ABoyInJakarta’s Blog

Some of you probably know I don’t work so well in the mornings.

Being in a hotel, and having hotel breakfasts – i.e. (interacting with people) presents additional challenges.

Consider: -

I’m a bit of a cereal person. The hotel has those little mini boxes of cereals (side note – much better then the alternative some hotels have of the wheelie dispenser with a large cylinder of cereal on top – they just crunch the cereal down into small bits of mush and clog up). I normally have two of the boxes in a bowl and some milk. Cereal goes in first, then milk – because then you know how much milk you need – it’s all perfect.

First day, I open the boxes, grab the plastic bag inside, one hand on the plastic “seam” on the side, the other hand pinching the other side of the bag. Result – A portion of the plastic seam ends up in my hand, plastic bag closed, seal at the top intact. No cereal. Repeat for second box and a second strip of plastic ends up in my hand, and the seal at the top is intact – same result. I try for another two minutes and eventually decide that another people are staring at me that i’ll just fill my bowl with milk and hack the plastic bag open with the knife on my table.

Second day, I think – I’ve learnt from the first. Grab one side of the bag, grab the other side of the bag, pull apart as hard as I can. The seal at the top doesn’t move. Try again – Woomph! The seal at the top opens, and due to my excessive opening power cereal ends up all over the breakfast buffet – with about half left in the bag. Humiliated I fill in my bowl with milk, grab the second box and hack the plastic bag open with the knife on my table.

Third day – I’m at a loss – the waiter spots me looking at the box, bowl in hand, rushes over (I’m guessing he had to remove bits of sultana bran from fruit platters and the various other breakfast buffet plates the previous day). He asks – “Will I get a pair of scissors?” Yes! I sit down, milk in bowl, 2 boxes by my side, wait. He arrives and with much ceremony opens the first cereal box and cuts the top off the first plastic bag. I then proceed to pour it…. into my cup of tea.

See – mornings don’t work for me.

It’s a week in. I’m starting to hate the following. Imagine how I’ll be after 3 months

• The paper thin walls and floors of this hotel. Sound travels miles
• The wailing call to prayers at the local mosque…at 4am in the morning – every morning.
• The cleaners who decide to vacuum the lounge directly above my room – at 2am in the morning
• The cleaners who must jump up and down on the pillows from the lounge (…directly above my ceiling….) – plumping them – at 2:30am in the morning
• The high heeled staff – who wander around the hard floored lounge (….directly above my ceiling….) from 5:30am in the morning – right through till 11pm at night.
• And last night,  mid clean – at 2:22am precisely, the cleaner, who dropped in the lounge (…directly above my ceiling…) a bag of marbles, or something with lots of hard ground things which bounced and rolled everywhere.

Sleep? What’s that? And does it come in bursts longer then 30 minutes?

You know how when ants get a really good food source they form a 2 wide column of ants, rears heel to head, ant after ant, marching to and from the food? That’s like traffic in Jakarta

Except that ants move – and Jakarta traffic doesn’t – about 50% of the time.

Oh – and ants are organised, following a known path. In Jakarta cars stick to the roads – but you form lanes wherever you can fit, not based on that painted thing on the ground.

Most of the “ants” are people mover sized ants – about 80% of them. Then about 15% of them are 4WD sized ants. (You think Australian 4WD’s don’t see dirt roads – they’d see far more then the Jakarta ones!). The remaining 5% of the “ants” are regular sedans – and nothing smaller then “medium” sized cars either. It surprised me – I was expecting lots of smaller cars.

Other “insects” on the roads tend to be a load of motorbikes – about 3 motorbikes to every car – or maybe it just seems to be this ratio because they all manage to drive past them between the horrifically small gaps between the cars. Sidenote – Most people seen on a motorbike to date: 4. The motorbikes are all the tiny 125cc bikes which squeal really loudly. If the cars are bullants on the ant scale, the motorbikes are tiny little gnats.

The final insect on the road are the old slow heaving buses. Ont he insect scale they are the size of a praying mantis, and based on what I’ve seen to date – they aren’t afraid of eating their way through the odd “gnat” either. Not that I’ve actually seen a motorcyclist disappear up the back (or underside) of a bus – but I’m sure it happens all the time – especially in the wet.

So there you have it – stop-start bullants, gnats buzzing around between them, and praying mantids (It’s the plural of mantis – I checked!) periodically eating them all up.

Somehow it works, and I get to work. Lucky me.

Arriving in Jakarta is a slightly surreal experience. In some ways you feel like a rock star traveling the 2nd world.

I’d been informed a facilitator would be waiting for me when I exited the plane. I was a little bit worried (and nearly went back to double check) when the first person standing in the airbridge didn’t have my name on the piece of paper they were waving randomly around.

I decided to soldier ahead, and ran into a second group. Still no name. Should I go back and double check? BCI, who I work for are just a little paranoid, so perhaps I’d better check to see if they’ve been so devious in hiding my name (and theirs) that I’ve missed it in my slightly dazed state. I decide to go forward, figuring I can always go back. 30 metres past where the airbridge meets the main concourse stand a third group of “facilitators”. One of them holds the most prominent sign with my initials. Well “Mr my initials”. No sign of BCI’s logo. Still he has a letter and id card for me – so it was all good. I can’t figure why he chose to stand 30 metres away from the airbridge – but having been here a few days have concluded it’s probably due to where his “time wasting” mates are. More on that some other day.

Wandering down the concourse we passed the visa purchase place. My visa was already sorted so we march up to the immigration desk. I’ve handed my passport, immigration and customs forms to the “facilitator”. Suddenly he directs me “You walk through there – I’ll meet you at the luggage conveyor, your luggage is on conveyor 3″, roughly pointing down the side of one of the immigration desks where a group of about 5 immigration officers stands. I walk though, not even thinking about the weirdness of not getting a stamp, not queueing, not even stopping to talk to the immigration officers. Just walk.

After stopping at an ATM I retrieve some cash. I then look up to see which carousel luggage is meant to be on. Yes – carousel 2. Moral of the story – never believe a facilitator. I wait, luggage comes out, I wait, more luggage comes out. The facilitator turns up by my side, hands me my freshly stamped passport and directs me to tell him when my bag makes an appearance. I had thought about not telling him – and just letting my luggage go round and round, but decided this wouldn’t be appreciated. Having seen luggage go round at least 5 times, we come to the conclusion mine is missing.

The facilitator suddenly decides he doesn’t want to be involved and herds me towards a lost luggage service office. I’m not really surprised my luggage has gone missing – I know I had to rush between terminals when I changed flights to get to Jakarta – so I figure my luggage didn’t make the flight. It’s happened before so my mind ticks over wondering what I’ll be dressed like going to work. Jacket – tick. White shirt – tick. Flowers on it – Cross. Black, somewhat faded casual stretchy trousers – Cross. Black leather boots – tick. (Thank goodness I decided to wear them in the plane!). Somehow or another I even kept a pair of underpants (from my last trip!) in my travel bag (tick!). Could be worse.

A few questions laters and the women is ready to usher me out. I ask “Excuse me – I’ll need to buy some clothes for work tomorrow”. She looks at me and on the basis of my business class ticket says “The airline will sort you out”. I’ve heard horror stories of “being sorted out” by airlines previously, and my mood drops. Wonder of wonders – “Sorting out” commences – with her suddenly counting out cash into my hot little hands. One Hundred Thousand, Two hundred thousand – all the way up to 1.2 MILLION. WooHoo! Jackpot. I’d taken out 300000 rupiah at the ATM, figuring it was about 350 dollars. 1.2 million would be about 1400 dollars! Suddenly the world is not so grim. I’m in the money, I’m in the money.

Scene – the car on the way to the hotel. I do my sums again, and realise my 8000 times tables aren’t as good as they should be. Yep – I took 35 dollars out from the ATM, and only got 150 for the next few days clothes. Sigh. At least I’m a millionaire.