a sunrise, we will have light at last. The fort is normally on land, but because of extreme rainfall (yes we noticed), it is now surrounded by water. First we shoot towards the fort with some boats in the foreground, then our model, in a boat, appears and we move to the side to photograph the boat in front of the fort. Cool, but tricky, try not to overlap, compose right, but we all love it. 

At 3pm we leave for a late lunch, guess what, it is pissing with rain again. I mean, not just little rain, there are rivers running down the side of the road, huge splashes as we drive through puddles and the windscreen wipers are running at top speed. They come with umbrellas to get us to the restaurant, about 5 or 6 in one go, we wait, we are in the second lot. Again a nice restaurant with beautiful views of the rice terraces of Jatiluwih, this one is even better than the previous one ! We order and suddenly the rain stops, so we all run out, let the food arrive and get cold, never mind. You must shoot when there is light, and no rain. The food, in the end, is delicious, my best mie goreng until now.

SUMBA ISLAND

It is only 15min flight to Lombok. The second flight is 70min and by 12:30 we land in Sumba. This island is totally different from Bali, very easy going, laid back and rural. And it is flat, really flat.

At 4:30pm we leave for the famous Sumba dancing trees, a group of mangrove trees in the shallow ocean water. We get lovely reflections in the shallow water. Unfortunately there are already quite a few tourists there, so we take the trees where they are not, for our first photos. It is so beautiful ! After the suns sets most of them disappear and we get more great shots with an ever-changing sky. Back at the cars the local kids have set up a foot-washing-station. A big bucket full of water which they pour over our feet, so sweet, and good entrepreneurs! Back to the hotel, quickly shower off all the salt, especially from the tripods, then again a great dinner, I just love the food in Indonesia. 

MORE TREES

As always leave at 5am, we are slowly getting used to this. Anything later would be bare luxury. After 30min we reach the trees and scramble through the mangroves in the dark by the light of a few I-Phone lights. Only the stupid Chinese group of 4 is here, as yesterday they don’t really have a clue, and follow us around. It is very overcast, but because of that we get to shoot until almost 8am, the light keeps changing, more clouds, less clouds, plus by now we know which are the cool trees, and good compositions, how low to go, and we get even better photos than yesterday. If you are not a photographer you will probably be disappointed here, the trees are no taller than 2m and nothing special unless you know how and when to photograph them, then they are so very artistic.

TENAU HILLS

Our luck stays, we had a major rain-shower shortly before, but as we leave the rain stops and it clears somewhat. Only about 20min drive from the hotel we leave the main road and go up a very bad gravel road leading into the hills. It is green all around and there are lots of hills, lines and patterns, very good. Two young boys in local dress arrive on horses, our models for today. They do great. First they stand somewhere out in the hills, for us as a reference how big this place is, then we do close-ups of them. I have some nice ideas and these boys are so good, they pose and sit on the horse, stand beside it, back up again. Just look at them, give them a smile and a thumbs up, and they give you that extra smile. When it gets dark we head back to the hotel for another lovely dinner and 2 bottles of wine with the usual cool gang.

THE  FLORES SEA

Juhui, we get to sleep late, we only leave at 6:20 which is easy. We fly at 07:45, via Lombok to Labuan Bajo. Sounds nice and exotic ! We get there by noon or so, and are taken to the harbor. Smaller carrier boats take us to our big „Phisini“, a lovely old local wooden boat by the name of Cheng Ho. After lunch we are appointed our cabins, lucky us, we are on the 1st floor, just behind the captain on the bridge, with a big window looking out over the amazing scenery, a double bed, cupboard, desk and a small private bathroom, and very important…air-conditioning. In front of the bridge there are 2 gigantic sofas spanning the width of the ship, one level up there is a huge lounge under a roof, then the top deck with a jacuzzi and sun beds of about 3m2. This will be the drone deck. Such a luxury boat, I already love it here.

KELOR ISLAND

We leave the harbor and 1st stop is at Kelor island. We go snorkeling after lunch and it was very very cool, and I am definitely not the snorkel fan ! Back to the boat to shower before we head to the island itself for sunset, some photograph, some fly the drones. Back on the boat we share a bottle of prosecco on the 1st deck, the „bridge-lounge“, before dinner. This is to be our favorite spot when sailing, or anytime for that matter. Dinner is great and then we somehow end up having a big dance party, such good fun ! But then quickly off to bed, tomorrow we rise at 4am

GILLARA DAWAT ISLAND

Up at 4am and transfer to the Gillara Dawat Island so we can hike to the top and be ready for sunrise. It is just five of us and Stanley, plus about 4 guys from the boat which carry our heavy photo backpacks, because as always Daniel said: bring everything. All the others have drones and can sleep late, they only have to get ready shortly before sunrise and must fly from the boat. 

We hike up by the light of our headlamps, it is already hot and sweaty and the first part rises rather steep, then it flattens out and we get a little breeze which is very welcome, we are already soaked through. It takes about 35-40min to the top where we position ourselves and wait for the sun to rise. There is a very special  lenticular cloud over the island across, and it looks spectacular when the sun rises. We then almost do trail running going down, we have to be back at the boat by 7am. The tide creates extreme currents here, and leaving on time to get somewhere is always crucial. We make it back by 6:57, perfect. 

KOMODO ISLAND

Now we get a big breakfast whilst the boat sails for Komodo Island where we do a short jungle trekking to see the Komodo Dragons. They are oversized, big, ugly lizards and their bite is very poisonous. That is how they hunt, one bite, the poisons kills the prey slowly and 2-3 weeks later they feed, and beware, they can be very fast when hunting. So we keep our distance, the local guides keep telling us to get back, but you know how it is with photographers…. Back to the beach and to the boat.

PADAR ISLAND

During lunch we move on to Padar Island. This time 3 more join the hike, all the others get the easy card again and fly the drones from the boat. We, on the other hand, hike up 815 steps, well, maybe only 782 because the best viewpoint is a bit below the top. At sunset we have about 100 tourists walk down past us, (didn’t know the space up there was so big), before we leave as the very last. The rangers force us to leave, too bad the color was getting better by the minute. Worst thing is when we get a WhatsApp from Daniel, of him and Jürg sitting in the jacuzzi whilst flying their drones, so mean, we are puffing and panting and sweating for an hour on the top of the hill waiting for the sun to set, they are chilling !

SEBAYUR ISLAND

During the night we sail to the next spot, we have decided to sleep late, the „on-land“ photography from the jetty is not too spectacular, so the drones get up at 5:30am and us, the hikers, finally get to sleep until 7am. Bugger, forget it, we are so used to getting up early I can’t sleep once Jürg has left, so at 6am I am also on the top deck, with most of the others who are also awake. We have a cup of tea and enjoy the sunrise and the view. 

At 8am we snorkel at Sebayur Island, it is amazing even though the pro’s amongst us say it is bleaching here as well. I actually snorkel for about an hour, amazing ! There are corals like a brain, like flowers, like feathers, like sponges, like tortellini and like mushrooms in white, beige, blue and yellow, dozens of different fish in any color combination you can imagine and I love the swarms of little light blue iridescent fish that just let you swim amongst them. Back to the boat for breakfast, then head back to Labuan Bajo where we have 2-3 hrs to spend before we have to leave our lovely boat.

JAVA

The airport in Labuan Bajo is small and fun. We get a foot massage of 30min, so nice and so very cheap. Half the group joins in. We entertain the 4 massaging ladies so we have fun and they do as well.

We arrive in Surabaya after a 90min flight followed by a 2.5hr car transfer to the hotel. Everybody just rushes off to bed, hoping to get a few hours of sleep since it is already 11pm. Tomorrow we go to the most famous viewpoint in Indonesia at the Bromo crater rim, there can be as many as 1000 tourists there on a quiet day, so the plan is to leave at 2am, to beat the crowds, oh my god !

BROMO

At 01:30am someone is knocking on our neighbors door so loudly we wake up. Shit 15min less sleep. By 2am we are all at the parking lot and get divided over 5 little colorful jeeps. We get the slower than slowest jeep, so we arrive way after all others at the viewpoint. This is not the main viewpoint where there sometimes are up to 2500 visitors, no thank you. This spot is still rather quiet. We have a very strong Bali coffee and fried banana at one of the little cafes that line the street around every viewpoint there is. Fried banana and coffee at 4 or 5am seems to be our staple breakfast these days.

The little shops also sell souvenirs, t-shirts, magnet, the usual junk, plus you can rent a thick warm jacket or beanie, which sure is necessary, it is no more than 10°C here, and that after the humid heat on the boat yesterday morning, we are all feeling cold, except Jürg who is finally comfortable and not sweating. 

With 1 hr time difference sunrise is now at 5:20am, best light the 30min before that, so around 4:30 we get set up. As the light comes the scene below us unfolds, it is beautiful. The biggest of the three is Semeru. The smaller to the left is Bromo, the third called Batok is actually just a hill with a flat top and lovely slopes. The big one even spits out a cloud of dark grey steam a couple of times and the slopes are covered in fog, also Bromo has a cloud of steam over it, very cool scenery here ! Now back to the street for another coffee before our little caravan of colorful jeeps moves on  to the crater floor, also called Sea of Sand, and the Bromo horses, can’t miss it, just follow the crowds. We get one gorgeous white horse which we unanimously call the unicorn, it walks so proudly, tail held high. Its rider is dressed in a black top, he poses in front of the volcanic slope (which looks like the Icelandic highlands), it looks absolutely stunning. The rider then makes the horse rise on the hind legs, then he races her across a dune, so very very beautiful. I am not a horse lover, but this is great ! Now the long drive back to Surabaya.

BORNEO

Thank God our flight was changed again, actually now for the 4th time, but this one time it is in our favor, instead of 05:30 we now fly at 08:30 to Pangkalan Bun, just the name sound like an adventure. This departure time is much better, we even have time for a breakfast, and I don’t mean a coffee and fried bananas. The flight is just over 1 hr and then finally we are in Borneo ! We drive about 15min to the Kumai Bay where the harbor is. The town is nothing much and not very attractive at all, glad to pass it, there is nothing pretty here. We board our boat, climbing through 2 other boats to get to ours.

We leave the bay and enter the Sekonyer River and are now in the Tandjung Putih National Park. The river is about 10m wide and both sides are covered in palm trees which are at least 10m high and rising from the water level, it looks very exotic. That changes after a while and we now have rainforest on both sides, it is very dense, but beautiful and all the green reflects in the very calm waters of the river. We drive for about 2hr to get to Tandjung Harapan Station, and spot our first wild Orangutan on the way there, also a few of the Proboscis monkeys, the ones with the large noses. Up on the roof we have good views, but it is unbearably hot, even my camera shows a temperature warning, so we go back to the first deck which is in the shade.

After lunch we go to the feeding station. We walk about 15min on a nice path through an amazing rainforest, it is actually quite nice in the shade of the trees, the canopy closing way over our heads.

There is a large wooden „stage“, filled with at least 30 kilos of bananas and one big male is already sitting there, trying to get as many bananas as possible into his mouth. Then a few younger ones appear, a female with a young one is to our left in the treetops, the small one puts up a show, climbing up and down, hanging in all possible and impossible positions. Then she comes down to the platform and we notice she has a tiny baby clinging to her back, this is simply the best. Then two young males start jumping about in the treetops straight ahead. We are so lucky, we’ve seen about  9-10 different ones ! Even our guide Jeffrey said this was the best sighting in a long time. We have to leave at 4pm, but I could  have stayed for hours, it is so cool to watch them, they are true acrobats in the trees. 

ORANG UTANS

Leave at 05:30, we have a 4 hr journey ahead to Camp Leakey, the first camp here, originally led by 2 assistants of the famous Mr. Leakey. It is overcast and moving we get a nice breeze, so it is totally bearable and soon the front of the roof is our favorite spot. We see dozens of Proboscis Monkeys, small, big, tiny, sitting, jumping, all very cool. We find one huge orangutan male climbing a bare tree stem at eye level, which was absolutely brilliant, a wild one, not a semi-wild one like at the feeding station. That counts double. We see a Stork Bill Kingfisher, which was a highlight for the birders and more other birds and monkeys. We now take a side arm of the river and head towards Camp Leakey, the river gets narrower and narrower, it will be hard for 2 boats to pass here. Finally we dock and have our lunch. We were a bit late last time and ran away from our lunch, this time we have plenty of time, so after a nice and easy lunch we walk towards the feeding station. It is a bit the longer walk then last time, first a boardwalk, then a path through the jungle. Again a wooden platform, but we are about 1 hr early so not much to do but sit in the shade, sweat  and wait. 

Shit exactly at 2pm it starts to rain, first just a little, but more and more. Well it is called rainforest for a reason ! It pours, we all get awful plastic raincoats to keep the worst off, but these are for Indonesian people, it barely covers my knees. We do silly fotos in our colorful raincoats and pray for the rain to stop. Yes, it does and after 30min of downpour it clears. We sit and wait and wait and wait, we watch squirrels and butterflies but that’s it. Shit. About 45min before we have to go one lonely monkey arrives, it is the White Bearded Borneo Gibbon. It is dark brown and white and has enormously long arms and gigantic long fingers. He comes down, grabs a bunch of bananas and heads up the tree again. Sitting up there he rarely peeks down, just drops the banana skins. He comes down a second time and now we are prepared and get cool shots of him climbing down and running towards the pile of bananas. Up he goes and one more time he comes down, then disappears. Well, at least we got some photos, if not of an orangutan. 

At 3min before 4pm we leave, we stayed until the last minute but nothing to be seen. Even the squirrels disappear. Just as we start walking we hear something crashing through the forest, so we run back, we still have 3min. And yes a big female comes and starts munching on the bananas. Shit, I think they know, they are smart and want to eat in peace, and only show up once we are gone ! But now we got one in the photo, the rangers even let us stay until 5min past 4 ! 

Now the long boat trip back. The current carries us so going back we only need 2,5 hrs. We enjoy the views and the nice breeze, I even get cold in the shade with the captain going at full speed, have to put on a jacket ! Another very cool day, and unfortunately the last day here. 

This was my first time to Indonesia, and for sure not my last time ! 

For our favorite photos:go to gallery

Copyright 2026: Astrid Bluemel for bluemelphoto.ch