Friday March 19, 2004 - Jakarta, other side of the world
Sort of grueling, vacation American style, but with an American friend I decided to give that a try. Two days in Tokyo, one in Singapore - which ended up being two days due to some kind of tiff between the Dutch and Indonesian govermments. Now Dutch citizens suddenly need a visa to enter Indonesia, and so I spent an extra day queueing at the Indonesian Embassy, where an Assistant Immigration Attache let himself be per$uaded to give me an entry visa much quicker than the scheduled three days.
And so I find myself back in Jakarta - some of this trip is seeing old friends, the folks in Singapore and Jakarta I worked with on the cellular carrier I helped start up here a few years ago, and I will this time also make a stop in Surabaya and visit my maternal grandmother's grave, she died here in the '30s when Indonesia was still a Dutch colony, and my forefathers owned a sugar plantation on the island of Java.
Thanks to my wonderful Indonesian colleagues, terima kasih, friends, I don't have to worry about cars and boats and planes, all is efficiently and cheaply taken care of, tonight we leave for the Northern end of Sulawesi, where my traveling companion will go diving in what I understand is the second best amateur diving area in the world. I won't be accompanying him, prefer my air not out of a bottle, but my former Indonesian IT manager from Jakarta, Jerry, dives himself, and very graciously offered to accompany us up there, and down there.
I am jetlagged out of sight already - 3 hours from D.C. to Chicago, 14 hours to Tokyo, crossed the dateline, then 8 hours to Singapore, which is in a different timezone, and another 1.5 hours to Jakarta, yet another timezone. Tonight the last leg, 4.5 hours to Manado. And this isn't a business trip, so we're in cattle class with the rest of the tourists. Owell.. :) In a while friend Nathi will join us for lunch, and we can catch up on four years of not being here.. Got myself an AIPTek PocketDV camera (I normally use 35mm SLR equipment, being an old newshound) yesterday at Changi Airport duty free yesterday, so I will share some of the sights with y'all in the coming days. That is, if I can get an Internet connection up in Manado? Ah, Asia.. the satellite dishes point straight up, and the A/C in my hotel room is struggling in the 90 degree heat at 10am already.. love it.
Saturday March 20, 2004 - Manado, Northern Sulawesi
The disapproving stares at Jakarta Airport and the obvious disdain with which the Immigration Officer treated him got to Dick, a big six-foot-four-240-pound American who stands out like a sore thumb down here, straight away. Americans are not much liked any more in this part of the world. Largely Christian Sulawesi, I was told, was the only area in Indonesia where the flags went to half staff after the September 11, 2001, attacks. While I take that with a grain of salt, the masses of American businessmen and -women I used to see around these parts seem to have evaporated, I found a number of popular restaurants closed down.
Then something very unusual happened. We flew to Manado, on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia's far North, on an internal flight with new Indonesian budget airline Lion Air, an airline that doesn't appear to be used by Westerners much, Dick and I the only caucasians on the plane. Seating in these airplanes, intended for small Asians, is dense, not much room for Dick's large frame. In front of us, in the wider exit row, were two women, one in traditional Muslim garb, the other plain Indonesian, and the Muslim lady turned around in her seat soon after we squeezed into ours, and asked if we wanted her seats, as there was more leg room where she was sitting. She and her companion got up, giving us their roomy exit row seats, and they settled back in ours. She seemed to think this was the most normal thing in the world to do, and will probably never know how welcome he gesture was, demonstrating Indonesian hospitality in enormous contrast to the treatment Dick had gotten upon arrival.
So here we are at the Nusantara Diving Centre near Manado, which is closer to the Philippines than to the rest of Indonesia, and I was reunited with Jerry, who I hired in his present job in Jakarta, spending some quality time with him and diving center owner John, who laid on a delicious light Indonesian meal for us. Tomorrow Dick's getting his first dives in, while I will likely go into Manado, stock up at the supermarket and catch up on some trip admin, our expenses have gotten a little mixed up what with all the fast and furious travel.
Indonesia has changed a great deal since I was last here - democracy has clearly taken a good foothold. Where travel between the islands used to be tightly controlled, only two airports (Jakarta and Bali) allowing foreign entry, Indonesians used to have IDs that were marked for "internal travel allowed", and even needed permission to leave the country, our plane was packed, and I had never seen the inland travel section of Sukarno-Hatta Airport crowded with Indonesians traveling hither and yon, clearly without restriction, on serviceable American-made jets, crews even internally in full compliance with FAA regulations, lots of different Indonesian carriers, and airfares between islands affordable to the Indonesian middle class.
What made us laugh was the prayer card inserted in the seat pocket, with a prayer for the safety of travellers, air crew and aircraft, preprinted in both their respective languages and English for Buddhists, Muslims, Catholics and Hindus. We got here safe and sound, so it must work :)
Sunday March 21, 2004 - Manado, Northern Sulawesi
This place is stunning in its beauty, and sitting down to dinner with some Jakartan tourists last night, we switftly concluded it has not materially changed since the 1930's. I apologize for not providing URLs with this narrative, I will update this section with the URLs when I am back in Singapore or the US, here at the diving centre in Manado I have to go and borrow a telephone line in the manager's office to access AT&T's worldwide business network, and even then I am lucky if I get a 14.4kbps link back to the node in Surabaya, several islands and a thousand miles away.
Local elections here are soon to be held, and when I drove into town yesterday late afternoon there were political rallies going on all over - hundreds of minivans, horse carts, and pickup trucks crammed with flag and banner waving people, often dressed in the colours of their political party. The whole thing had a party atmosphere, with hundreds of people on the sidewalk waving and applauding when their preferred party's procession passed. More of a festival than anything else, democracy has a very firm foothold in Indonesia, and the population is more engaged than anywhere else I have been.
Then there is the stunning beauty of it all, from having to brake for the farmer walking his karbouw (water buffalo) home on a lead, to the Northern coastline of the Celebes Sea (Celebes being the old colonial name for Sulawesi). Polluted, too many people on too few square miles, but then there is little public transportation, you either take a minivan, which ply the roads by the thousands, or you walk, and as a consequence people need to live close together. Many of the minivans are the older type, still fitted with two stroke engines, and so you're often driving through thick clouds of exhaust.
But the people are happy, friendly, beautiful, walking up the road I am stopped half a dozen times, they're not used to seeing a "whiteface" walk their streets, people eager to talk and say hello. There is relative affluence here too - folks are neatly dressed, lots of fancy and expensive motorbikes, new construction going up, new malls in operations, all very recently. There is abundant tourism from Jakarta, where the rich Indonesians live, and I understand both British Airways and Singapore Airlines have made Manado a holiday destination. The local airport now has customs and immigration, and officially can take flights from abroad, that too is new, both in terms of development and politically, the opening up of the hinterlands..
Dick and Jerry left for their daily diving excursion just after breakfast, apparently the diving here is beyond describable, I have to take their word for that, but they're happy as clams, so something's gotta be right :)
I'll head into town after uploading this and getting my email, see if I can find some nice local handicraft gifts for home. Only two more days in Paradise :-(
Wednesday March 24, 2004 - Surabaya, East Java
On the last full day of our visit I took a drive from the Northern coast of North Sulawesi to the South coast, basically to take a look at some investment property. Grueling ride, four hours over badly maintained roads, but once in the village of Basaan I was totally overawed by the views, judge for yourself. A local fisherman took us out into the bay, and showed me the property from seaward, if you could solve the transportation problem it would be an unbelievable place to live.
By the 24th we will be on our way to Surabaya via Makassar, in Southern Sulawesi - flying from one end of the island of Sulawesi to the other takes an hour and twenty minutes by jet, one tends to forget how big this country is. The airplanes Lion Air flies are another story - originally built as Mc Donnell-Douglas DC-9s in the 1980s, rechristened MD-82 when Boeing acquired that company, they're a serviceable mix of formerly South American and Chinese jetliners without advanced flight management systems, but they get you there and every flight is packed with people, what with fares as low as US$ 40 for a two hour island-to-island flight.
Cash only, of course, the credit card machine in Singapore hasn't yet been installed.
Friday March 26, 2004 - Jakarta
After a stopover in Surabaya, to visit my maternal Grandmother's grave, we are back in Jakarta. Grandma was buried here in 1927, having succumbed to diabetes, then an untreatable condition, in the days when Indonesia was still a Dutch colony, when my Grandfather was serving in the Dutch Pacific fleet. Her grave had been robbed, it was not unusual for folks to be buried with jewelry in those days, and I found it open and with the gravestone removed. With tremendous help from wonderful folks in our Jakarta and Surabaya offices, the grave has been sealed and a replica of the original stone will be installed.
Back in Jakarta, we see the election rallies go on to the point that they are clogging much of Jakarta's normally extremely busy roadways, and find ourselves having to drive around numerous focal points of each political party's gatherings. Local lore has it the supporters are paid demonstrators - they're allegedly getting Rupiah 50,000 per day to be out waving the flag, for many, that's more than a week's wages. So the massive turnout is perhaps not all that surprising.
But it is heartening to see Indonesians take to democracy like a duck to water. Because the rates of illiteracy are still very high, the government has created a huge campaign in which each political party is represented by a well known fruit, so that those who cannot read can easily pick their favourite party, supported by a massive amount of nationwide educational television. Well known local soap actors and -actresses are drawing TV viewers to programs in which the importance of voting is stressed, while there is significant coverage of past corruption scandals, both on television and in the popular press. The man in the street, taxi drivers, security guards, seem convinced President Megawati will not win another term, with many appearing to favour one or the other of the generals now running for the presidency. The feeling seems to be that only one of the military men can clean up scandal ridden Indonesia. Says one Singapore taxi driver: "If the Indonesians ever get their act together, they'll wipe us all off the map" - meaning that there is a feeling in the region that Indonesia can become the economic powerhouse of South East Asia. And indeed, secretaries in Jakarta and Surabaya today drive new cars and carry Nokia picturephones, a far cry from even five years ago. Watch the tiger...
Saturday March 27, 2004 - Singapore
As I write this we're back at the excellent budget Robertson Quay Hotel in Singapore, where Expedia found me a $42/night deal in a hotel that is smack in the middle of town, with both easy taxi and MRT underground access to the most interesting parts of this tiny tidy City State, from Boat Quay to Chinatown. It boasts a pool, Singapore $5/day high speed Internet access, terminals in the lobby for those that are laptop-challenged, and friendly and helpful staff.
Waiting by our Kijang van in Jakarta, while Dick settled his bill at the equally excellent Hotel Cemara, on the Jalan Cemara, I shot a picture of food and drink deliverymen passing by. Largely used by Indonesian business travelers, I was able to use our corporate rate, but even without the hotel is very reasonable and the service and amenities good.
While Jakarta is a good runner up to Mexico City and Beijing for "most polluted city on Earth", I cannot help but love the incongruous mix of native villages and services with 21st century amenities. In the picture above, beverages are being delivered by a wholesaler to the many thousands of roadside food stalls where Indonesian labourers get their breakfast, lunch and dinner. Those food stalls are normally near the sites where the labourers work - often, a labourer will work a 12 hour day, and sleep on a mat at the site, only to go home once the work is completely done. And so the food vendors bring their mobile mini-restaurants to the places where the work is done, food is cooked fresh at the site and eaten on a seat at the stall, or simply sitting on the kerb in the shade of a tree. Dick and I fully expected to have a case of what is often referred to as "Bali Belly" upon arrival, but much to our surprise we had no gastric discomfort at all. Whether the standards of hygiene have improved during the years we haven't been here, or the cause was our completely reverting to native foods from when we arrived in Tokyo, we're not sure. Native Indonesian food is cooked through and through, and won't spoil without refrigeration, while on previous occasions we often let Western colleagues talk us into going to Western restaurants, where food will spoil if it is not properly refrigerated. Indonesians aren't necessarily fully attuned to the need to keep uncooked beef and raw milk refrigerated at all times, they're not used to having to do these things with their own food. And as you can see from the picture, food and other victuals often spend their last mile in the hot rays of the midday sun, which will melt even blocks of ice in no time at all.
Monday March 29, 2004 - Singapore
When in Singapore, do as the Singaporeans do, so as my sinuses clogged on the flight from Makassar to Surabaya, and are still clogged two flights later, I asked Singaporean friend Jacque what local remedy I should get for a decongestant. She took me to a Chinese pharmacy, where the elderly lady behind the counter recommended Wild Cordyceps with Wild Panax Ginseng, in capsule form. I was told to take two right then and there, with a medicinal herbal tea. Reading up on this fungus I discovered it is known as an aphrodisiac, while also promoting general health, lung function, and is "espcially good for limbs, waist and knees weakness". Due to a slowly healing leg injury I have been walking with a cane, these past couple of weeks, as we have been doing a lot of walking, so I guess the pharmacist got me a multi purpose medication that should treat all my ills. What with Wild Cordyceps fetching $1,000 per 100 grams, I suppose it wasn't surprising I paid Sing$ 50 for 30 capsules..
Other than that, Singapore has been a wonderful shopping and eating bonanza, not least because Jacque took us places only the locals go, I am always extremely happy not being in the tourist trap world, it is the journalist in me, I guess, I need to connect with people.
If you're a smoker, Singapore is the place - there are ashtrays on every street corner. But more importantly, Singapore is a place where a multitude of races live together harmoniously, demonstrating a strange but pleasing mix of the Orient with conscious adoption of some Western style principles without losing its Asian identity. And the shopping... ahhh, the shopping... if I spend another day here my Visa card will surely melt :)
Tuesday March 30, 2004 - Singapore
I had intended to buy a WiFi card for some time, but somehow never got around to it until Jacque took me to the Funan IT Mall, in downtown Singapore, an 8 story high cityblock long shopping bonanaza for electronics. I found a Compex Netpassage 802.11g card with 4 port wireless access point for about $72 US, not that the savings were that important but you can really find anything electronic at all there. I won't be using the access point just yet because I live so much in the backwoods there is no DSL available... :-(
Elsewhere in what Singaporeans call "Chinatown" - a bit of a misnomer as Singapore is largely Chinese - I found beautiful not-quite antique pretty things - a 150 year old bone-on-bamboo Mah-Jongg game in a very beautiful wooden box, a small brass incense burner, and a hand painted and hand gilded wooden Buddha intended for a home shrine. Dick and I spent two days very successfully demolishing the remainder of our vacation budgets - so much so that I was really concerned I might be exceeding my U.S. Duty Free allowance. Filling out my Customs Declaration on the United Airlines flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco, however, I discovered the U.S. has kindly doubled the allowance since my last overseas trip, in November, to US$ 800. Phew! I had thankfully purchased just under that limit, at least, that's my story, and I am sticking by it... :)
Wednesday March 31, 2004 - Hong Kong and San Francisco
Crossing the dateline, we experienced March 31st twice, beginning in Singapore and then in San Francisco all over again. Too soon, it was time to go home again, although we were both ready, it has been a fast-and-furious and intense experience. From the Tokyo hotel manager who expected Dick to turn up with his wife and from there figured we were a gay couple so put us in a suite together, via the Indonesian Secret Service surveillance we experienced in Surabaya, to the stupendous scenery we witnessed above and below the water in Sulawesi, the trip was mostly characterized by the hospitable and caring people we met and re-met along the way. Jerry (who came up to Sulawesi to dive with Dick) and Nathi (Bu Nathi, I can't even begin to thank you for all your "nationwide" help) in Jakarta, where I was also able to meet some of my former colleagues and my former boss, Gerry Rossi, in the wireless joint venture I helped set up, Susi and her husband in Surabaya, who went out of their way to help me get my Grandmother's grave repaired, Jacque in Singapore, former coworker-turned-friend and our wonderful guide, John in Manado, manager of the Nusantara Diving Centre who became a friend and ally, Meneer Hasun in Manado who offered to sell me his gorgeous island off the South shore (I'm tempted, so I won't tell you its name :), and the many kind and helpful nameless people we met along the way, sometimes puzzled for our being in places that two middle aged American males aren't normally found, but always friendly, curious and so helpful.
I didn't buy the Aiptek digital gizmo I shot these pictures with until we left Singapore for Sulawesi, so I owe you pictures from the first few days of our trip, Tokyo, and Singapore, I am waiting for the 20-odd rolls of 35mm film I shot to be developed and scanned. Then I will probably move this travelogue to my travel section, where it belongs.
The last impression is that of a grey and drab Hong Kong International Airport, where the Chinese authorities run security and ID checks even on transiting passengers, and mindful of the devastating effects of SARS (we would have taken this trip last year if it hadn't been for that epidemic), still check the temperature of every passenger, whether or not they enter Hong Kong, they've clearly decided they're not going to be caught unawares again, as have the Singaporeans, where you pass through a temperature sensing gate upon arrival at Changi Airport. That has to be the nicest airport on Earth bar none - carpeted end-to-end, the normal airport noises are muted here, and every conceivable service from a full and delicious Chinese chicken noodle soup for breakfast to an outdoor smoking area with pool(!) and bar is provided. The Indonesians had cottoned on to this too - the outside smoking area in our departure terminal equally had a small bar, serving excellent cappucino and food as well.
I leave you with pictures of the massive 747-400 that took us from Kongers to San Fran, you know you're going home when you see the Verizon Airfone in the seatback in front of you (I know... but Verizon does pay my wages :), as well as a dusk impression of that beautiful place, Northern Sulawesi - if I have ever been to a quality holiday destination this has to be it, it is a bit of a trek to get there, but if there is a contest for Paradise on Earth Manado is a good contender. A decidedly Christian enclave in a largely Muslim country, Northern Sulawesi is now also home to hundreds of thousands of Amboinese, who fled here when sectarian violence in Ambon forced them to abandon their ancestral home.
Many thanks go to friend and colleague and traveling companion Dick, who talked me into taking a holiday American style, something I had never done before, you know, it-is-Wednesday-so-this-must-be-Surabaya :). Never seen and experienced so much in such a short period of time, thanks big guy!