Massive demonstrations had toppled toppled President Suharto – the man who had led the 1965 Western-backed anti-communist  military coup in which hundreds of thousands were butchered –  and activists were demanding the end of cronyism and corruption when Indonesians went to the polls in 1999.

I covered the election for RFI and stayed on for two months, touring Java and visiting Aceh, at the time the scene of a dirty war against separatist guerrillas. I was fascinated by a country was so unknown to me and forced to reexamine many of my attitudes to the world outside Europe.

Accounts of what I saw, written at the time, will follow, the first of my accounts of my visits to Asia and the Middle East as a reporter.