Ketut stands at the gate of his very Balinese home, waiting to greet us! After asking a dozen friends about healers, I finally hit gold. Ketut, who is known to be an excellent healer, lives in Batuan, one of the more traditional villages on the way to Ubud.He is a balian Usada, that is, his knowledge has been passed to him in mysterious ways. While his great grandfather was a respected healer, the next generations followed other lines of work, until Ketut received signs that healing was his call...

Black is not an uncommon color in the animal world; bears are black, gorillas are black, there are breeds of dogs and cats that are black. But this Indonesian chicken breed known as Ayam Cemani takes ‘black’ into an entirely different realm. The black color of Ayam Cemani is not limited to its feathers – the color is all over and even on the inside. Everything about this chicken is black – skin, beak, plume, tongue, legs, toe nails, even its meat, bones, and organs. Even bone marrow is black. Th...

Financial investments are becoming increasingly popular among Indonesians as this helps them gain profits. Aside from investing in Rupiah-based financial products, investors have another option now: investing in foreign currency, including the United States Dollar (USD). This latter option could be a convenient type of investment, especially if you earn your income in foreign currency.With foreign currency investments, investors gain investments from the margin of exchange rate between Rupiah an...

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has been ranked the fifth most followed global leader on Instagram, according to a research study released by global public relations and communications firm Burson-Marsteller earlier this month.Over the past five years, governments and world leaders have increasingly flocked to the mobile photo and video sharing network to present more personalized images of themselves to a global audience.In Indonesia, Jokowi uses several social media platforms – including Instag...

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's request to the National Development Planning Agency, or Bappenas, to do a feasibility study on moving the country's capital from Jakarta since the city has grown too overcrowded has received a mixed response from the business community.Indonesian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, or Kadin, an influential business lobby group, is worried by the idea, arguing that businesses — most with headquarters in Jakarta — need to consult and lobby the government on a regula...