It seems that during the years 1980- 1998 these places were buzzing with European backpackers on a trans- Sumatran trail. I wanted to help locals , maybe they should paint a better sign or offer culture experience packages. Then I realised Indonesia had blown it ! It's tourist industry had committed suicide; there are just too many things gone wrong. The guest house owners are sitting around waiting for the backpacker hordes to return tomorrow. It's over, It's been 9 lean years now, they aren't coming back tomorrow or the day after that or ever. The golden years finished and things will never been the same again . Now there are some old timers, hardcore travellers and specialists visiting remote surf or dive islands. For most backpackers there are so many difficulties with Indonesia, better go to the South East Asian mainland where things are so much easier. Not only that anti-Chinese riots meant Indonesia blew it with Ethnic Chinese tourists, It a pity, but the Sumatran guest house owners have to look for other markets like an increasing number of middle class Indonesian tourists, and Malay and other Islamic tourists. I told them to change their guest houses into colleges and English schools.

6 Good Reasons to visit Sumatra
1- It's cheap as chips
2- People are pretty friendly
3- not much robbery
4 - English is widely spoken
5- Tourist money will reduce poverty
6- Helps intercultural relations : showing that western non muslims are not evil : counteracts some of the strange stories that are spread around the mosques like "In Britain the government hates muslims so beards are banned" doh : Spreads positive modern ideas like equality for women/minorities and care for the enviroment

BUT Sumatra is half broken
Cheap as hell, good English widely spoken, friendly honest people who need your dollars and positive influences, but the golden era of hordes of western tourists will never come back.

Buses at less than $1 an hour sounds cheap, but No : given the hassles : the bus will leave late, everyone on board will smoke, the road will be in a shit condition, it'll cramped and hot, the driver will drive like a maniac, the 20% chance the bus will breakdown, and high chance of a crash mean they should pay you to take these hell rides. So it's poor value, like the hotel room which will be $2, not clean, a hole in the ground and a bucket for toilet and shower and with a earsplitting 5am Mosque call

And the other hassles, having to be on your guard against overcharging and ripoffs, being hassled by would be guides & taxi drivers.

Otherwise for a country with so much poverty ther's no real threat of getting robbed People are kind, and English is surprisingly pretty widely spoken.

Large areas of the country are mostly Christian (40 million people), but generally if you travel you have to travel through some muslim areas)

20 things Indonesia needs to fix Tourists will put up with a few hassles on the list, but Indonesia would need to make an effort to fix so many things before mass tourism returns.

1- Realise it's been left behind by the competition : travel in other countries can be just as cheap, but without the hassles.
Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam opened up, the Latin American countries have changed from military dictatorships to democracies.
2- Make it easy for tourists to get to Indonesia - At the moment most flights from Europe to Australia NZ use Singapore or Bangkok as a hub. So of course lots of tourists stop off and spend money in those places. Why shouldn't Indonesia get some of those dollars by routing the flights through Lake Toba, Bali, Batam or one of the surf/dive islands ? Tell the airlines they can land for free if they bring tourists in.
3- Make it easy for tourists to get in and spend time/money - other countries make it easy for tourists no visa needed and 3 month stays etc. Indonesia makes it difficult : it introduced a 30 day visa on arrival for $25 and a 60 day maximum advance visa, ridiculous for such a large country.
4- Clean Up - Almost every entry point is a crappy polluted dirty town. First impressions count and if your first impression is jumbled sidewalks full of garbage then you don’t want to stay long. Even in tourist areas there are gangs of boys sitting around moaning there are no tourists wheras nearby the roadside is full of litter. If they picked it up maybe the tourists would stay longer.
5- Make it easy for tourists to get around Indonesia - fix the roads or introduce a cheap explore Indonesia flight pass. The roads are not built properly. Often there is no drainage so large potholes grow, making journies take 2 or 3 times the time they should take.
6- Make the roads safe : The driving is dangerous and macho with a lot of blind over taking.
7- Make Planes/Ferries/Trains safe : It seems that a plane crashes or a ferry sinks every other week
8- Everyone smokes, great if you are a smoker, but not great if you are a non-smoker on a 17 hour bus ride.
9- 5am Mosque calls. What kind of tourists want to be woken by some rant from the loudest mosques in the world . Many areas are Christian without this problem , but almost all the entry towns are Muslim.
10- confusing money : When people tell you something is 50,000 you think wow that’s a big number, but it's only $5 they should crop at least 000 from the money or dollarise
11- Expensive alcohol - Malaysia has 2 duty free islands
12- No information/disinformation/confusion : Travelling around Indonesia can be hard, Where's the bus go from ? "They moved the bus terminal again, but no one uses it", "When's the ferry leave ?" there's no signboard. Where's the waterfall ? The guide industry is often responsible for the lack of signs. In Berastagi the hotel was very insistent you can't go to the volcanoes without a guide. This is widely known among the backpacker network to be a lie - the path is a 5Km road followed by steps. As a result you learn to expect guides to be a ripoff. Likewise in Ketambe and Bukit Lawang they tell you that you must walk with a guide, wheras there are clear trails easily accessible from the road. If they instead told you "yes you can go the forest alone, but I really know where the animals are and I can make your walk a wonderful experience plus by taking a local guide you are supporting the community and nature instead of logging and animal exploitation." I would go with them, particulary if it was the custom to give a large tip afterwards instead of paying before, because how do you know if the guide is a local expert or a chancer who has just stepped off the bus from the city ? Personally I would like to see local guide cooperatives, instead of guides competing and money getting pushed down, so the money gets shared.
13- Promote Indonesia as a sub-continent not just one country. Indonesia perceived as a disaster country. The biggest problem is that when people see the news and it reports floods or earthquakes, typhoons, civil war, terrorism or mob violence, in a part of Indonesia they perceive the whole of indonesia as dangerous, but the same people wouldn't cancel their holiday to England just because Rome is flooded. Similary, because Indonesia is promoted as just one country people fail to appreciate the diversity that exists like the 300 languages and cultures. They do things like allocate 1 week to Singapore and 1 week for Indonesia wheras one could spend 3 months exploring Indonesia.
14- General Health standards : another nail in the coffin of tourism. If other things were upto scratch many tourists would take a risk in visiting a country with things like Dengue, bird flue, rats in the streets, more diseases and increased risk of natural disasters but it's too easy to write Indonesia off as a unhealthy place.
15- Fix the anti-foreigner sentiments. It seems all too often instead of accepting responsibility and setting off to tackle a problem it has become the tradition of many authorities just to blame all problems on foreigners. This doesn't help tourism. Also some conservative authorities confuse modern values like equality for women, respect for minorities as being only western values and they think they can keep modern ideas out simply by keeping westerners out. Though it must be said people on the street are generally very hospiitable in both Muslim and non-muslim areas.
16- Fix the perception of Indonesia being home to mob violence and terrorism - 1998 Mobs running in the streets looking for Chinese to kill to 2007 the possibility of mobs coming out of the mosque on a Friday night fired up by some unwise speaker, to news reports of inter-religious fighting. Of course tourists are rarely going to be effected, but they would rather come to the 90% countries where things like that don't happen. The British Embassy website urges caution seeming to say trouble could flare up at any place at any time almost meaning "stay away from Indonesia"
To be fair the governement has being taking steps for reconciliation with the Chinese community.
17- Fix corruption - Corruption doesn't often effect to to tourists, but when they see road blocks collecting bribes they start thinking about spending there money in places where theres less obvious corruption. And it fuels perception of Indonesia as a broken place where laws for safety or laws for nature protection are not properly enforced.
18- Fix the pestering - With so few tourists, what tourists there are face a lot of pestering from bicycle taxi drivers and would be guides. Though other countries often have it far worse.
19- Greater Professionalism/standards - Indonesia can often seem half-broken : Modern thinking - Thinking about earning money long term not just today : clean rooms : safe driving and the good business practice of not putting all your eggs in one basket. The standard of hospitality in Bali is way above the rest of industry. In Sumatra all to often the guest house is cheap, but often the room was not so clean. Aso the bus driver is paid $8 a day so often doesn't care about maintaining the vehicle, so he drives like a maniac. If he could see that by taking care the bus would last 10 years instead of 5, so his boss could pay him more, it would be good.
20- Greater Co-operation - Indonesian businesses are very competitive which makes it good for tourists, but surely in times of hardship by cutting prices so much they harm their neighbours and communities. It would be great if the hotels, restaurants and guides could stop pushing the prices down, but come up with a fair system for sharing the money around. I don't know how, but if I had a hotel and my guests went to my neighbours to eat or hire motorbikes I would be happy to see them earn some money
In Tuk Tuk each restaurant is open every night with a full set of staff, burning electricity. Surely they could come up with a system where one restaurant closes one night and it's neighbours the next.
Hotels could get together and promote their town to bring more tourists in then have a fair way of allocating the tourists between hotels.
If I was running a business I would be happy to share and help my community, but locals told me people get jealous and don't like to cooperate. To be honest if there were minimum price of say $3 a day and good guides $15 that would be OK by me, people have a right to earn proper money. But I won't visit is places where they have a custom of charging foreigners more, because then I see rich locals pay less than me. I will however pay more for a safe bus.

Some enthusiasts will make the effort to get to some of the extraordinary but remote surf and dive places Sumatra has, and some tough travellers will also tour, but the many problems make it too much of a hassle for the majority of tourists One feels sorry for locals trying to make living from foreign tourists and hopes the economy picks up so they can make money in other ways.