Interwar Hongkongers' summer destination of choice? Indonesia

South China Morning Post

05-06-2025

Since the colony's earliest years, the summer months of dankly humid weeks of near-constant rain, followed by a few baking-hot, magnificently clear days, punctuated by passing typhoons, have been the season to escape. But before air services expanded everyone's travel horizons, where lay within reasonable reach by sea, offering pleasant, modern resort localities with warm daytime weather, fresh mornings and cool afternoons?
Regional options were limited. In mainland China, modest hill stations, mostly established by missionaries, were scattered across the interior but none were readily accessible from Hong Kong. Farther afield, yet close enough for relatively short visits, Japan, and Japanese-ruled Taiwan, offered several attractive mountain resorts. Established from the early 20th century and accessible by road and rail from major cities,
places such as Nikko became popular destinations for a while. By the early 1930s, however, as Japan descended into fascist rule, foreigners found themselves subject to official surveillance, which diminished that country's pull.
So where else as erstwhile peaceful, interesting and accessible also offered a range of cooler-climate options?
The Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia), and more specifically,
the island of Java , was the premier interwar summer destination of choice for those Hongkongers able to afford leisure travel.
An early 20th-century advertisement for steamship connections to Java. Photo: Handout
Dramatically beautiful, cool-weather mountain resorts had been a noted feature on Java from the early 19th century.
Linked by modern railways and excellent road networks to international ports at
Surabaya and Batavia (present-day Jakarta), modern Dutch-built highland cities including Bandung, in West Java, and Malang, in East Java, offered convenient access to smaller hill towns found at higher altitudes nearby, such as Garut, Sukabumi, Lawang and Tretes.