Though rice is the staple food, seafood such as fish, lobsters, oysters, prawns, shrimps, squid and crab feature prominently in the Indonesian diet. The cuisine is bold, rich in flavour and heavily spiced and you can eat some of the best food from a rough wooden table in tent-like stalls on the side of the road.

In Jakarta there are hundreds of restaurants of all types from ethnic Indonesian to foreign cuisine such as Chinese and Japanese. Spices and hot chilli peppers are in most dishes and in some areas, such as West Sumatra and North Sulawesi, they are used generously.

Each province has its own cuisine, however the Javanese cuisine is considered the most palatable and consists of vegetables, soya beans, beef, chicken and fish. The Sumatrans generally eat more beef, while in Bali, Irian Jaya and the highlands of North Sumatra and North Sulawesi pork dishes are specialities.

One dish worth trying is 'rijstafel'. It consists of meats, fish, eggs and vegetables in different curry flavours, served with sweet fruit sauce, morsels of fresh fruit, dried fish, dried coconut, nuts and crisps.

There's great entertainment in Bali almost every day of the year with exhibitions of Balinese dancing either in the villages themselves, or at one of the hotels.

At some of the larger hotels in Jakarta there's Western-style entertainment such as jazz, cabarets and popular music.

In Yogyakarta there are performances of wayang kulit shadow puppets complete with gamelan orchestra accompaniment. The People's Amusement Park, open every evening, offers drama, music and puppets.

At the Prambanan Hindu Temple outside Yogyakarta, the Ramayana Ballet is performed during full moon evenings from May to October.

Soccer, badminton, table tennis and swimming are the most popular sports and there are a number of public swimming pools. For the golfer there are more than 60 golf courses in Indonesia. In Jakarta several good public courses welcome visitors, while members of private clubs can bring guests at any time.

Traditional spectator sports include bull races, bull fights, rowing and unique ram fights, all of which are held during festivals. Silat, a martial art, is regularly performed as a dance or an excercise and is similar to karate or kung fu.

Most major hotels have their own tennis and squash courts, swimming pools and health clubs. Beach resorts usually provide access to equipment for sailing, surfing, scuba-diving and windsurfing.

Batik, ikat, tenun (hand-painted, hand-woven, or tie-died) materials and clothes are made in different parts of the country. The Sumba blankets, the songkets of Sumatra, the silks of South Sulawesi and the jumpuntan (tie-died) items of Palembang can all be found in Jakarta.

Traditional wood carving from Bali, the primitive arts of Irian Jaya, Nias and East Kalimantan, and Asmat carvings are all in great demand as well.

Accommodation in Indonesia ranges from deluxe hotels and resorts through to simple economy hotels and comfortable losmen (rooms to let) for budget travellers.

Deluxe hotels complete with convention facilities can be found in places such as Medan, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Jakarta, Bali and Ujung Pandang.

In Jakarta there's a good mix of elegant five-star hotels, as well as quality three-and-four star establishments.

In Bali, Indonesia's premier tourist destination, five-star resorts and bungalows are either in the mountains or along the beach, and there's a range of accommodation in all price categories.

In Bandung in West Java the most exciting development is the preservation of two old hotels in art deco style.

Most hotels in major towns have air-conditioned rooms, but many budget ones are still equipped with Asian-style bathrooms or 'bak mandi' (a tank in the corner for water storage with a dipper).

In Jakarta, non-air-conditioned buses are a single low price irrespective of distance and air-conditioned buses operate every 30 minutes from Blok M to Bekasi with stops in between. There are also special small buses which carry up to ten passengers with fares depending on distance.