Photos

This girl was walking through an alley in an Outer Baduy village, West Java. Her image is a bit blurred due to the relatively low camera speed.

The morning was beautiful at that time --it seems to me that morning always beautiful in this part of the world.

Outer Baduy people is relatively open the world than their close relatives, the Inner Baduy. But still the children have to walk for hours to get basic education --many choose not to. Only a few of them continue their education to the higher level. Basic necessities for modern world such as electricity, hardened-road, clean water are nowhere to be find here. But we can find some houses sell instant foods, canned water and cigarettes for visitors. Selling souvenirs are also flourishing.

Inner Baduy area is much more restricted. People need to ask permission to visit and often must be guided for fearing to get lost in the dense jungle. Visitors are requested to obey many unwritten rules, including not taking any picture --a few months ago, a team from a TV station broke this rule. The indigenous people were so angry that only after formal apology and a special ceremony, they calmed down. But there are some months when the Inner Baduy don't accept any visitor at all, as they have their yearly ceremony.

The Baduy has their own passion for walking with barefoot --no matter difficult is the surface. Generally they refuse to use any vehicle, inside their area or even outside. Sometimes we can spot a group of Baduy walk to Bandung or Jakarta, two big cities hundreds kilometres from their area. They usually walk in one column.

Yet, this people is able to preserve their culture and environment for hundred years, manage themselves through hard times during the invasion of the Dutch, the British, and the Japanese. Indonesia has undergone dramatic change since her independence in 1945, but time is frozen here in Baduy.