Indonesia

THE BEST WAY TO BOROBUDUR, INDONESIA From LAX, connecting service (change of planes) to Yogyakarta is offered on Singapore, Thai, Air China, China Southern, Korean, Qantas, Philippine, Asiana and All Nippon, connecting to Garuda. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $1,299, excluding taxes and fees. TELEPHONES To call the numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (the international dialing code), 62 (country code for Indonesia) and the local number. WHERE TO STAY Manohara Center for Borobudur Study, Jalan Badrawati, Borobudur, Magelang 56553; 293-788-680, http://www.borobudurpark.co.id . A small, charming guest house originally built for archaeologists and researchers on the grounds of Borobudur with a good restaurant, introductory video and sunrise tours; doubles start around $76, including temple admission, breakfast and tea. Amanjiwo, 293-788-333, http://www.amanresorts.com/amanjiwo/home.aspx . A luxurious Aman resort hidden above Borobudur with a silver leaf-covered ceiling in the restaurant, graceful limestone pool and other-worldly suite; rates start around $750 a night.

MOSCOW - A new Russian passenger plane with 50 people aboard went missing Wednesday during a demonstration flight over Indonesia, officials said. The Sukhoi Superjet 100, on a South Asian promotional tour, disappeared from radar screens 20 minutes into its second flight from Jakarta. The crew last spoke to ground control while over Mt. Halimun Salak National Park in West Java province, the Rossiya 24 television network reported. "Before communication was lost with the plane, there was no information about the malfunction of the systems," said Vladimir Prisyazhnyuk, president of Moscow-based Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co. "The plane has conducted about 500 flights with the overall flight time over 800 hours [and]

Do primates eat, pray, love? This monkey, photographed by Stephanie Huynh, seems to think so. Huynh, who recently moved to Yokohama, Japan, from San Diego, was in Bali earlier this month celebrating her fifth wedding anniversary. While she was visiting the Ubud Monkey Forest, this character and bowl caught her attention. "I really liked the essence of this shot …as the monkey appears to be much more human-like," she said. Huynh used a Canon EOS Rebel T1i. View past photos we've featured . To upload your own, visit our reader travel photo gallery . When you upload your photo, tell us where it was taken and when.

HONG KONG — It's a warm, humid day halfway into the city's International Film Festival, and Edwin — a rising Indonesian indie filmmaker with his single name born of tradition rather than manufactured Hollywood artifice — is trying to explain how he shapes the aesthetic of his films. It all begins with a single image. For "Postcards From the Zoo," an ethereal fairy-tale-like story of a child abandoned at Jakarta's Ragunan Zoo that is in competition, it was raindrops on an elephant's hide.

For four long years, Reni Sualeha has lived in the shadow of a monster, a menacing chemical flow of fetid gray mud that belches unchecked from the bowels of the earth near her home. Known as the Lusi mud volcano, its spread is so relentless — burping noxious gas, swallowing communities, killing 14 people and forcing the evacuations of 60,000 — that some say it could star in its own sci-fi thriller. Those in the United States who are wondering just how long the ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico could possibly keep gushing should listen to Sualeha's cautionary tale.

For decades, Uni Histayanti has performed the enigmatic movements of her country's traditional pendet pendet dance. She learned the rhythms as an infant and years ago opened a dinner theater here in the Indonesian capital where, dressed in native costume, she performs nightly. As she flutters her arms bird-like, darts her eyes and tilts her head at exotic angles, she invokes the welcoming spirit of the Hindu-majority Bali island where it originated centuries ago. That's why it floored her to hear that neighboring Malaysia had reportedly tried to seize the pendet as its own. It's pure cultural piracy, Histayanti insists.

The monkey, shackled to an iron stake, paced a narrow strip of dirt filled with its own excrement. As people laughed and pointed, the creature bared its teeth and lunged at the end of its line. "He gets angry," said one trader at the teeming animal market here. "Like a little person." Irma Hermawati gets angry too. The 31-year-old Javanese native is an investigator for the nonprofit group ProFauna, which lobbies on behalf of what she believes is Indonesia's most precious resource: its indigenous wildlife.

President Obama's visit to Indonesia next week will offer the unexpected image of an American president delivering a major diplomatic speech to the Islamic world, from a country that has frequently been the source of terrorist plots against Western targets. Obama's three-day trip to the world's most populous Muslim country is intended to demonstrate Washington's improving relationship and closer security ties with the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. It is also a vote of confidence in Indonesia's security apparatus, once notorious for human rights abuses, but which in recent years has found itself back in favor with the U.S. as it battles home-grown and foreign Islamic extremist networks.

A series of powerful earthquakes in remote eastern Indonesia killed at least three people today as it cut power lines, flattened a hotel and damaged other buildings, officials and witnesses said. Five people were injured when several floors of the hotel collapsed in Manokwari, the provincial capital of West Papua, and a search was underway for people who might have been trapped in the rubble. An emergency room assistant said the bodies of a man and boy were brought to a hospital.

President Obama will probably cut short his one-day Indonesia visit because volcanic ash is complicating air travel in the region, aides said as Air Force One arrived here Tuesday. The change would be just the latest of several disruptions in the president's trip to the country where he lived for a while as a child. The Tuesday arrival comes after two cancellations earlier in the year, first because of a congressional vote on the president's healthcare plan and then because of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Nissan Motor Co. is bringing back the storied Datsun brand, but American drivers are unlikely to see any new vehicles adorned with the name whose popularity in Southern California served as a springboard to international prominence. Nissan is positioning Datsun as a lower-cost brand in emerging markets. The new line will go on sale in India, Indonesia and Russia in 2014. The Datsun brand dates from 1931 as the nameplate of Japan's DAT Motorcar Co., which was purchased by Nissan in 1933.

1. Poland, a major food exporter, removed from the market half a million pounds of food, including pickles and bread, because of fears it contained industrial salt, used for de-icing roads. 2. A performance this month of North Korea's Unhasu Orchestra in Paris, arranged by the principal conductor of the Seoul Philharmonic, may signal a slight thaw in relations with the West. 3. Five men were flogged six times each in the Aceh province of Indonesia after their conviction on gambling charges.

THE BEST WAY TO BOROBUDUR, INDONESIA From LAX, connecting service (change of planes) to Yogyakarta is offered on Singapore, Thai, Air China, China Southern, Korean, Qantas, Philippine, Asiana and All Nippon, connecting to Garuda. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $1,299, excluding taxes and fees. TELEPHONES To call the numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (the international dialing code), 62 (country code for Indonesia) and the local number. WHERE TO STAY Manohara Center for Borobudur Study, Jalan Badrawati, Borobudur, Magelang 56553; 293-788-680, http://www.borobudurpark.co.id . A small, charming guest house originally built for archaeologists and researchers on the grounds of Borobudur with a good restaurant, introductory video and sunrise tours; doubles start around $76, including temple admission, breakfast and tea. Amanjiwo, 293-788-333, http://www.amanresorts.com/amanjiwo/home.aspx . A luxurious Aman resort hidden above Borobudur with a silver leaf-covered ceiling in the restaurant, graceful limestone pool and other-worldly suite; rates start around $750 a night.

Four a.m. is a terrible time of day, too late for night owls, too early for early risers. The exception is 4 a.m. at Borobudur, waiting for the sun to rise over the Kedu Plain in central Java with 504 figures of Buddha. The temple is one of three great religious sites in Southeast Asia, but it's older and more esoteric than Bagan in Myanmar and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. It was begun in the 8th century by the Sailendras, a dynasty of Buddhist kings who ruled central Java for almost 200 years until their power waned and the temple was abandoned.

Do primates eat, pray, love? This monkey, photographed by Stephanie Huynh, seems to think so. Huynh, who recently moved to Yokohama, Japan, from San Diego, was in Bali earlier this month celebrating her fifth wedding anniversary. While she was visiting the Ubud Monkey Forest, this character and bowl caught her attention. "I really liked the essence of this shot …as the monkey appears to be much more human-like," she said. Huynh used a Canon EOS Rebel T1i. View past photos we've featured . To upload your own, visit our reader travel photo gallery . When you upload your photo, tell us where it was taken and when.

Mary Hunt Kahlenberg, an authority on antique and ethnographic textiles and a former curator and head of the Department of Costume and Textiles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has died. She was 71. Kahlenberg, the longtime co-owner of Textile Arts Inc., an art gallery in Santa Fe, N.M., died of carcinoid cancer Thursday at her home in Santa Fe, said her husband, Rob Coffland. Over the last five decades, Kahlenberg traveled extensively around the world learning about and searching for textiles.

The government here has banned a controversial Australian-made film that depicts the Indonesian military's reported 1975 execution of six foreign journalists in East Timor. Indonesia's film censorship board announced last week that all screenings of the political thriller "Balibo," which documents the killings of the so-called Balibo Five, are forbidden. The five -- two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander -- were working for Australian television networks when they were allegedly murdered by Indonesian troops during the 1975 invasion of East Timor.

President Obama is putting off his June trip to Indonesia and Australia, postponing the visit for a second time this year as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues unabated. President Obama is putting off his June trip to Indonesia and Australia, postponing the visit for a second time this year as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues unabated. Obama called the leaders of both countries Thursday night to convey his regrets, according to a senior administration official.

Jakarta, Indonesia, for less than $1,000? Yes. Cathay Pacific offers a round-trip fare from LAX for $996, including all taxes and fees. It is subject to availability with a six-month maximum stay. Departures are Mondays-Thursdays through Dec. 29. Info:   Cathay Pacific (800) 233-2742 Source: Airfarewatchdog.com

It's official: Barbie has broken up with Asia Pulp & Paper Co. Responding to a campaign by environmental activists at Greenpeace, toy giant Mattel Inc., maker of the famed Barbie doll line, announced Wednesday that it would stop buying paper and packaging that the environmental group has linked to rain forest destruction in Indonesia. The El Segundo company said it would tell suppliers to avoid wood fiber from companies "that are known to be involved in deforestation. " Among those companies, Greenpeace said in a statement, is Asia Pulp & Paper.