Photo Of The Day

Mall Culture: Mall Of Indonesia, Jakarta

"One can say that malls have replaced churches, community centres and brothels all together." - Sunday posts

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From The Indonesian Blogs

In my brief period of staying in Jakarta my sources of information on Indonesia have been limited. I read the Jakarta post irregularly and sometimes browse some tv channels, but as I did not manage enough time to learn the language beyond counting numbers and directions (which actually helps me conduct my day-to-day affairs, including bargaining) I miss many things which are appearing everywhere.

But lately I have been subscribing to a number of blogs in English on Indonesia in my rss reader, most of which are of expat bloggers. I read them regularly and I must admit I learn a lot from them. I am sharing some interesting stories with you.

Yet another story of exploitation of natural resources of Indonesia:

Asia pulp and Paper/Sinar Mas Group's threat to Bukit Tigapuluh national park's (West Sumatra) forest and wildlife:

104,933 hectares in Tunu River, 98,577 hectares in Durian Jajar and 21,901 hectares in Kelumbuk Tinggi Baner, has all been converted into oil palm plantations. The rest of the non national park land has been given over to paper production.

Via Dilligaf

Bemo Reminds me of Tempo in Bangladesh:


(Bemos, image courtesy The Travellers Lounge)

Metro Mad Jakarta informs that Bemo, the three wheeled minivans which are an extended version of autorickshaws (Bajaj) and can take eight passengers will soon be phased out from Jakarta. Although they were outlawed in the Indonesian capital, about a thousand of them are still in operation and the city administration plans to get rid of them by 2011.

A familiar story on quality of education:

Jakartass questions the competence of the bureaucrats in charge of Indonesia’s schools because the national exam papers contain a lot of mistakes.

Are Indonesian women an export product?

Tatterscoops discusses a controversial proposed Marriage bill which requires the future ‘foreign’ husband to pay Rp. 500,000,000 (53,792 USD) deposit - allegedly to protect Indonesian women and this deposit is refundable on the tenth marriage anniversary.

This has enraged many Indonesian women who feel that they are 'being' sold by their own country.

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Train Journey

In Jakarta. Image courtesy Brommel

In Dhaka. Image courtesy Sabloemarts

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Rainy Season Begins in Jakarta

The long rainy season of Jakarta falls between late October and early May. We experienced first heavy rain of this season today. The flood situation is normal but heavy traffic jam occurred as seen in the above picture (visit Aulia's posterous for more).

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Pesta Blogger 2009

Last Saturday (October 24, 2009) I attended the Pestablogger 2009 conference held in the SMESCO building in Jakarta. Around 1200 bloggers from all across Indonesia participated in this third annual Indonesian bloggers gathering.

(SMESCO building at Jalan Gatot Soebroto)

This year's theme was "One Spirit One Nation", which reflects the nation's unity and diversity. Iman Brotoseno, the chairman of the event tells:

"Blog and other social media are able to break through physical, religious and cultural boundaries to keep us united as one nation with one spirit."

(Click here to read the rest of this entry)

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Better Than That One!

Via Jakarta Daily Photo:

The owner of the biggest McDonalds franchise in Indonesia has converted all his McDonald’s counters into the new restaurant: Tony Jack’s. Apparently he’s pissed by McDonald’s decision to sell its majority franchise ownership of McDonalds Indonesia to the Rekso group.

Detik Finance reports that 13 McDonalds branches were converted to Tony Jack’s on the 1st of October. The new entity vows to offer different food items from the previous venture although still dominated by burgers and fried chicken.

Since the first day of opening, the packaging of food and beverages were prepared plain, without logo and name of the store.

Their tagline is "Better than that One", hope they can live up to the expectation.

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On the way to Dhaka

Before millions of Jakartans leave the city towards the villages for the Eid-ul Fitr holidays, I am on the way to Dhaka Bangladesh (writing from airport). This trip was not anticipated, but arranged hastily at the last moment. It will be a kind of relief after the hassles of bureaucracy we have been subject to while settling here. Everything took more than the expected time. Our shipment was waiting at the port and incurring demur-rage and we were waiting for a government officials sign and seal. The stay permits and registration procedures were extra cumbersome, things become frustrating because even after paying speed money things were not speeding up but going on at Indonesia's own space. I haven't had much luck with learning the language (hearing some podcasts) so we are still living in the cocoon and that hurts.

Family members were ill and we did not have time to adjust to the food here. So I guess we needed this welcome break to re-energize ourselves with the love of the family members back in Dhaka.

Looking forward to replenish with some iftaar delicacies and the foods of Eid festival. Dhaka, here we come.

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Picture Of The Day

August 17 (National day of Indonesia) celebrations in the neighborhood.

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Another Earthquake In Java Island

leonagustine (Jakarta-Bandung, Indonesia): Dear God I wish you had a twitter account, I want to ask a huge favor, please take care of my family, and all my friends. from earthquake.

A strong earthquake measuring 6.8 struck off the southern coast of the Indonesian island of Java late Monday at around 11 PM. Yogyakarta, a city about 450 km from Jakarta was the hardest hit. We in Jakarta did not feel it.

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Earthquake In Java Island

Evacuate Situation at Indonesia Stock Exchange Building (Jakarta Earthquake 7.1 SR) (Image via Nisaanesta, Twitpic)

Ok. Folks. This is for real. A 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Java Island in Indonesia at 2:55 pm. I was in the ground floor of a 2 storied office in South Jakarta and in the middle of a negotiation. Suddenly the floor started to move and soon everybody could feel it. The water in the pool next to the building was really shaking. Everybody was at a loss and I suddenly screamed requesting everybody to get out of the building. I am sure those who were in upper floors of tall buildings could feel it even more horrifyingly.

And it died down soon. I tried to call somebody but the mobile network was not working so the mobile internet was out too. The land phones were working so we could find out that everybody is safe. After about 30-40 minutes I started towards home and amidst heavy traffic I twitted about the news. Long traffic jams occured in business areas as people were running home.

The quake hit 195 kilometers (120 miles) south-southeast of Jakarta on the southern coast of the main island of Java at a depth of 50 kilometers.


View Larger Map

Preliminary reports say buildings collapsed in many districts. Detik.com reports that in District Nagrak, at least 18 houses were damaged by the earthquake. 18 people in Jakarta were injured and they are being treated at several hospitals in Jakarta.

Ap:

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said it was powerful enough to cause a local tsunami, but there were no immediate reports of high waves. Less than an hour later it said in a statement that "sea level readings indicate a significant tsunami was not generated" and retracted the alert.

Detik.com:

Until 16:50 pm, panic struck Tasikmalaya, West Java (115km from epicenter). Residents are still outside the home because of aftershocks, which continued to occur. As a result, heavy traffic on city streets.

Bloomberg:

Almost everyone had a phone to an ear, trying in vain to contact relatives and friends as communication lines and wireless services were rendered useless.

Ok the casualty reports are coming.

CNN:

Six people were killed in Indonesia after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Wednesday, officials said.

The quake was initially categorized as magnitude 7.4 before being downgraded to 7.0 by geological officials.

The death toll continues to rise.

15 people according to Detik News:

Tasikmalaya 4
Cianjur 10
Sukabumi 1

Head of Data Center and Public Relations National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) Priyadi Kardono told AFP on Wednesday (2 / 9 / 2009) at 18:00 pm.

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RIP MBah Surip

I do not know any Indonesian singer. I have seen some of them on TV and some stands out for their appearances. MBah Surip was one of them whom I thought was a Bob Marley look alike. The Reggie beats and the video of his latest song "Tak Gendong" are really interesting. I have seen people singing this song in the streets and the TV channels are playing it a lot. His "Ha Ha Ha" expression is really unique.

But it was really a shock to read that he has died today. This report tells that he died of heart failure. RIP Bob Marley of Indonesia. Here is his "Tak Gendong":

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Update

I have not updated my blog for a while. The main reason is the lack of internet connectivity. I mean I have now a monthly mobile internet connection package which performs a lot under its declared speed and it has a monthly cap which prompts me to stick to work rather than play.

We have started the house hunt about ten days ago. We have so far seen more than 15 houses and closing in on one. Meanwhile we have traveled around Jakarta a bit. Went to the Ancol Theme park and the beach and rode on the cable car. (Pics coming up)

Meanwhile our main source of entertainment is the Indonesian language TVs, and we don't understand them. Its good that a couple of channels show English movies (with subtitles) during night. And the Indonesian soaps are also interesting - more complicated than Hindi serials The women are the villains and the men are a naive lot. I was informed by Aparna that some of these soaps are written by Indians - so you get the drift.

Jakarta can be expensive and inexpensive at the same time, depending on your lifestyle. Here riches (and expats) have a completely different lifestyle, close to the Europeans- fully air-conditioned houses and cars, living in good neighborhood, groceries from Carrefour, snacks from Mcdonalds etc and its really expensive in local standard. In Carrefour we did some grocery shopping for the home including fruits and it was almost 50 dollars (500000 Rp)! But again the local wages here is so cheap (a maid at around 100 dollars per month, which is the minimum wages). I wonder how local people survive with this in this expensive city!

E.g. I bought pomfrets from the clean Carrefour at 100000 Rp (10 dollars) and from a filthy local market 25,000 rp per kilo. But I went to the later with one local person who did the talking and bargaining for me and I reckon no western expat goes there. So you see why the knowledge of the market and learning of the local language is crucial.

It rained heavily in Jakarta and some streets were inundated with 1 feet of water. Drains clogged with rubbish-familier scenes I was told. We are of course looking for our houses in flood free areas.

Will keep you posted.

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We Are Safe

Today at around 8:00AM two bombs went off in Kuningan area of South Jakarta. The homemade bombs were on the basement car park of the Marriot and a restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton. At least nine people are dead so far including a suicide bomber. No one claimed the responsibility but BBC is suspecting its the work of extremist organization Jemaah Islamia. An unexploded bomb and other explosives material were found in room 1808. Another bomb went off at a toll road in north Jakarta.

We are also residing in Southern Jakarta but about 20 minutes away from the Marriot. I heard about it in the morning when somebody called us to inform. I switched on the TV but could not make out anything as all the channels are only broadcasting in the local languages. There were some footages which showed the grim situation.

We went out later to a shopping mall near Kuningan and saw the road leading to the Marriot well cordoned off. However the situation seems to be normal in town now.

Budy is a nice young man from Jakarta, who has been our guide. I rode his bike numerous times to go to nearby shopping malls and grocery stores. When I asked him about the blast he shrugged and said this is typical Jakarta; every year there are one or two sporadic incidents. I asked - Al Qaeda? He said - Don't know, may be Nurudin, from Malaysia. Well I don't know who that is.

I bought a pre-paid mobile SIM (which is very cheap and available everywhere) but it is costing much to log on to internet. I mean checking emails via mobile is affordable. But the moment I use it as a modem to log on to internet from my laptop, it eats up the credit a lot, about a dollar every 10 minutes (without downloading any video). In internet Cafe you can browse for three hours with one dollar. I tried to get an unlimited package (30 dollars a month) but was told that I have to buy a post-paid SIM for that. And they handed me a list of requirements (guarantees, stay permits/ID etc) which will take at least one month of bureaucracy. I will try to convince someone local to help me out on this. Even in Bangladesh I could get the unlimited internet package with pre-paid connection -no document was required. And the price was something like 12-15 dollars a month.

Thanks to those who inquired about my safety via email and Facebook.

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In Jakarta

Signing in from a cyber cafe in Jakarta. We have arrived safely yesterday. It was a tiring journey of about 18 hours of flight time and two stops (At Doha & Singapore).

What can I say about Jakarta at first sight! Feels so like Dhaka. Smog, corruption, long queues, traffic jam, broken streets, Kacha Bazaar, high end convenient stores, shopping malls, high rises.

Trying to sort out logistics here. There are a lot of things to do.. like hunting a house, getting a cost effective internet connection. The temporary accommodation had some lacking reminding us that we are not in a well developed country. But I like this place.

More later.

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Good Bye Germany

It has been an interesting experience living in Europe for the last three years. In less than 12 hours we will be moving on. Next stop Jakarta, Indonesia; where my new home will be for the next couple of years. New country, new challenges. I can't wait to share my experiences.

The summary of the last three years is that I enjoyed this study break, spent more time with my daughter (which was not possible during my last full time job), blogged more and ventured into the world of working online and I used the time to travel a lot. Europe gives you the opportunity of visa less borders (saving you time and hassle), quick and inexpensive travel through highways or train and of course budget airlines. In last three years I went to London six times for my study. I visited many countries in Europe except the Scandinavian ones.

I actually remained as a perpetual visitor in Berlin. Being based in Berlin (because of my family) I studied in UK and worked online, so my contact with the Germans were minimal. My internship in German Bundestag for two months and my attempt to get enrolled in the Humboldt University were the other highlights of my stay in Berlin.

I drove about 50000km in last three years and my longest was Berlin to Paris (1100km) in 14 hours. Another record was crossing four countries in a day - Koblenz -Luxembourg -through Belgium- Maastricht-Berlin. Europe's great highways made that possible.

Berlin, is one of the most livable cities in Europe. Its green, its inexpensive comparing to other capitals in Europe and its really a great city to explore and taste its different flavors; from historical buildings to modern architecture, from ghettos in Kreuzberg to mansions in Schwanenwerder, I can go on and on. Perhaps I will write a book someday.

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