On my last day in Indonesia I relax and sip tea on the veranda of my room in a Jakarta high-rise hotel. Suspended over a calm eastern ocean is a consolidation of brooding, pastel purple fog and haze. Occasionally the sky is split by a flash of heat lightning, that strangely silent atmospheric tantrum. Off in the other direction sprawls the bustling megacity, blanketed by a harsh, sun baked smog.

The clash of contrasts is apparent, as it has been for a month. That's how long I've been tramping around the superheated bright and dark corners of this most enigmatic and volatile of nations. Indonesia's people are as divided by religion, ethnicity, and language as her islands are by the inky blue sea. As I sit in the photochemical gloaming I wonder if this cauldron of centrifugal forces will ever blend instead of boil.