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Jakarta, Indonesia
6° 10' S 106° 49' E
Jul 03, 2004 13:40
Distance 5508km

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arrival in Jakarta [contact details here]

Text written in: English

Getting off the plane in Jakarta the warmth and humidity comes over you like a face towel, only less refreshing. The scent is sweet, with the faintest hints of tropical plants spawning, a whiff of spicy clove cigarettes and a dash of mildew from stone that's left to marinade in the humidity.

Most places in Jakarta seem either desperately delapidated, covered in the grime of smog and human sweat, or - as in the case of the airport - immaculately clean stone floors, sparsely furnished with dark wooden furniture, the occasional solitary plant and artificial running stream.

The military atire of the immigration and customs officials belies an officiousness entirely absent in their manner. They lounge around observing the foreigners (bule) herding through to get tourist visas (US$25 on arrival for 30 days) and amusing each other with quips.

While queing, a blond Aussie named Mike starts up the standard backpacker chat about how long I'm there for, my accomodation plans for that night, and we get talking. It turns out he's visiting to kill some time before his sister's wedding, which happens to be in Bali. He seems like a good dude, so I tell him I can probably give him a lift into the city as I'm being met by my portly business partner, Gerald and a couple of the locals.

Sure enough, they appear right on queue. Gerald is accompanied Rena, and our driver Budi who acts as a sort of full time chauffeur in one of the company's BMWs. This is something I'm still getting to grips with, having various people drive you around, tidy your clothes when you throw them carelessly in the cupboard, notice when you're around and prepare meals on schedule and whisk your plates away without a word. It feels so exploitative but it's so damn appealing. Laziness is the mother of invention and I have invented all sorts of reasons why it is a Good Thing™ - ranging from "it lets me concentrate on what's important and what I'm good at" through to "giving people jobs is giving them a livelihood". Yes, I can see the irony. Anyway, both Rena and Budi have pretty good senses of humour, and are pretty much all-round nice. Although, of course they're probably reading this, so it's not like I would say anything else.

Somewhere between the various toll points on the freeway heading into the city we manage to convince Mike to join us for a drink and promise to get Budi to drop him off nicely in the backpacker zone later, as soon as he's toasted enough to face the task with the right frame of mind. For those of you who haven't seen Gerald's photos, the 'office' is fairly large, situated in the diplomatic area of Jakarta and pretty much surrounded by embassies. It's more like a mansion or a hotel than an office, it has bedrooms and a pool, not to mention carp fish and tropical fish, a bar, and numerous musical instruments. Some beer, wine and several vodkas lead to a jam session in the bar area. Gerald unfortunately has mis-eaten something recently and disappears with buttocks clenched at intervals of about 20 minutes and Mike turns out to be multi-talented and despite his claims not to, plays the piano pretty well. We're going to the Yamaha factory in Jakarta at some stage to check out what they have in the way of fretless upright electric basses which might be a good alternative to a double bass.

Incidentally, I don't claim that Indonesia is totally risk free, but an interesting fact is that apparently Australia has travel warnings issued in quite a few countries against it because of the risk of terrorist threats. For instance, Chinese nationals are warned to avoid travel to Australia. I guess wrapping yourself in cotton wool and burying yourself in an iceberg in Antarctica would probably be safest. But a little boring. And cold.

Oh, here are my contact details...

Snail mail:

Joe Richards
BallOfDirt.com
c/o- PT. Interactive Media Asia
JL Panarukan, No. 9
Menteng 10310
Jakarta
Indonesia

My Indonesian mobile: +62-811-910183 changed to: +62-813-16332749 and you can text, call etc up til July 22
Landline (if you really must): +62 21 391 9393
Fax (ditto): +62 21 319 3 8022