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.