I tend to jump on every opportunity I get to go somewhere new, so when my friend Mitch told me he'd be studying in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, I knew I had to kiss ass and get an invite. It worked, and resulted in a thoroughly enjoyable week in my 20th country.

After a frantic week of packing up my home in Chicago, moving furniture into storage, renting the place, visiting my family, and wedging myself into middle seats on 13 hours flights, I found myself in Kuala Lumpur. Mitch was waiting for me at arrivals, and the holiday phase of my leave was about to begin.

After a restless 6 hours at the overpriced airport hotel, we were up at 4:30am for the 2 1/2 hour flight on Air Asia to Solo, Indonesia. The A320 was nearly empty, making the $36 flight enjoyable, but without much sleep. I am often amazed at how so many Asian airlines and airports can provide such lovely service, with friendly people, new planes, and on-time flights. Whereas air travel in the US is generally painful from the moment you enter the airport until you've finished filing your lost baggage claim at your destination. Mind you, Australia does a great job moving people around as well. In Melbourne I can still show up 20 minutes before my flight to Sydney and know I'll make it through security and onto the plane without dealing with lines, crowds, or security staff who treat everyone like a terrorist. To top it off, you get dinner on the flight. But I digress...

My first view of Indonesia was during our descent, as we passed rice fields and villages in a valley surrounded by volcanoes. On the ground, Solo airport was roughly the size of a classroom, but relatively efficient. A 7-day visa-on-arrival cost $10. Since there were only 2 foreigners who required visas on the flight, I nearly had the visa line to myself, and was in a taxi to Jogja less than 10 minutes after leaving the plane. Even at 8am it was warm and humid, despite supposedly being the coolest time of day.

The drive to Jogja took about 40 minutes, through countless villages and a few rice fields. Java is a very densely populated island, but with the exception of Jakarta, is not very built up. We always seemed to be in an urban area, but the sporadic rice fields removed any feeling of being in an overpopulated land. As we entered JogJa, traffic became a bit chaotic, and the rice fields began to vanish.

I was staying at a hotel on the campus of Universitas GajahMada, which Mitch had arranged for me. For $13 a night, I had a decent room, and a complimentary breakfast with included excellent coffee and unedible food.

A bit sleep-deprived and starving, we headed out for lunch at 'Boulevard', a cafe across the street from the university. After lunch, we spent a few hours wandering about the city, ending up in the Prawirotaman neighborhood, where we had dinner at 'Milas', an astoundingly good vegetarian cafe. It is more than just a cafe actually, it includes a shop, a library, and several private tropical outdoor eating areas, the kind where you remove your footwear and sit low around a communal table as giant mosquitoes attempt to maim you. We dined with some of Mitch's expat friends; some students, some travellers. If Milas existed in Melbourne, I would eat there every week.

At 8am, were met at my hotel by a tour guide and two female uni students who would be our drivers on a 6-hour motocycle tour of the Hindu and Bhuddist temples which surround Jogja. I was openly uneasy since, at 34, I have never been on a motocycle in my life. Considering I was also familiar with Jogja traffic (no rules, no lanes), I wasn't sure what Mitch was getting me into.

After stopping by a bank in the morning for a refill on the Monopoly-money, we took a Colt up to the mountain village of Kaliurang, which is about 25 km North of Jogja. A Colt is basically a pickup truck which has been converted into a passenger bus. Basic and privately run, you flag them down anywhere you can, and pay the driver based on how far you travel. A short hop around the city would cost about 20 cents, but the 1 hour trip to Kaliurang ran almost a dollar.

During the regularly scheduled downpour, we caught another Colt for the 20km trip back to Jogja.

Dinner was at a 'Daisy's', a modern Asian/Western restaurant with free Wifi and a rather good band.

A restful day. I spent the morning reading a week's worth of newspapers, and watching Indonesian chat shows, one of which included a segment with a chef preparing and serving deep fried Guinea Pigs. Tasty.

In the afternoon we did take in a few touristy shopping spots. Most of our local travels were by becak, or pedal-powered cart, with Mitch doing all the haggling.

The plan for was both Mitch and I to hire a car and a driver to drive to the Borobudur temple at sunrise, then on to the Dieng Province, a little over three hours out of Jogja. Unfortunately, very bad stomach things happened to Mitch overnight, which left me heading out to Borobudur alone at 5am.

Borobudur is one of the world's most famous Bhuddist temples. I consider myself agnostic, but there is definitely some power in places like this. I arrived at 6am, just in time for the gates to open. This was a good move. Borobudur belonged to me and two Dutch travellers for 20 minutes before masses of tourists and schoolchildren arrived in in the hundreds.

The end. Checking in at Yogyakarta airport I realised I was not quite ready to leave. The prospect of being at work in less than 18 hours was a bit saddening. It was a 1 hour Garuda flight to Jakarta, then on to Sydney and Melbourne with Qantas, totalling about 10 hours en route.

I managed to enjoy Indonesia without any stomach flu, despite being warned otherwise. It was amusing, but painful to then realise that it was Qantas who would make me voilently ill. I found myself shuddering and sweating at Melbourne Airport for 2 hours before I was sufficiently contained to make a taxi ride home. Thanks Qantas.. between the middle seats, delayed flights, and food poisoning, you really managed to disappoint me for the first time.

A friend of mine and I took in a 3 1/2 hour Henry Rollins show last night, my fourth time seeing one of his spoken word performances. I find that he is one of the few mouths in this world I agree with 100% of the time. He spent a good part of this show describing his travels to such places as Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. Everywhere he travelled he met smiling faces, beautiful people, and overwhelming hospitality. He would then be dismayed returning home to be interrogated like a criminal because of the stamps in his passport. It was sad to hear his reality of America's isolation and fear, a reality that I understand quite well.

Indonesia was a bit like that for me. Everyone was lovely, and people with limited means always seemed to enjoy life more than the richest Americans and Australians I know. I always return from these holidays a better man; refreshed, and focused on my place in the world. A few months back in the corporate world will undoubtedly pull be back into my former cynical self. For that, I only hope another week in Indoensia is on the horizon.