Surabaya Travel Guide: An Overview

After Jakarta, Surabaya is Indonesia's largest city- and an extremely interesting one at that. It has the amazing ability- one which is quite true of many cities of South East Asia- of being very traditional and at the same time very modern.
On the one hand are towering skyscrapers and wide highways crowded with the newest cars; on the other are the age-old traditions, which live on in the Arab Quarter and in Chinatown.  Mpu Tantular Museum

Surabaya is the capital of East Java and is the main point of entry for the province- it's also the main gateway into Indonesia from the east. It was, for centuries altogether, an important trading port (there are still signs of its significance as a harbour- you'll see all sorts of seagoing vessels standing in the port, from smart cruisers and bright schooners to ships which look almost as if they belonged to the sixteenth century and not the twenty-first. Although there are buses, taxis and hired cars to take you around Surabaya, perhaps the best way to see the town is to go around, as much as possible, on foot. The Arab Quarter, at least, with its narrow streets and distinctly Middle-Eastern flavour, is perfect for a walk.

Other areas that invite you to walk through them are Chinatown where the temples are, as a norm, more than a century old and the Dutch sector of town- Red Bridge and Jembatan Merah- where old colonial buildings still stand. Actual `sights to see' include the Mpu Tantular Museum, which has a good collection of exhibits covering nearly all of Indonesia's past, from pre-historic times onwards. Also go (especially if you've got children along with you) to the Surabaya Zoo, which is supposedly one of the largest in South East Asia, and has an excellent aquarium and aviary, along with a good collection of nocturnal animals.