Gili Trawangan.

Heading to Bangkok for a week starting tomorrow – hoping that the stuff that’s going on there doesn’t get any worse. Jen will hopefully be joining my later in the week for a whirlwind tour of Bangkok and the immediate surroundings. It would be unfortunate if we got caught up in the unrest.

Anyways, last weekend, I travelled with Jen, Dana, Gilles, Carla, and Joya to Gili Trawangan, off the coast of Lombok. We took a Garuda Indonesia flight into Mataram, and were transported from there by van to our speedboat transfer. Those who know me are probably thinking that the boat ride might be a bit of a problem given my history of seasickness, but it was actually the car ride that was the worst. Narrow, twisting roads through the mountains do wonders for my stomach.

Our group stayed at the Coconut Dream Bungalows, taking over the complex (the guys who run the place actually kicked our a group of British girls to give us the rooms we needed). The place was great, and breakfast the next morning was banana pancakes (delicious!).

The bungalows:

Main street:

Our first day was spent mostly just looking around the island and eating. The people visiting seemed to be a mix of Ozzies and Europeans. The Ozzies seem to have the best tans, and the Europeans are easily identified by their propensities. The men seem to like the “hairy-chest-like-a-sweater over a Speedo” look, while the women seem to prefer to be topless, regardless of age and…gravity. Some things just can’t be unseen.

Despite the occasional need for eye-bleach, the beaches were beautiful, the water warm, and the locals friendly. Jen and I set off to find our way up to the top of the hill at the centre of the island – after some stellar navigation on our part (we were lost for twenty minutes on an island the size of the By-ward Market) we managed to find the stairs up the hill. Yes, stairs up the hill. I was looking for the escalator.

The hill gave us some great views of the island, but before we knew it it was dark and time to head back to the bungalows for some dinner.

On our way back, we ran into a group of young Indonesian kids. This has happened a couple of times now, and each time it does, the reaction is the same. The kids drop whatever they’re doing, and lose their minds, screaming “PHOTO MISTER PHOTO!” and acting as silly as they can. They love to see their pictures on the back of the camera.

Blue steel? Magnum? Your call:

The mother of one of the kids invited Jen and I in for coffee. She and her husband were fishermen from what I could figure out, and sold their catches to the local restaurants. They didn’t have much, but they were happy to share a cup of coffee and talk (as much as my Indonesian would allow) about Canada, Indonesia, flying (the gentleman had made the hajj, but hated flying), and coffee. We chatted for twenty minutes, when I ran out of things I could say, and politely excused ourselves.

The kids followed us for another ten minutes, laughing and playing. they hung off of me, and flirted with Jen. It was great.

When we got back to the bungalows, Rashid, the cook for a local restaurant, was hired to cook dinner for the six of us, plus a number of the staff and other friends. Dinner was amazing, with seafood, rendang, and other tasty Indonesian treats.

The rest of the night is pretty hazy, but from all the photos I have on my camera, it looks like everyone was having a good time.

The next day was snorkeling day for us. For about $10/each, we booked a full-day trip and rented fins/masks. The boat ride to the site started late, if uneventfully, but once we got in the water, the fish were amazing, and we snorkeled for hours (and even got to swim with turtles). Oh, wait, no, that was Gilles and Carla. I ended up puking within twenty minutes of getting into the water (big surprise, eh?), and Jen and Dana gave up not too long later.

So, after jumping out of the boat with my sandals on my hands, swimming to shore, and slinking back to the bungalow (which was on the opposite side of the island), I nursed my newly-acquired sunburn and waited for everyone to get back. Jen and Dana showed up not too long later, so we went out to sample some of the many great local restaurants.

Each restaurant, no matter what it was serving, had resident cats. They were everywhere on the island (Jen couldn’t keep her eyes off the un-neutered males….her hand kept making this little snipping motion…it was creepy). They were mostly tame, and some were really friendly. One of the guys who worked at the bungalows had a couple of cats that showed up over the few days that we were there – Yonkie and Eddie Murphy. They were skinny, with small heads and huge ears. We loved them.

There was an Indonesian raggae band playing at one of the resorts each night we were there. That’s right. Indonesian. Raggae. Bob Marley. They were pretty good.

The lead singer:

They sang this one song that epitomized our trip: Welcome to My Paradise.

The next day, it was finally time to leave the island. On the van ride back to the airport, Leo, the guy running the bungalows, pulled off the road and went into a store, emerging with peanuts. Five minutes later, we stopped partway up a hill, and got out of the car to feed the monkeys. These guys were hilarious. The girls named one Grandpa, and he sat there, waiting to be fed. I guess at one point, Carla slowed down in feeding him, and he poked her leg until she started up again. We moved to another spot, and Carla got out of the car with her bag of peanuts – one of the cheeky buggers grabbed it and ran off to sit alone and munch the whole batch.

Our friends:

The trip was great, and we’re looking forward to heading to Thailand this coming week.

More posts to come. For more photos, check out our Flickr stream.

-R

Traffic and haze.

As promised, some thoughts on two of the defining characteristics of the city of Jakarta for me:

Coming in from the airport late on a Thursday night, traffic was crazy but manageable. At least by Jakarta’s standards. A sane and responsible driver would not do so well here. It seems that Jakarta’s drivers are taught from a young age that the best defence is a good offence. I would be exaggerating in saying that I have never seen anyone check their blind spots, but it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

On a large street, say three lanes a side, you will typically have four or more cars driving abreast, with motorcycles and scooters filling in the gaps left between the cars. Lanes are sort of a novelty once traffic gets busy (even when it isn’t, drivers like to pretend that they’re monorail trains, and drive down the centre of the line). City planners have given up in certain areas, with six-lane-wide traffic circles completely lineless. Its every car for itself.

Driving operates on a system of given and take. Those that give are motorcycles, and people valuing their lives (and the finish on their cars). Those taking are, in order of precedence, bajaj, bemos, cars, microvans, trucks, minibuses, and big buses. Also, priority in traffic circles is determined by size and momentum coming into the circle, not who is already there.

There is a lot of honking in Jakarta traffic. To be fair, not much of it is angry honking. It signals “hey, you’re coming into my lane without looking” or “coming up behind you, please don’t hit me”. Cars just change lanes and wait for someone to honk or give way. The chaos seems to work here.

Bajaj in Jakarta:

Jakarta has its share of people trying to help sort out this chaos. There are policemen (have only seen one policewoman so far) who stand on the curb of straight stretch of road and wave traffic onwards, blowing a whistle non-stop. They aren’t guarding an entrance or helping you avoid hazards, they’re just there.

You also have the amateur and freelance traffic directors. Every building and restaurant seems to have someone with a whistle and a uniform of sorts whose job it is to stand by the entrance and facilitate the departure of cars from the premises. They will bravely venture into the road, blaring their whistle and waving their hands for your benefit. Some cars on the road heed these signals, some speed up.

On the back roads (jalan tikus – translates to rat/mouse roads), there are the less formal traffic wardens. These roads vary in width, from just wide enough for a motorcycle, to slightly over two cars wide. I have seen a driver have to reach out the window and flip the side mirror in to give just enough space to negotiate a tight spot. There are locals who will help guide you through a narrow section of these back streets for a small tip – 5 to 10 cents is standard from what I’ve seen. Long live free enterprise.

Now the haze. Ah, the haze. On bad days, it makes buildings 200m away unclear. On good days you still can’t see the horizon, but you don’t feel like you’ve just smoked a pack of cigarettes walking from the car to your apartment.

A contributor to the problem:

When we first arrived, we noticed a smell. To me, it smelled like something burning. I’ve found that this smell has faded, if only overwhelmed by the fine scent of diesel fumes from the 2 million+ cars and 5 million+ motorcycles on the streets of Jakarta. On our first weekend, we made the ~2 hour drive to Bogor and the Puncak, naively thinking that the haze would dissispate further from Jakarta. Wrong.

I’ve taken to swimming each day in our apartment’s Olympic-size pool. Its great, and very underused by the residents. I quickly learned to go in the early morning, before rush hour, when the day’s pollution has not yet risen to stifling levels. Still, there is a noticeable feeling of congestion in the throat after a day of short walks outside.

I want to make sure that you don’t get the wrong impression from all this: Jen and I love Jakarta so far. There is so much going on! Driving is an adventure, travel opportunities are plentiful (we’re off this weekend to the Gili Islands, and to Bangkok in a week or so), and the people welcoming and friendly. Every place has some drawbacks, and I think we can live with Jakarta’s.

Until later.

-R

First impressions of Jakarta

So we’ve been here in Jakarta for about a week and a half now, and I’ve finally managed to find enough time with a computer to put down some first thoughts about our new home here in Indonesia. It has been a bit crazy, but everything seems to be working out for the bestWhen we arrived on the 7th, we were met at the airport by Dana and Ross. Given our advanced state of jetlag, having people whose judgement was unclouded by an 11-hour time difference was really great. The handlers from the pet importer, Groovy Pets, showed up right on time, and Jen was happy to send the cats (who made the trip just fine) off with him

Our drive from the airport to our new place was…quiet. Well, compared to all our outings since it was. The night-time traffic was still a bit chaotic, but the volume was low enough that we could have just been in Montreal on a busy weekend.

On arrival in our apartment, we were pretty impressed. Guards at the gate, marble in the entryway, special passes to work the elevator, and then…our new apartment. I’m going to hold off on posting pictures until our air and sea shipments are here, and our new furniture arrives, but for now let me just say that we are very, very happy. Here’s a shot from the Sky Lounge at The Peak on the 41st floor, covering the front towers and Jakarta below: 

 

See our Flickr set for more shots of the outside of the complex.

The next day, Dana and Gilles dragged our somewhat less jetlagged selves out to our first Indonesian mall. From what we have seen so far, malls are a major part of living in Jakarta. You can’t drive very far without running into one. Senayan City, right across the street from another huge mall, Plaza Senayan, has enough high-end stores to make you forget that so much of this country lives in poverty. Seriously, I have never been to a mall that has so much that is beyond my reach: Gucci, Prada, Zegna, Mont Blanc, and more, all less that a hundred meters from the homes of people living on dollars a day. The contrast is a bit hard to take.

It’s the contrast that has defined Jakarta so far for me. You can easily spend much more or much less on anything that you can back in Canada. Choose between lunch at a noodle place for $1.50 or dinner at a five-star restaurant for hundreds of dollars, or between a twenty-minute cab ride for $2.00 or a chauffeured Mercedes. You can do it all here.

More to come soon! Up next: traffic and the haze.

-R

Asia at last!

Well, the journey has begun, and we’ve made it all the way to Incheon, South Korea. My body is telling me that it should be 6pm or so right now, but the sun coming in through our hotel room window is disagreeing.

Despite the jet lag, the cats are the ones who have had a really rough time. Five hours in a cage on the drive to Toronto, three hours in the busy airport, then fourteen hours on the plane – they’re pretty confused and upset. J and I are both pretty happy that we decided to grab a hotel room here in Korea. It gave us a chance to clean the cats up, hose down their cages, and let them stretch their legs a bit.

Everyone has settled in a bit here, and we have about five hours until we need to leave to catch our flight into Jakarta.

A couple of shots to share:

Mom guarding our stuff at Toronto Pearson

Jen waiting for our flight out

Our room in Incheon

Incheon

More Incheon

That’s all for now – more updates from Jakarta!

-R

Ready to leave

So the apartment is packed, loaded, cleaned, and closed up. We have finished our shopping at Costco, Walmart, MEC, Henry’s Camera, Popeye’s Supplements, Feet First, Loblaws, and SportChek. We are amply provisioned with a three-year supply of ibuprofin, Tylenol, flour, socks, and sunscreen. We have sorted, picked what to bring, leave, and give away, and said far too many goodbyes.

Its a strange thing, leaving for a posting. While J plans to come back for a month or so each year, I don’t. I think that: 1) its easier only having to say goodbye once; and, 2) you guys reading this blog are more likely to come and visit us in Jakarta if you its the only way you’ll get to see us for three years. That, and not flying home means that we’ll be able to travel to more new and exciting places.

We’re nervous but ready (I think). I’ll be starting work at the embassy on the 12th of August, after a weekend at the Puncak (pictures to follow for sure). J is hoping to find a full-time Indonesian language class to keep her busy for the first little while, until she comes back for her sister’s wedding in November.

This will probably be the last post that’s up for a while, as our computer is part of our air shipment, which could take a week or a month to arrive. If I can find an alternative way to put some stuff up, I will, but if not, bye for now, and wish us luck!

-R