ABoyInJakarta’s Blog

You may remember my post about the tea lady.

We’ve switched offices for the last few weeks, and moved into another tea ladies zone. Our former tea lady still kept on serving us tea and coffee – although she was clearly a bit late and slack about it. God forbid – we even missed out one morning – and our morning tea started arriving at 10am, 11am instead of 8am.

The other notable thing is the tea lady supposedly can provide soft drinks. I mentioned a fondness for diet coke in the afternoon, and a couple random times a diet coke appeared instead of tea. Worked for me!

Being pretty sure that the tea lady isn’t paid much – I’m told annual salaries can be less then I received when my luggage went missing at the airport, the other Friday I gave her a small token of my appreciation. Come Monday morning, viola – I had tea at my desk at 7:45am (yes I have been in the office by 7am!). No soft drink appeared during the week – but Friday a container of “Marie” biscuits appeared.

This week – things have been slackening off – and tea has been turning up later and later. My colleague noticed, and slipped the tea lady some more money – viola – tea by 7:30am and two diet Cokes the next two afternoons!

While the Dutch part of me loathes paying someone a little more to do the job they are paid to do – given local wages I’ve got no qualms about giving someone a little extra and getting a much better service out of it.

I’ve got photographic proof of the new “aboyinjakarta” motor bike transporting world record.

Yes – a family of 5!

Obviously the fathers head is so much more important then his wife and children’s.

It’s Friday night – Scene – A concrete paved carport.

The carport is decorated with a variety of different flashing lights, one of which looks a little like it is connected to an alarm system. Even though it flashes regularly, I don’t think the house is being burgled. If it is, we’re sitting in the carport watching. There are a random collection of chairs, and a few tables which look like they’ve been recycled from an office. In fact, so do the chairs.

Someone has brought a couple buckets of KFC, and someone else a slab of Heineken, the host has laid on a bit more beer, and a few miscellaneous dishes. A few speakers are set up, connected to a keyboard and a few microphones. Much singing ensues.

By midnight the majority of people have disappeared, and it’s quiet. It could be a scene from the suburbs from Melbourne.

The servants serving us, the style of music, occasional songs in different languages and towering skyscrapers all around us prove that it isn’t…. But it could be.

I’m not sure where the fish come from, but just outside the office is a fish market – and the fish look fresh.

We drive past the market about a third of the time, depending on the way we drive to work. I went past it on the first day – and it was pretty pungent. I really had to concentrate on other things (and look away) in order to not leave stains on my shirt – never a good look first day as you walk into the office.

I recently found the fish market disappears by about 9am – it turns into a motorbike parking lot. Sort of makes sense, as the fish aren’t stored on ice – by 9am you won’t be getting fresh fish.

The other day my colleague and I got taken to lunch outside the office compound – walking straight past where the fish market is. Being lunchtime bikes were all parked up – but there was plenty of pungent evidence of the true nature of the area – including mid road pools of very smelly water.

Fish anyone?

I always love people assuming things.

My better half is in town, and being in lock down with no one to take us out on Sunday, we spent some of the day around the pool.

It’s nice and warm – 30+ degree’s, so after a while I need a drink – as does my better half. I want a diet coke, she wants a beer. I go to the bar and order.

The drinks get delivered to our poolside lounges – the waiter hands me the beer, and her the diet coke. As my better half said “That waiter has never met a girl from Leeds!”.

Last weekends very hospitable local has managed to double up, and provided us with another Saturdays worth of entertainment.

This time round I had my better half with me, so she got to experience the whole “close your eyes, I’m sure that car isn’t going to hit us” traffic experience.  (Hint for my mother – do not come and visit Jakarta! Your heart won’t survive – and neither will the floor as you stamp on that pretend brake!)

This time around we experienced a fully Indonesian food lunch.  For those of you who’ve had Yum Cha (a.k.a. Dim Sum) it’s pretty similar – except that the food is delivered in one go at the start of the meal.  Here’s the food for our table of 6 -

It had everything you could want – and lots of things you don’t want.  We declined the fish head curry.

More interesting was the recycling and charging process – as soon as you touch something – they charge you for it.  And if you don’t touch it – the food gets bounced off to another table when you’ve finished your meal…. Those second, third or fourth hand king prawns were looking pretty enticing… if you fancy getting familiar with the bathroom.

We’ve all been in ssituationswhere you drive around a car park, looking for a spot – but all the spots are taken.  In Indonesia they’ve got a solution!

If you imagine cars all parked at 90 degrees to the curb.  What you do is park your car in front of the row of parked cars, along the direction of the road (i.e. parallel to the road).  Leave your car in neutral. Make sure the steering wheel is lined up nice and straight.

If a person you’ve blocked in needs to move out – they simply go and push your car back, out of the way.  The car is in neutral – so they can push it forward and backward.  The cars steering is lined up so you’ll go straight up and down the road, so that isn’t a problem.  You push the car gently, so you can stop it by holding onto the wheel arch.  If there are multiple cars, you just push them one at a time.  Jakarta is pretty flat, so hills aren’t an issue.

Ingenious, trusting and it just works. 

Food here can be pretty challenging depending on your background – and even more challenging if you start getting picky on hygiene.

Some examples (for those with queasy stomachs – avoid the second example) :-

• A few weeks ago, stuck in traffic, a motorbike snuck down the side of the car. On the back of the bike was a huge bag of cooked rice – with a nice little tear in the side of the bag, some rice leaking out. After a food poisoning experience a few weeks ago – all I could think about was the bacteria growing on the rice as it warmed to the 31 degree temperature, festering while the bike moved slowly through the traffic.
• A colleague in the car today related to his time in Africa, and being in a market with a butcher who he consistently bypassed – as the meat was always black. One day he wandered up close, trying to work out what animal had black meat. The answer? The meat was covered in flies.
• Another Jakarta motorbike this time in teaming, Noah like rain. Gutters weren’t coping and the road had 3-4 inches of water on it. Water splashed up from the road soaking everyone on bikes – and there luggage. This bike had a contraption on the back with hooks. Hanging on the hooks were in excess of 30 fully feathered and gutted fresh chickens – getting soaking wet in 25 degree rain, some splashed coming up from the gutter.

Of course, hygiene isn’t the only issue. You have local interpretations of food. My colleague was after some less challenging food last night, so down to the hotel bar it was. Having had a snack before dinner I wasn’t after much, so the nachos appetiser seemed ideal. My mind visualised a small plate of corn chips, some cheese melted over the top, some jalapenos, guacamole and sour cream which I asked for on the side. At the “on the side” comment I got a quizzical look – I should have known. What turned up was some dry corn chips, a white, liquid bowl of fat (I’m guessing cheese), a small bowl of tomato, guacamole and sour cream. Yep, that’s right – the hotels version of nachos was a corn chip dip – with the dips being a pretty flavourless. Sigh – oh well – one to avoid.

I’ve just clocked up 3 weeks here, and this weekend was pretty successful in terms of seeing more of Jakarta.

My travel colleague had been pretty loud in the office, claiming the “lock down” situation in the hotel caused him to go insane last weekend. With that in mind, we appear to have scored the sympathy vote and been invited to multiple events! By the end of the weekend I’d been out on Friday evening, Saturday night, Sunday lunch and Sunday dinner!

What a difference a week makes.

I’m really honored that my Indonesian co-workers – some who hadn’t even met me – took my colleague and I out. In general the Indonesians seem to be incredibly hospitable.

I went for lunch at a colleagues house today, catching a taxi to her place. Here’s the meter -

Best time of the weekend was Saturday night – starting in an Indonesian restaurant which had some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. Definitely the nicest food I’ve had here – and four of us ate and drank for $A50 in a pretty classy restaurant. From there we met friends of our host in another restaurant. After a drink we ended up in basement bar, complete with a pretty competent cover band.

We were clearly in with some well known locals, as the entry charge was waived and a prominent table cleared the minute we entered. Drinks amounted to someones private bottle of vodka being produced and served at the table. I’d seen bars which held bottles especially for clients previously – notably in Japan – but this is the first time I’ve ever been served from one! Musically the best part of the evening for me was when a DJ came on a bit later, complemented by a very good percussionist filling in around the songs.

And the worst? When I was staring at something, in my own little world. The female lead singer from the band comes and drapes herself over my shoulder, singing away, spotlight on us both. Didn’t see that one coming and all I could do was smile outwardly – and grimace massively on the inside.

It’s 9pm Friday night and I’m back in the hotel – but I escaped and wandered the world at large for the last 4 hours! I’ve been on the loose since 4:30pm. Sshhh… don’t tell anyone.

Well not really on the loose – but in the company of a local whom my manager approved to take myself and 2 others out. Pretty nice of him, so I only met him a bit randomly in the company of another visitor for 30 minutes yesterday. We went 10 pin bowling, had an hour of playing pool (I won all 4 games!) and ate at somewhere which wasn’t attached to the hotel – but it’s the most freedom I’ve had for 3 weeks.

The better news – I’ve got 3 other escapes lined up for the weekend! Sshhh….

Small things!