Bali, Java in my Dreams, by Christine Jordis, trans. George Bland

A Parisian publisher lost her heart in Indonesia. Shusha Guppy can understand why

Author, scholar of English literature, critic and publisher, Christine Jordis had seldom strayed from home in Paris. Then one day she set off for Indonesia to visit her brother, who was working in Jakarta. It was a coup de foudre, "the start of a passion". She was following in the footsteps of 19th-century visionaries – Conrad, Stevenson, Nerval, Rimbaud – who sought in "the Orient" an "empire of dreams", a spiritual home.

Jordis returned four times, set up house on the slopes of sacred mountains, in tropical forests, amid rice paddies. This elegant travelogue is the result of her discoveries, reflections, and encounters with past travellers and present inhabitants in Bali and Java.

The Dutch colonists who ruled Indonesia brutally for 300 years razed Batavia, the ancient capital, in 1619, rebuilt it as "the Amsterdam of the South", and rebaptised it Jakarta. Today it is a "city without a centre", with miles of shanty towns and skyscrapers. Only the museum where Java Man, believed to be "the missing link", is exhibited retains the traveller.

Then off to Bali: the archetype of beauty, the island has long been a magnet for dreamers. The Balinese practice Hinduism flavoured with local beliefs; their ethos is harmony, their concern beauty. Even the onslaught of hippies has not altered the island: grace, courtesy, humour are unimpaired. Now political upheavals keep tourists away. Jordis and her husband are often the only visitors in temples or lodges.

Nearly all the Balinese are artists. Butchers, bakers, candlestick-makers by day, they appear at night like wraiths from shadows as actors, musicians and dancers to perform scenes from the Hindu epics.

Among the most moving chapters are the stories of two "chimeric heroes", the German painter Walter Spies and French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Spies settled in Bali in the Twenties, for a while as the lover of a prince. He was jailed by the Dutch for homosexuality, "a pleasant pastime in Bali". In 1942 the Japanese torpedoed the boat taking him to prison in Ceylon, and he drowned. Like Gauguin's pictures of Tahiti, his of Bali and Java are a unique celebration of the islands and peoples.

Rimbaud enlisted in the Dutch Army and embarked for Indonesia in 1876. Within three weeks of his arrival, he disappeared. He hid in the jungle, reached a port, and embarked for Ireland. He fetched up in Cork, then Liverpool, and returned to Charleville. Soon after he left again, for Aden. The barracks of his brief passage have been swept away by wind and rain. Like many who preceded her, Jordis had gone "in search of a man who fled his past, pursued an impossible future and who ... leaves no trace". This charming, intelligent book makes up for the mission manqué.