Hi John,
Thank you for listening! This is quite an epic....... Bali belly still going strong, but I'm used to it now and it doesn't bother me.
Now Jakarta.
25 years since the last visit is a long time, almost a generation, but nothing prepared me for the changes. This is a city of skyscrapers - an entire horizon of them, much like any very large western city - huge freeways, tollways and transport interchanges. The numbers of cars and particularly motorcycles boggles the mind, perhaps because the road system is completely inadequate. You could double all the carriageways, and I'm confident things would improve by perhaps 20%, no more. The road chaos would be completely unsustainable in a western city, because our sense of community has all but broken down and road rage is common, and road discourtesy routine. But in Indonesia, it works. People are unfailingly courteous, there is less blowing of horns than I remember, and although it can be slow, progress is steady. People are given to spontaneous U turns in major roads, it's hilarious, but no one seems to mind, even if it's a minibus and takes up three lanes during the process. Motorcyclists are definitely lesser road users; they are acknowledged, and no one is actually rude to them, but when an august four wheeled contrivance approaches, they are politely requested to make way. As I gaze morosely out the window at three approaching bikes, thinking they surely won't be able to avoid us, somehow they always do, it's a remarkable dalliance with the laws of phsics. Moreover, they are expressionless, this is just life, let's get on with it and move on..... and often a Honda 125 will have Dad, a child behind him, and Mum at the rear, often with a baby in a sling. It really does make the Health and Occupational Safety Guidelines in good old Oz look like ridiculous nanny state baggage......
But then there is the environment. It's pretty dirty. Asian roads are seldom built with sidewalks, and with the heavy rain there's often a cesspit of mud and rubbish along the road, not helped by the offroaders who like to chase the lead!! We could all make suggestions that they should do this, or that, or throw all the two strokes off the road, yada yada, but the truth is this is an extremely competitive, cash strapped economy, and there is not the money yet to indulge fantasies of low emissions and green thinking. Seems a bit incongruous anyway in a country where a stick pressed into the fertile ground grows leaves after a few weeks.
There is extraordinary grace in Indonesia. You see it on all streets and in the shops, particularly amongst the working people. JKT is not strictly a tourist destination, you see few westerners touring the streets here; they are mostly in Denpasar, the way Suharto intended it - he sought to 'protect' Java from tourism. I felt very safe wandering around Jakarta, Bogor and Semarang. While we were in JKT we stayed with an old Army friend of my wife - her husband is a retired General and a man of great kindness and substance. He drove us to Puncak on Sunday morning for a cold breakfast overlooking a tea plantation to remind us of Australia (Indonesians have highly developed irony and at the end of it he suggested we might like to stay in Indonesia where it's warm rather than return to Oz for winter!) - it dropped to 19C and was very cold, we were all almost shivering. It was a breakfast to remember, from about 2000 metres, swathed in clouds.
The weather was good all through, and we stopped in Bogor at a famous shopping strip where Sri, Alessandra and all the other girls bought handbags, mostly ripoffs of good names, but very nicely made and dirt cheap. My daughter was in seventh heaven, it was quite amusing. While we were there the rain bucketed down, and I thought the whole street would float away, the intensity of the rain is extraordinary. We returned to our friends home and enjoyed a movie, their life is very comfortable, but they do not have domestic help, which is unusual in this country a domestic is around $US50 a month.
Today we travelled the express train from JKT. We left Gambir Stasiun in JKT at 7:15am and arrived around 2pm. The train was clean, on time, food was served at no extra charge, it was air conditioned, and very comfortable. Things have really changed; I recall when Sri and I travelled this same train in the eighties and it was hot, very crowded, and stopped every few miles, taking about 12 hours to make the trip. And despite global warming, I feel it's not been as hot as all those years ago. I hesitate to say it, but it's even cool at times.
We have another four days here, then a stopover in JKT, then on to Singapore, and then Melbourne direct from there. I am astonished at the development, the emergence of a well defined middle class with the dynamism that goes with it, and the levels of investment I've seen in this country. Recommended travelling.
Cheers,
Hugh
