There is this twilight zone that exists just before you fall into a deep sleep. It is that time where you are aware of emerging dreams, yet, noises and events happening in the vicinity of your resting body are registered as well, and become part of the dreams that are in their startup phase.
It was the 8th of august, and it was almost certain that Bapak Fauzi Bowo was going to be announced as the winner of the governor election that where held that day in Jakarta. Jakarta government had announced the voting day as a ‘national holiday’ for Jakarta, so most of the employees did not pollute the streets with their cars and motorcycles. I, as an expat, was not allowed to vote, and had to go to the office to earn the company some money. Travel times, however, where reduced to half compared to normal working days.
It looked to become a night as any other night. I went to bed at around ten, setting my alarm clock at 6:15, soon entering the drowsy state of almost sleeping.
I lost all track of time, but I remember hearing a lot of people talking and laughing in the corridors some time later. I was kept in the drowsy state for a long time by these voices, but I was too lazy to really wake up, but not sleepy enough to ignore it. The voices stopped at some point, I think, or I must have fallen asleep, but the next thing I remember is that I am dreaming that my body is shaking all over. I semi woke up, but the shaking still continued. I was wondering why, because I did not drink alcohol the night before; I could not explain it. I was starting to get worried in my dreamy state (at the time I was not sure if it was dreaming or waking). Suddenly, a hard rain started pounding the window, and it was as if winds where sweeping hailstones against it. It connected with something I heard earlier that night (in my dream?), namely the sound of a thundering roar, right before the voices started. As I was thinking about the thunder and rain, a hard noise of a falling object in my room dragged me completely out of my sleep. I was fully awake now and jumped out of bed. Still the rain or poured out of the sky and the sudden jumping out of my bed left me on shaky legs in the room. I got a little disoriented and while looking for the light switch, I got an eerie feeling that the rain I was hearing, did not come from the window, but was actually emerging from the hollow walls that separate the inner rooms. As I stumbled in the kitchen, the shaky feeling got out of my legs. In the kitchen I could hear the rain falling on the ceiling from above. I was sure that I was still dreaming, or maybe sleep walking… Than it hit me, I knew what I was experiencing. This was the work of an earthquake. The rain I had been hearing was dust that flowed down the hollow walls and ceiling.
The reason why I did not immediately connect what I was feeling to an earthquake is that experience can be a bad teacher. I experienced two earthquakes in Belgium (yes, we get them there once in every 20 years or so), but those always came with a lot of slow shaking movements, that would make doors and walls rattle like hell. This one was very quiet, except for the rustling sound of the sliding dust and sand.
Immediately after I woke up, the corridor filled up with people hurrying to the lifts or emergency staircases to get out of the building (yes, lifts, the one thing you should avoid using during quakes and fire). I, however, stayed in the apartment I opened the Internet and learned that the quake was at a place about 95 km from my apartment, somewhere very deep in the see… no reason to panic. As I looked out f the window, I could see people swarming out of all entries of the apartment, and trying to get as far as possible from the building. Most of them stayed there for more than an hour before daring to set foot inside again. I am sure some of them slept outside or in their car for the rest of the night.
I could not find any object that had tumbled, not in my bedroom, or in the rest of my apartment: everything was still as I left it before I went to bed. Probably it was something in the corridor or in the apartment above mine that had been knocked over by panicking people trying to flee their home.
I went back to bed and fell asleep soon; but it was a light sleep and I woke up several times, feeling my body shaking, or was that a dream (no significant after chocks where registered that night)?
Some taxi drivers are really plain stupid. However, the one I had last week, topped all I have encountered so far. One or two ‘so called mistakes’ are, in my eyes, acceptable, but even after I show I understand and can talk (taxi) Indonesian, and after I clearly explained where to go and how to get there, demonstrating I know the route exactly, this guy kept on trying and trying to rip me off. The story is as follows:
It was about seven in the morning. I had to go to Plaza Aminta in Cilandak, (very) South-Jakarta. I asked the receptionist to call a green taxi from the pool at our apartment and promptly a taxi arrived at the lobby entrance. I got in, and after exchanging the usual good mornings the driver asked me where I wanted to go. When I told him: “Plaza Aminta”, I am used to the puzzled looks, so I immediately added: “TB Simatupang”. Most of the taxi drivers can deduct from that information that they have to go south. Not this one. He kept on looking at me in a puzzled way. I knew exactly how to go there, so I told him that is near Pondok Indah Mall and that we had to pass that mall to get there. At least this triggered some kind of recognition and the taxi started moving.
When we arrive at the exit of the apartment complex, he asked if I want to go left or right. This was a plausible question, since we can go both ways to go south. I told him to go right (to normal Jakarta and Indonesian standards, going right often means going left and make a u-turn at some point). I saw his puzzled looks showing again, so I explained via which route I wanted to reach my destination: first to Semanggi, take Sudirman to Senayan, than pass Blok M Plaza and from there via Radio Dalam to Pondok Indah. It was easy, I thought. The was guy is so puzzled by my explanation that he did not see that the car in front of him stopped so it was unavoidable that he hit it (speeds where under 30 km per hour, traffic tends to get kinda slow at that time-well traffic can get slow at any time, anywhere in Jakarta). The woman in the hit car drove on and I noticed there was no damage to her car. The taxi driver however insisted to get her on the site, to assess the damage. After some horn blowing and light signaling, the car finally pulled over at a quiet spot. The driver got out of the taxi to look at the (none existing) damage (the meter is still running). After a minute or so, he got in the taxi again and started driving.
Again he asked my instructions. I again explained the route, but he still seemed to be oblivious of where to go and how to get there. I suspected he was just trying to trick me, so told him bluntly to go to Sudirman first, via Semanggi. “OK, mister” he said in a jolly way. At least he knew Sudirman and Semanggi.
Arriving at Semanggi, he suddenly took a left turn, and before I realized it, he was on his way to… Sudirman, yes, but up north. I told him this was the wrong way. I knew he could still take a left turn later to get back to the road we where before. But he was (deliberately?) stalling by telling me: “this is Sudirman, you told me to go to Sudirman”. I got a little angry with him and said we were supposed to go to South-Jakarta, pass Blok M, and we were going north. Of course we already passed the opportunity to go left and minimize the damage. The taxi driver said he was sorry and he would make a u-turn as soon as possible. I knew that a few kilometers up north was a place where we could go of Sudirman and pass under it to go back on Sudirman at the other side. But… the taxi driver didn’t think that was as soon as possible enough, so when we passed the point where we could turn back, I asked him quiet rudely where he was going to make the u-turn. He said he was going to do it at Bundaran HI, about another kilometer up north. I told him he was not fit to be a taxi driver, because he missed the point where we could turn back, and he didn’t know how to go to South-Jakarta all together. I also asked him to drop me at Plaza Indonesia where I would take a decent taxi. He dropped me in front of Plaza Indonesia. I paid the fair (33000 Rp sharp) and no tip, and all the time he kept on saying he was sorry.
Well, I am not sure he was sorry, but this time I made a complaint about him at his head office and they told me he was going to get a warning. Don’t know if that will happen though. After this incident, I always order the blue taxis from the well know group with the bird. At least, their drivers stop trying to trick you after they know you know your way around in Jakarta.
I don’t know if it is because I am in Indonesia, but things seem to take so much longer to get fixed. For instance, my website and my blog went broken a couple of weeks ago… I would say that it should be fixed in no time. But hey, you know Murphy, and especially his law. Everything that could go wrong - did go wrong.
It started when I could not access the internet from my home. Somehow Indonesian internet service providers mix-up the terms “instable” and “not working”. We already got a letter from our ISP saying that in “the next week” (this was 3 weeks ago) the internet would be instable. For compensating the inconvenience, we got two vouchers, each with the validity of one month free internet. The vouchers are valid until 31-Dec-2008. YES, you read it right 2008. Not long after that, internet failed completely. I was unable to connect from my home at all. And at that exact time (timing couldn’t have been better), the website broke down.
How to fix it… I spent some time trying to fix things via my office, but this is only possible after hours. Internet at the office however, is very instable (instable, not out). In despair I went to the office on Saturdays. I even tried to use the internet at the Cazbar, but guess what.. the internet there was down also. In the end, I was not able to fix things… even after installing joomla and wordpress again. In the mean time, the internet at home was dead as a dead internet can be.
Finally I gave up and asked my webhost to change my account from Windows to UNIX. This took many many days to accomplish, but at last, my UNIX account was ready. Today, I re-installed everything on the UNIX host (at my office) and see what happens: the website is up again, the blog is running again, and yes… internet at home is back as if it never left (yes.. jam karet they call it here - elastic time: 1 week is actually 3 weeks).
I am happy now.
I heard about Jakarta’s Jalan Jaksa as being referred to as ‘kampung bule’ before. If you know this street, it is obvious why: it is pre-eminently a western backpacker’s hangout.
On a Belgian gathering in the Eastern Promise last Saturday, the term was used for another place: an area where (nearly) all inhabitants are western. So when I asked a guy where he lived, his girlfriend replied: in kampung bule, south Kemang… I had to think twice before I knew what she meant.
I am a member of the FitnessFirst that is located in Taman Anggrek. I went there today for a swim. As I was waiting for my partner to come out of the ladies locker room after swimming, I became once again a witness of Indonesian inventiveness.
I always get ready long before my partner does, so I have to find a place to sit and wait for her. Normally, I choose a wooden bench right in front of the Mind and Body Studio. This studio is used for the less active classes like Yoga or Pilates. I already noticed on my previous visits that all classes are always packed with people and if you come late, you are bound to be squeezed in at a less desirable spot. So… most of the attendees tend to come early, very early.
An Essential Yoga class was scheduled, but it was still half an hour before it started. The first two girls already arrived, both carrying a water bottle. These girls, however, did not wait in front of the studio, but they put their water bottles in front of the door, and disappeared. I did not make much out of this; they probably just went to the bathroom or something, soon to return. Two minutes later, another girl arrived to put her bottle in line with the first two. This went on for a couple of minutes and by the time my partner appeared, the row of drink bottles had already grown to ten or so.
While my partner was returning her used towels, another girl came. She looked at the row of bottles and realized she was going to have a bad spot to practice the Essential Yoga. She boldly opened the door, went inside with bottle, to return within a few seconds without a bottle. She probably decided that marking her spot in the studio was better than to have her bottle wait outside in line.
Since the integration of WordPress into Joomla is not really working for me (especially the ping services), I will keep on using this Blog for a while.
I hope the OpenWP soon will be working perfect… until then I will post here as well.
Although the previous posting was supposed to be the last one, I still want to give some practical information about the new blog and its location.
The URL for the blog is: http://photo.ruditheunis.com/index.php?option=com_jd-wp.
The rss feed for the new site is: http://photo.ruditheunis.com/index.php?option=com_jd-wp&feed=rss2.
Also, please visit my website regularly, because it is updated much more than before.
The last few weeks, this site has had some major changes. Not only he layout changed, but I also embedded a gallery and a blog into it.
The gallery makes it easier for me to upload images; actually, the whole site is designed to change the content at a blink of the eye (a long blink). It will allow me to make the site more dynamic. Because of the new gallery, the old one at http://fineart.ruditheunis.com will be offline very soon.
As the blog is now integrated into the site, the old blog will become obsolete. It will still exist, but no new posting will appear on it after this one. Please, if you have a RSS reader linked to it, change the feed to the new site.
The forum site is closed down. The forum was not used anyway.
I hope this site will become better in time as I will try to add useful information about traveling and photographing.
Any suggestions or remarks, please let me know.
The end of the Ramadan has come and the Muslim community is celebrating.
The celebrating started yesterday evening, after sunset: from the mosques, prayers where send into the air and people set off fireworks all over town. Occasionally a horde of people on motorbikes would pass by, making noisy ‘music’ with trumpets, drums, and tooting their horns. All these festivities lasted until well over midnight.
Lebaran (as it is called here) is also a holiday period, where most villagers ‘mudik’ (go back to their home town to celebrate with their family). Non Muslims flee Jakarta to take a quiet holiday in Bali or other parts of the country or world. Compared to normal days, Jakarta is very quiet now.
Those who stay in Jakarta will probably have to survive without a maid or driver during the holiday period. This turns out good for the restaurants, because their business will grow considerably during this time, as maidless families don’t want to cook for themselves. For these families, the holiday period is a thrilling experience, because it is never sure when and if the maid is coming back from her home town; in many places, you see different maids after Eid ul-Fitr.
For me, one of the nice things of working in a country that has many official religions is, that you get many days off.
Last week I overheard this conversation and although it sounded strange to me, it is commonplace in Indonesia.
I was sitting in the Starbucks coffee ‘house’ at Taman Anggrek. At the table next to me, a western guy (West European I think) was talking business with two Indonesians (Chinese). They where talking rather loud and in English, so I did not have any problem understanding them.
One of the Indonesian guys was making a proposal, and the conversation went like this:
| Indonesian guy 1: |
Well, we aim for a project of at least 1 million US Dollars. If we can do that, we will be still way below the price of our competitors. Our client is bound to accept our offer. |
| European guy: |
Yes, I see. |
| Indonesian guy 1: |
So, how much will you charge us for doing the work? |
| European guy: |
Considering it takes 17 man weeks for two developers, and the salary of one engineer is about 560 US Dollars per day… (the guy is now using his hand phone as a calculator)… Mmm… It will be about 153000 US Dollars for this project. |
| Indonesian guy 1: |
OK… Let’s calculate our profit now. From the one million, we should deduct the VAT, which is 10 percent, so 1 million minus 100000 is 900000. From this we should deduct the tactical fund, which is about 20 to 25 percent. |
| European guy: |
What fund? |
| Indonesian guy 1: |
The tactical fund! You know? |
| European guy: |
Euh… I don’t know, but I can guess. |
| For the first time the second Indonesian guy talks: |
| Indonesian guy 2: |
Yes, we have to keep everybody happy at the customer’s site. So we have to provide them some money. You know, it is called “keadilan sosial bagi seluruh rakyat indonesia” - Social Justice for the entire Indonesian population… |
The Indonesians started laughing, but the European guy did not seem to share the happy feeling.
Social Justice for the entire Indonesian population it is called, or tactical funds. If you do a big project in Indonesia, there is bound to be a big portion to be reserved for these funds. 20 to 25 percent is not much, and the bigger the projects, the more people will be wanting to profit from this social justice, making the percentage higher, and in the end, resulting in much more expensive projects. Although it is called “Social Justice for the entire Indonesian population”, I think it is only a small portion of the Indonesian population that benefits from this system.
This is a view from my study! It is a animated gif, so please wait for it to completely load to enjoy it at the max!
Talking about new trends in Jakarta (see my post about taxi drivers), here is another one: “meneketehe” (pronounce it with al the e’s short – like in ‘the’, putting only a slight intonation on the last two syllables). I first bumped into it a few days ago. At my office, my Indonesian colleagues always start laughing when I say “nggak tahu” (“(I) don’t know”), because they think I have a funny accent–I can imagine that. Last week, when one of my colleagues asked me about something I didn’t know, I said it again – triggering a laughing explosion in the room. One of my colleagues said: “Next time you must say: meneketehe!” Again everybody started laughing. My first reaction was to repeat the word, increasing the laughing volume, so I wondered if I pronounced it wrong. “No, no! You said it the right way!” My second reaction was: asking what the meaning of the word was. “The same as nggak tahu.” I did not get any further explanation at that point.
Later that day, someone explained to me it was a part of a famous TV show called “Extravaganza” (this is a ‘funny’ show that runs on TRANS-TV). “It is actually ‘mana ku tahu’ – ‘how should I know’! Just replace the consonants with ‘e’. ” she explained. I never heard anyone using the word before, and I am sure it is not because I didn’t know it; I would definitely have been aroused when I heard someone say it, because the first part is the same as the Flemish word ‘meneke’ (little man) and is pronounced almost the same. Since I learned this word, I already heard it many times, not only at work. Yesterday, for instance, I came home from the office and stepped into the lift, together with 3 college students. One of them was telling a story (I did not understand all, but it was about one of the classes he followed) and used the word five times in the 40 seconds it takes the lift to go from ground level to the 17th floor…
I think this trend is catching on, but if someone would ask me about it… I would say “meneketehe”!
“NYAMUK!” I heard this cry of disgust and anger already so many times during my stay in Indonesia. Frequently it is followed by a loud clapping sound or two, three or even more. The clapping sound is not to call the nyamuk the clapper is referring to, closer (as you would do in Indonesia to attract the attention of someone), but it is a desperate attempt to kill the little flying insect. Sometimes this works, and the clapper will than be even more disgusted because often his or her hand will be covered, not only with dead insect, but also with blood it took from one or more of the nyamuk’s latest visited volunteering victims.
Anyway, a nyamuk is something to be careful of in these parts of the world, because they spread some nasty diseases like malaria and dengue fever, hereby confirming your guess: I am talking about mosquitoes!
The malaria in Jakarta is rather harmless and can be easily cured, but the dengue fever can be quiet dangerous, especially when you already had a different variant before (there are 4 variants). To prevent the spread of dengue, a lot of places in Jakarta get ‘fogged’ frequently. However, this measure does not clear the danger for dengue, because it does not kill the mosquitoes, it only drives them away.
In the time I have been here, I developed a theory about cars and nyamuks. It dawned to me a few months ago, and since than I only get a confirmation of my theory in almost every experiment I do. The experiment is easy: just get into a car (any car, including taxis), start driving and wait for the first nyamuk to appear. This will not take long; within a few minutes, a nyamuk will appear and try to get a taste of your blood (this is the event that triggers the cry and the clapping I was referring to earlier). The conclusion of my experiments: EVERY CAR IN JAKARTA HAS ONE OR MORE NYAMUK INSIDE… Only in a very few cases, I could not confirm, but if you don’t see a nyamuk, it does not mean that there is none – some of the more clever buggers will attack from behind, without ever showing their faces.
Clapping is one of the less effective measures you can take and it does not eliminate the chance that you will be bitten. More effective is the electrical tennis racket that also can be used to scare of importunate sellers or kupu-kupu malam (although I never tried it, I can imagine it would), but still… you can be bitten by the ones you missed (I mean nyamuk, not the kupu-kupu malam, … I think). Most effective, however, is the use of the canned anti-nyamuk sprays from a well known brand (it sounds like bye, gone). Using it, it will kill all nyamuk that come in touch with the spray. Actually, it will kill every insect that comes in contact with the spray: mosquitoes, flies, ants, cockroaches, etc… Probably even people will be “Bye, Gone” after inhaling too much of the stuff…
There is definitely a new trend in the way taxi drivers address their bule customer. I discovered it about two weeks ago and until today, it is still getting worse. Maybe it is just my imagination, or coincidence, but I feel there is a new trend.
I’ve been living in Jakarta for more than a year now, using the taxi as my major means of transportation. This is because we only have one company driver and one company car, which is used by the big boss whenever he is in Jakarta (about 80% of the time). In all that time, I only had one bad experience a taxi driver, and that was mainly because, at that time, I did not speak enough Indonesian to point the driver in the right way to “Mal Kelapa Gading” (he probably knew the way himself, but later he explained he was ‘baru’ (new) and had never been to Mal Kelapa Gading before). This occurrence guided me to learn at least the right words for turn left, turn right, go straight and make a u-turn in Indonesian. After that I had no trouble in taking any taxi (even “Tarif Lama”). Until two weeks ago.
Because the taxi company that services the apartments I live in does not have too many taxis, they often run out of taxis in the morning. If that happens, I usually go outside the compound and stop a taxi in the Tanjung Duren Raya (which is a busy street so it never takes me more than 1 minute to get one). I stop one of the white taxis and get in. After the good mornings, he asks me “Where to mister?” (they always say “mister”). “Ke Tanjung Duren Selatan, Pak”. He looks at in a strange way and than says: “To Airport? Ya?”. I explain to him I don’t want to go to airport, but to my office. The guy gets a little angry and says that he thinks it is a too short ride, but still, he delivers me to the office.
Two days later, I manage to get hold of another taxi in the same way. The driver also thinks it is too short to take a taxi so he offers to not use the meter. I say to him that I want him to use the meter but he bluntly refuses… so I say he will get not more than 10000 for the ride (the standard I give; it is normally about 8000 if the meter is used). Arriving at the office, I give him 10000. He says it is not enough and I should pay him at least 20000, which I off course refuse.
A few days later, it even happened with a taxi that serves the apartments. Again the taxi driver offers to drive me without using the meter. So I say that he has the choice of driving me and using the meter, or not using the meter, but driving without me. If you take a taxi that has to queue for his next ride, this is a good way to handle it, because he looses his place in the queue and it can take a long time before he gets first in the queue again. So the driver turns on the meter and drives me.
Saturday, Sam (a colleague from QnAp) and I went to practice on the Pluit MegaMal Driving Range. After practicing, we wanted to go to Manga Dua Mall, so we take a taxi from the queue at MegaMal. The driver also did not want to use the meter, but we made him to…
It seems that all drivers stop want to using the meter when a “bule” gets in the car… But the one I had yesterday was even more frank: he demanded I pay him 15000 for an 8000 ride, because the 15000 is the minimum. When I did not want to pay him he got very angry and aggressive. I paid the 5000 extra (I wanted to pay him 10000) and left the car.
I learnt some lessons in the last few days: I will note down the drivers name in future and make a complained at his taxi company if he tries to trick me…
After working all day, most of the expats want to have some fun in some dodgy bar, preferably in South-Jakarta. The most visited places are situated in and near notorious Blok M, and in my opinion, the place with the highest concentration of bules, especially on a Friday night, is Kemang. Kemang (Kemang Raya) is a street near Blok M that is actually littered with bars, restaurants, discotheques and hotels (with bars and restaurants). One of the first places you will come across there (at least if you are entering Kemang from the north) is the Eastern Promise.
Eastern Promise is a project of the managers of BuGils and Cazbar, two places I like to go, so I was bound to visit the Eastern Promise some day. That day was last Friday (1-Sep-2006). I followed my normal Friday night routine: come home from work, take a shower, and take a taxi to the place I want to spend most of my Friday night. This time it would be Kemang. The road was stuck as usual on a Friday night, too bad I always have to go south to visit the good places. After one and a half hour of traffic jams, we arrived at Kemang. I was worried that I would not find the place easily, because previous experiences with Kemang told me that most of the places don’t really advertise their existence with big signs, so I asked the taxi driver to drive slowly, which was a stupid request; the traffic did not allow us to drive more than about 5 km per hour anyway. I knew the place was near the beginning of the street, (according to Internet resources) next to Bank Niaga, which I spotted almost immediately. But next to this bank, there are two more banks, and next to that, the Eastern Promise, announced on a big billboard above the entrances (yes… the place has 2 entrances!). After paying the taxi driver, I entered the place via the entry to the bar. The bar really looks like a ‘cafe’ in Belgium (or Holland)… a lot of bules, mainly concentrated near the ‘bar’ at the left. I immediately saw I would not be able to get a seat to have my (now already very late) dinner. So I walked through saloon style swing doors I spotted at the left and entered a whole new world. This was a small restaurant and most of the tables where still empty. In the back of the restaurant, I could se a door leading to the back yard, from which sounds of a band doing a soundcheck floated in. It was something I surely would like to investigate after my dinner. Not long after I seated, one of the waitresses brought me the menu. I choose onion soup and spaghetti Bolognese, because I was not in the mood for eating French fries again (I had a quick lunch with Sam at the McDonalds in Citraland earlier that day), nor was I in the mood to eat some of the Indian food that was also on the menu. The soup was very good, the spaghetti was ok, the one in BuGils is much better. But the food was not bad. I definitely have to try the Indian food one day.
As I planned before my dinner, I wandered through the back doors to the ‘garden’, again arriving in a completely different setting. The back door garden looked like a terrace in Bokrijk (this is a place in Belgium, where old buildings are rebuild in a kind of an open air museum, and where the tourists’ food needs are accommodated in restaurants with large outdoor terraces, that can only be used for about 20 percent of the time because of the frequent rainy weather) but much smaller. There was a bar and a podium on which a band (The Elwood) was playing rock and blues classics from the old days, and they where doing a good job. There where not too many people there yet, so I still could choose a nice seat, from where I had an overview of the whole scenery.
It did not take long before the back door garden was crowded. Bules with or without companion came in and ordered beer. My position was very good and I could observe everyone… people really behave strange when they are in a group… especially when they are drunk. But it was very funny to look at them.
The band continued to play, and got some reinforcement from a bule girl. Before she mounted the stage, she put on a utility belt. I thought she was one of the technicians and was going to fix the bas amplifier (not that there was something wrong with it), but it turned out to be Kiri Harp, a harmonica player. The utility belt contained a collection of harmonicas. She played a mean harmonica!
After the band played their first set (which took about 2 hours), I decided to go home. I am sure I will return to the Eastern Promise a lot!
We, Belgians, have the reputation of being heartily diners. They will surely know that at the Batula restaurant, in Blok M, after a group of Belgians monopolized half of the downstairs restaurant for several hours last Friday. On the occasion of having a new Belgian ambassador, the Belgian consul and his wife organized a dinner party, inviting all the officially registered Belgians living in Indonesia, and guess what… I was invited too.
The dinner party was supposed to start at 7 PM so we left the apartment at 6 to be sure to be on time-after all it was Friday evening and the streets of Jakarta have the tendency to get stuck at every start of a weekend or holiday, because a lot of the Jakartans flee the city to spend the free time somewhere else. In less than an hour we arrived at Blok M, which was very fast for a Friday night.
Although it was almost 7, only a few people where there. The counselor and his wife greeted us and introduced us to the people that where already there: the ambassador’s secretary and her husband (who are going to leave to Hong-Kong next week), and three Belgium guys that arrived before us. The next hour, the invitees entered the restaurant little by little. At around 8, almost everybody had arrived and we where communicating with each other loudly. One of the late arrivals was… our new ambassador and his wife.
At 8 the counselor was starting to get nervous and urged us to sit down, so we could order. Especially for this occasion, a menu had been put together having 5 main courses from which we could choose. Three of the where with fish, one with mussels and the last one: “New-York sirloin steak and French fries”. It took about 15 minutes for everybody to find a seat (six tables with around ten people per table). I never saw so many Belgians together in one place in Jakarta. If you know that only about 400 Belgians are registered at the embassy and they are not all living in or near Jakarta, you can imagine that the attendance rate was very high.
Once seated the chatty American husband of the ambassadors’ secretary exclaimed that probably everybody would take the steak, because one of Belgian’s main dish is: steak with French fries. And he was almost right: 90% of the people ordered that dish. All by all, the dinner went very well and the food was more than OK and wine and beer where free flowing.
The Batula restaurant is actually quiet nice; it looks new and the manager is a western guy. The clientele also consist most of “bules” with their wives, girlfriends or one or more “kupu-kupu malam” they grabbed from the streets nearby… this is Blok M after all.
Although it was a pleasant dinner, everybody left before 10:30… so did we. At 11 (only half an hour later) the taxi dropped us at our apartment.
At last… I moved! I rented an apartment near the toll road in west Jakarta. Since the unit is on the 17th floor, and my windows are viewing central Jakarta, I cannot complain about the view. In the morning, I can see misty Jakarta, lit by the orange sun and in the evening, I can watch the city lights going on as the skyline disappears into the darkness of the night, and even at night, the city is nice to look at. At night, bright white lightning lights up Monas so that it is clearly visible during the day as well as at night. throughout the weekends, the white column lights are replaced by colored ones, alternatively lighting the column in different colors. There is always something to look at.
As I told you, I live on the 17th floor… at least that is what I thought. When I saw the apartment complex the first time, long before I even planned of moving out of Kedoya, I counted the number of floors and it was about 29. When I got in the lift the first time, I see that the top floor is 36. I was a little puzzled. Did I count the number of windows wrong? A few days after I moved into the apartment, I was going up in the lift, and watching the floor indicator, I noticed that it skipped numbers 13 and 14. Looking at the selector board, I see there is indeed no button for floors 13 and 14. I can imagine that in some apartments, there is no 13th floor, and since we all read “The DaVinci Code”, we all know why, but where is the 14th floor? And it gets even weirder. The next day, I was studying the selector board and noticed that there is no number 4 on the board… Floors number 4, 14, 24 and 34 are just not there. It’s not that perhaps the lift buttons with a 4 where out of stock when they installed the lift, because also the floor indicator nicely skips the floors that should contain a 4.
Knowing all this, I gathered some information and the explanation is actually very simple. There are a lot of Chinese Indonesian people in Jakarta. Some of them build apartments to rent or sell. According to Chinese tradition, number 4 means bad luck, just like 13 in western cultures.
One Year in JakartaI was thinking: In a country where people celebrate three new years in one year, one more won’t hurt. So… today I am celebrating my personal New Year; a new year in Jakarta.One year in Jakarta… A lot happened in that year. Jakarta lived through most of its 479th year of existence and Indonesia through its 61st year of independence. And me, I had a wonderful year here.
I have been very busy at work, and also after work, so I did not have much time to update this website or this blog as much as I planed to, and I wan to apologize for that. Work has been very busy indeed: in a new company that had to be pulled through its first year of existence, not only there was always something going wrong that needed to be put right, but we where also obliged to visit a lot of potential customers to try to sell out ‘products’ too. It has taken me to a lot of places in Jakarta where a normal visitor would never come. I’ve been in the offices of the biggest companies and consortiums of Indonesia. I also met a lot of people, a lot of nice people. The colleagues at the office are more friends than colleagues, and there is always a nice atmosphere between them. Potential clients always welcome us with open arms and a hospitality that is seldom seen in Europe.
Another thing, seldom seen in Europe, or should I say: never seen, is the way Indonesians navigate themselves through the traffic. For a European, that has never been to Asia, this can be a shocking experience. I have lived in India for almost a year, so the chock was a little less to me… but still, there is a difference between India and Indonesia. Taxi drivers usually complain when we get stuck in one of the many traffic jams. They all say the same: “Indonesian drivers have no discipline.” It always struck me that the ones that say this to me, are the ones that have the least discipline. However, there are some basic rules to survive in Indonesian traffic, although I am sure they are not mentioned in the traffic code:
- Busses ALWAYS have priority, the smaller the busses, the more priority they have
- Motorcycles ALWAYS have priority
- Trucks AWAYS have priority
- Bold drivers ALWAYS have priority
- Pedestrians are moving targets that you must try to hit
- A road must be utilized as much as possible, if it has 2 lanes, but you can fit 4 cars, 4 cars must be fit
- Minimum distance between moving vehicles (cars, motorcycles, trucks and busses) is 1 millimeter.
- Maximum distance between moving vehicles, moving at any speed, is 2 meter.
- Every lane on a highway is a fast lane
- Every lane on a highway is a slow lane
And last but not least:
- The police is always right.
But the police is not that bad. A friend of mine was stopped by an officer, because she had been driving through the red light (well it is not an offence if you are not caught by the police). She was asked to pay 100.000 Rp. She used all her charm and got the officer to drop the price to 50.000 Rp. Another friend was driving in Bali on a rented motorcycle without a helmet. He was stopped and asked for his driver’s license – he had a Dutch driver’s license, but that is not valid in Indonesia. He was given a high fine, to be paid immediately. He showed the officer his wallet, containing only 50.000 Rp. The officer gladly took that and dropped all charges. Anyway, once you get used to the traffic, it is OK. I have been driving myself a couple of times; once behind the wheel, you get a different perspective on the Jakarta traffic and as long as you don’t get into a traffic jam, it is not really nerve wrecking.
Beside the traffic and its unpredictable way of creating traffic jams, Jakarta is not too bad, I actually like living here. Being a big city, there is always something to do, day or night. For instance food: it is everywhere. Indonesia is really the country of fast food. In our street for example, the first ‘food delivery’ starts at around 6 in the morning and goes on until about 10 o’clock at night. All kinds of food are on offer: bread (plain or filled with cheese, chocolate, banana or a mixture), nasi goreng, bakmi goreng, bakso, gado-gado and many more, even cheese burgers. As if this is not enough, the major (American) fast-food branches, like McDonalds, KFC, A&W or Pizza Hut have a delivery service all over Jakarta. Except for McDonalds – who deliver 24 hours a day, they deliver until about 9 o’clock at night. If you are not at home, you will still not die of hunger, because you won’t have to walk more than 200 meter to find one of the small food stalls, each specialized in one or two Indonesian dishes, or one of the many warungs, that have a bigger choice.
Having so many possibilities to serve your hunger, you can actually live very cheap in Jakarta, if you only consider food. For less than 1 Euro, you can eat three to four meals a day. Clothing is also very cheap; unless you opt for the more expensive European or American brands (some exceptions are the ones that have their stuff made locally or in Asia). Cars and electronic appliances are only little cheaper than in Europe, again, especially if you buy the big brands. If you like shopping for these products, Jakarta offers you plenty of opportunity. I did not count them, but I guess that there must be over 30 malls in Jakarta, and some of them are huge. Antwerp, for instance, should have at least 2 malls triple the size of Wijnegem Shopping Center to mach up with Jakarta. Most of the malls offer a broad spectrum of goods, but some of them are specialized in a single market segment. Glodok for instance has a big mall where you only can buy electronics – appliances and parts. Roxy Mas is a big mall in which they only sell GSM hand phones and accessories while 200 meter down the street, another mall specialized in the same products is situated (Roxy Square).
As you see… I will survive in Jakarta. My new KITAS is finished and will be delivered on Monday, so I am set for another year in Jakarta.
P.S. A ‘New Year’ always starts with making ‘New Year’s Resolutions’, so I will give you mine: I will try to make more pictures and have the site and this blog updated more regularly.
Hey everybody,
My gallery is up and running again!
Enjoy!
Kind regards,
Rudi
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