Why Learn Indonesian?

In 2010 I popped over to Malaysia for what was originally meant to be a week-long break, but turned into five weeks. You can read the blog if you want. I planned the first two weeks so I could go to a particular dive resort, but by the first evening my plans all changed when I met Yvonne. She taught me what she'd learned on her own travels: how to choose a restaurant that won't kill you, how to decipher the menu, and how to say thank you. Suddenly I wasn't just in the country to get away, I was actually starting to enjoy the culture and the people, and developed a real passion for the place. 

I travelled around Sabah, down to Kuching and Miri and Mulu, and even into Brunei for a few days. Borneo is a really big place though, and I had only just reached the tip of the country that very much resembles an iceberg - the Malaysian part is above the surface with tourism, widely-spoken English, and regular reliable transport. Duck your head under the water and you'll find Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. Tourism is patchy at best, Inggeris is something they learn at school in Jakarta, and planes crash all the time. However, it's filled with wildlife - orangutans, big cats, sun bears: you name it. In fact, just a week ago Indonesia signed a decree stating that it would conserve at least 45% of its share of the Bornean jungle, which is good news for the whole planet.

So it sounds like a place I would love to visit - leeches, mozzies and all. I realised though that if I wanted to go to Kalimantan, I was going to have to get around without too many problems. I'd already picked up a lot of everyday language that got me through the smaller towns in Malaysia and meant I could have awkward conversations with encouraging taxi drivers (no, I don't want to add you to Facebook but thanks anyway), so it didn't seem like it would be too hard to learn some more. 

I came back to Australia intending to learn Malay. A quick Google search revealed very little, with the exception of one Teach Yourself Malay book (which actually looked quite good, more on that later). But in February I was invited to a wedding in Melbourne, where the whole service was in Indonesian. To my surprise, I actually understood several parts of the service, and that was the lightbulb moment when I realised that Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia were so similar that as a traveller you could use them interchangeably and get by. I Googled "learn Indonesian" and although this also wasn't great, it was far better and over the last several months I have accummulated several quality resources, and it's time to share.