Indonesia, baby.
Trip Start
May 18, 2008
1
11
18
Trip End
Jun 16, 2008
Jakarta,
Java,
Indonesia
Monday, June 2, 2008
was nervous after reports of shady cab drivers holding people up at knifepoint - so hopped in with ted, who had car from the ritz pick us up. fancy! there are only two reliable cabs (bluebird & silverbird) but there are fake bluebirds around now, and they are the MOST disreputable. met up w/ manoah & his coworkers at the ritz for drinks, then headed upstairs to the apartment of the director of food & beverage for ritz hotels. cool view of jakarta, until manoah throw up on the balcony. :)
i continue to plan how i'm going to get to papua new guinea. major headache because there is only one airline that flies there, economy tickets from singapore are sold out, so i'd have to fly out of australia or manila. but there are only flights out of various countries on certain days, and domestically, flights only leave on certain days so this makes it one HUGE puzzle. this might also require overnight stays in the connecting city and possibly port moresby, papua new guinea. did i mention that the economist ranked port moresby as the most dangerous non war-zone city in the world? yep. in the meantime, manoah says i shouldn't miss bali, so i book a plane ticket for the next day! the plan is to bus it back (30+ hours) back from bali to jakarta so i can see the rest of java.
most people trash jakarta, but i thought it had some interesting historical spots, like the beautiful cafe batavia in old dutch town square and sunda kalapa, this old working port that still moves goods to various locations in se asia. though the boats don't have sails (motors now), they're still pretty ancient. everyone is complaining about the lifting of the gas subsidy, which just happened. we discuss the previous dictator, whom some still love despite his genocidal practices. the concept of human rights is just quite different elsewhere, isn't it. the indonesian tuktuks are fascinating too, little buggy contraptions spewing out black exhaust.
the rest of my time in jakarta was noted by a massage (after a 1.5 hour massage the conclusion was: mine not strong enough, min felt that she had been manhandled, and the boys were upset they didn't get free soup and drinks out of the deal), min & ted getting kicked out of their taxi (the non blue bird taxis, i tell you), and taking motorbike taxis onto the EXPRESSWAY in jakarta. after dinner at this nice bar, that looks a bit like pastis in new york and its i keep falling asleep - narcolepsy is really a possibility here.
