Buzz for Your Buck in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Oct. 24, 2008 -- Indonesia's capital city is a bustling travel hub. Spend a little time in Jakarta, with its traffic congestion, pollution and heat, and you'll discover that ways to detox are as vital as a healthy diet and exercise.

"When you are in a bad mood in Jakarta, you are in the worst place in the world. You will wonder what made you ever come in the first place," according to the CultureShock! travel guide. "The heat will make it difficult to breathe. Your head will get hot. You feel sweat running down every crevasse and cleavage."

To cope, options to revitalize and rejuvenate in the developing country -- where $1 equals about 10,000 in local currency rupiah -- can be delightfully affordable, luxurious and creative.

Some people simply flee.

Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago made up of more than 17,000 islands, offers some of the most rich and rewarding travel excursions. Local tour guides with the mantra "anything is possible" create bargain itineraries such as trekking to the tops of volcanoes, photographing rice paddy fields, exploring ancient temples, and scuba diving to the ocean's depths.

Budget airline Air Asia boasts low-cost flights around the region. A one-way ticket from Jakarta to A-list detox destination Bali is about $50-$70, or $150 roundtrip. Seats are unassigned, so invest an extra $5 to join the priority boarding line -- worth the race for a window seat to peer into the mouths of volcanoes.

To escape the chaotic city, Panorama Tours offers day trips by bus for $25-$60 to go to a tea plantation, botanical garden or even Sea World. Other highlights are Taman Mini, an Indonesia miniature park, and Taman Safari, where an affectionate baby orangutan poses for pictures with tourists. Fork over a little more hard cash and travel by boat to the Thousand Islands, or Pulau Seribu, north of Jakarta.

For those who opt to stay in the city, stress therapy spas are a treasure. Treatments are not limited to the environment-induced sauna from Indonesia's close proximity to the equator, or to hole-in-the-wall finds.