VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

If you travel to Karanganyar Regency, Central Java, you should visit its waterfall tourist spots. Karanganyar Regency has many waterfalls located on the slopes of Mount Lawu. One of the newly opened waterfall attractions is Ngargoyoso Waterfall. Its main attraction is the approximately 30-meter waterfall whose water comes from the river around the rice fields. The river flow will fall into a stream forming a kind of pool. You can splash around in the pool below the waterfall.

Ngargoyoso Waterfall is under the management of Lawu Group. Some other tourist attractions under the Lawu Group are Sakura Hills in Tawangmangu and Kemuning Sky Hills, or Kemuning Glass Bridge. The entrance ticket price is 20,000 rupiahs or about 1.2 US dollars per person. With the price, you can enter the tourist area and play with water to your heart's content. You have to walk down about 5 minutes from the parking lot along the stairs because the waterfall point is at the bottom of the cliff. Arriving at the bottom of the cliff, you will see a waterfall about 40 meter- high that falls into the river. You can take pictures with the waterfall in the background. Not only taking pictures, you can also play in the water. At the bottom of the waterfall, a sort of pool can be used to play water.

Besides playing in the water, another activity that can be done is to ride the "keranjang sultan" (sultan's basket), a kind of flying basket ride that floats above the river. For one way, the ride costs 20,000 Rupiah, or about 1.2 US dollars per person, while round-trip costs 30,000 Rupiah, or about 1.8 US dollars. You can also dine at food stalls around the waterfall while enjoying the natural beauty.

The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy participated again in the largest international tourism exhibition at the Seoul International Travel Fair (SITF) 2024 which took place at Coex Hall A in Seoul, South Korea from May 9 to 12, 2024. The Ministry presented the Wonderful Indonesia Pavilion in collaboration with the Indonesian Embassy in Seoul, the Jakarta Tourism & Creative Economy Office, the South Sumatra Culture and Tourism Office, and Garuda Indonesia. This was stated by Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Sandiaga Uno when attending the 2024 Seoul International Travel Fair (SITF), Saturday (11/5).

The Wonderful Indonesia Pavilion featured Balinese decorations. Complementing the pavilion is a "Wonderful Journey" theme to promote the 5 Super Priority Destinations. The Indonesian Pavilion also featured 14 tourism industries, including travel agents/tour operators, hotels, golf, and tourism attractions.

Quoted from the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy's press release, Sunday (12/5), Minister Sandiaga explained that the foreign tourist market from South Korea is still one of the potential markets for the tourism industry in Indonesia.

South Korea ranks 8th out of the top 10 countries contributing the most foreign tourists to Indonesia in 2023 and continues to show a positive trend and reach more than 300 thousand visits.

Deputy for Marketing of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, Ni Made Ayu Marthini, said that Bali has become top of mind for South Korean outbound tourists.

In addition to Bali, Wonderful Indonesia also offers 5 Super Priority Destinations outside Bali, such as Lake Toba, Borobudur Temple, Mandalika, Labuan Bajo, and Likupang, and focuses on the leading segments in the South Korean market, namely golf and leisure. Marthini also explained that in targeting the luxury segment, the Indonesian tourism industry prepares tour packages that suit tourists from South Korea.

The Wonderful Indonesia Pavilion also promoted destinations in Indonesia as filming locations. Recently, the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy has launched a film location ecosystem called ‘Indonesia Film Facilitation’ (https://www.iffa.id/), as an access for international filmmakers to visit various beautiful filming locations in Indonesia. Promoting destinations through movies can expose more destinations in Indonesia and encourage more Korean tourists to visit Indonesia.

On a trip to Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, don't be satisfied with just enjoying the beauty of Mount Rinjani, let's also stop by the tourist villages there. One of them is the Sigar Penjalin Tourism Village. This village can be reached in about 1.5 hours from Lombok International Airport or about one hour from Mataram City. Sigar Penjalin Tourism Village has a collection of beautiful beaches such as Sejuk Beach and Sira (Sire) Beach. From these beaches, if you are lucky, you can see Mount Batur or Mount Rinjani. On this beach, you can rent a boat to go to Gili or enjoy the underwater world. Apart from that, at Sejuk Beach, you can see how busy the wooden ship builders are, repairing or making tourist boats.

Visiting Sigar Penjalin village, you can also visit Lombok WildLife which offers various exciting interaction packages, for example taking part in bathing elephants. Apart from that, you can walk around the 3 hectares of the sanctuary area which is designed to be as similar as possible to its natural habitat. This activity is quite fun. By bringing a basket of animal food packages containing kale, sweet potatoes and fruit for IDR 50,000, you can interact with elephants, beautiful birds, deer, orangutans and various other animals. You can also meet baby animals born there.

Not far from Lombok WildLife Park, there is Rangsot Hamlet which is famous for its beekeeping and Trigona honey production. This type of bee is very small and has no sting, so you can observe it closely without worry. It is said that the honey produced by Trigona bees has 3-4 times the properties of other types of honey, therefore the price tends to be more expensive. Unlike the Apis type of beehive, the honey in the Trigona bee hive is placed in sap sacs which will give rise to a sour taste in the honey. This sweet and sour combination is also what makes Trigona honey unique and suitable as a special souvenir from North Lombok.

The United States returned three historical items of Indonesia, which were taken and sold illegally by black market and smuggling network in their country on Friday (26/4). The historical items return was done based on the decision of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for a case of stolen items smuggling in Southeast Asia with defendants Subhash Kapoor and Nancy Wiener.

Kapoor is an India-American descent art trader, while Wiener is a US citizen who practices illegal antique trade. As reported by Channel News Asia, in his official statement, Bragg said they have returned 30 stolen historical items from Indonesia and Cambodia being sold in the US. Besides from Indonesia, the US will also return 27 stolen historical items from Cambodia. The value of these antiques were estimated to be 3 million USD, as quoted by Times Now News.

The three historical items returned to Jakarta were statues from the Majapahit Kingdom Era that led the Nusantara in the 13th-16th century. Earlier, these antiques were confiscated by New York Court in 2023.

Indonesian Consul General in New York, Winanto Adi thanked for the return of Indonesian historic items. As quoted from Al Jazeera, this was dubbed as a valuable present for the 75th year of US-Indonesia diplomatic ties. 

Although Kapoor was arrested in 2011 and sentenced to prison, Bragg ensured the investigation still continues. During his leadership, Bragg through the Antiquities Trafficking Unit has found almost 1,200 stolen items from 25 countries including Southeast Asia, and some of which were from Indonesia. The value of these antiquities amounts to 250 million USD.