[Steve9]

How do the "smaller" cities such as Bandung, Medan, Yogyakarta, Semarang, etc compare to Jakarta for both day game and night game?

What holiday/resort areas are worth visiting that are not overrun with Western tourists such as Bali?

Thanks for any suggestions!

[Rutting Elephant]

Forget night game in Jogja. There used to be at least six clubs; thanks to thuggery, the number is down to two, and the available girls are mostly pros.

[Cyclone]

I'm also interested in this.. Medan is literally $60 round trip from where I'm at
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[Acute Angle]

Yes, I'd like to hear more on these smaller cities. Will be in Java early next year.

RuttingE, what do you mean by thuggery? I though Jogja was supposed to be a cultural destination?

[Rutting Elephant]

It is a great cultural destination, but thugs ("preman") run a lot of it underneath the surface.
Check out the Cebongan incident. A (ex?) Special Forces soldier was in the top disco, Hugo's, probably dealing drugs, and got beat to death by a group of thugs. A bunch of his Army pals then broke INTO the jail where the assailants were held and shot them all to death. During their trial, the soldiers had the overwhelming support of the public, with large crowds in front of the courthouse every day. This just shows how sick the public is of protection rackets, gangs, etc. They were found guilty, but they're heroes and no doubt their sentences will be whittled down over time.
Hugo's was closed permanently.
Another club, Papillon, was closed a few years ago after gangsters actually crashed a car through the front entrance as part of an assault. Sounds like something out of a HK Triad movie.

[calculus]

I'm going to hit up Lombok, rather than Bali. It's just as good but without as many bule.

[Uptown]

This is a fairly old thread but I can provide my expertise in this.

I went to visit Pontianak (West Kalimantan) and as a whole, the city was a fucking shithole. The deforestation was on at that point so there was smoke everywhere and my flight was almost cancelled.
Pontianak compared to Jakarta is extremely noticeable. Pontianak is tiny in comparison, has hardly any westernization, barely any malls, no English, and NO FOREIGN TOURISTS!
I managed to go out only one night because the first night was a Sunday. It's very hard to find cheap spirits so ensure you go to duty free prior. The karaoke on the top floor of my hotel was full of pros and my room was fairly shitty too ($15/night what do you expect) but it had the essentials.

I met an Indian guy who was doing business and he wanted to hang out with me because I was the only foreigner he could find. He walked me to a bar and this place was completely different to anything I've ever seen in my life. The music (keyboard and singers) sounded like it was from South America and all these people are dancing. I could approach anyone in that bar and make an conversation and they were ecstatic to meet a white person (orang bule). There were several bars like it and if anyone wants to PM me, I could send you the locations after a bit of searching on google maps.

The Indian guy and I eventually went to KTV where I got extremely tired (spirits were too expensive and I don't like Indonesian beer) and ended up going back to my room.
It's fairly easy to ask for numbers in Indonesia in general and figure out if they want to come on a date.

Funny story: I went to the equator memorial (30min drive) and there were only Indonesian tourists there. Literally every single tourist there got a photo with me because they were excited about to see a white person in such a destination.

Summary: Don't explore the non-tourist destinations unless you have some grasp on Bahasa Indonesia, you'll drown otherwise. If you do hit up these places, go to the bars with a lot of locals as they're a lot of fun, even if you don't get a notch.