"Hey, Mister!" - Tales from Indonesia part 1

(Originally written 18/4/2009)

I’ve just purchased the last Guardian I’ll see for six weeks, and I’m walking back from the corner shop when I notice a Volvo limousine slowly approaching from the other end of the street. As it draws up opposite me, I ask “Emirates?” “Yes, sir”, replies the driver. Suppose I’d better be off to Indonesia, then.

The flight is nothing special, taking me from Gatwick to Dubai, then on to Jakarta after a four-hour stopover.  Journey time is 27 hours, although we lose seven in the process, so by the time we land it could be half past eleven or Christmas Day as far as I’m concerned. Luckily, my body is easily persuaded, so I simply tell it that it’s four in the afternoon and let it get on with it.

My companion for the next six weeks is Zeina, a Palestinian from Jerusalem. For the purposes of the Indonesian authorities, though, she’s a Jordanian and has a passport to prove it… admittedly in a slightly different name, but a legal passport no less. (Being a rank coward, I am determined to go through Immigration before her. If loud shouts and automatic weapons erupt behind me, I will, of course support my colleague. By taking a taxi into town and alerting the Jordanian Embassy, probably.)

As we walk down the passage from the plane, we both notice that it’s a bit warm – as if someone has left the central heating on during early summer. Well, we knew it was going to be hot, this isn’t too bad. Baggage reclaim, Immigration, Customs, all are accomplished quickly, so we’ll just change some money before we find a taxi. I hand over $100 and receive more than a million rupiahs. I have no idea what prices are like here, but already I feel rich.

We walk through the doors to the street, and blimey, if I thought the central heating was a little high inside, outside it’s clearly broken and stuck on “Phew!” The humidity is staggering, why isn’t everyone laying down in the shade? It’s almost enough to make me forget my need for a cigarette, but not quite. (Yes, I’m back on the fags, although I’m quite proud that I managed both flights without a nicotine substitute.) Jakarta is, apparently, the third most polluted city in the world, and I’m prepared to do my bit to preserve their chart position by adding a little Marlboro smoke to the atmosphere.

“Hello, mister –“ ah, the hotel said they’d send a car for us, perhaps this smiling chap is the driver. “You want taxi?” Well, I don’t know. Are you the driver from the Ritz-Carlton? “No. You wan’ go to Ritz-Carlton?” Not with you, chum, we’ve got a car coming to meet us. “Oh…. Cigarette please?” Such cheek should be rewarded, and soon we’re both doing our bit for the pollution figures.

Zeina’s found the car from the hotel, the driver loads our bags, and we’re shortly rolling down a six-lane highway. We stare out of the windows at our surroundings for the next month and a half. So this is Indonesia… well, it’s proper foreign, isn’t it? It’s not quite jungle at the edges of the road, but there are palm trees, some with coconuts on them, banana bushes, masses of unfamiliar-hued flowers and lots of general greenery. As we get closer to town, tower blocks appear on the horizon. We cross a grubby-looking canal and I notice that traffic is increasing, so much so that we have to slow down. There seems to be little lane discipline as we’re passed on the right and left, while vehicles switch lanes with little warning whenever drivers see an advantage.

Through a set of toll gates, past a huge “Welcome to Jakarta” sign and we’re into the city, where mopeds rule the road. They’re everywhere, the cars are making the three lanes ahead into four by ignoring the road markings, and mopeds fill any available space. How they miss us, and vice-versa, is measured in split seconds. It’s just gone five, and this is rush-hour Jakarta-style, although rushing is the last adjective that can be applied to this traffic.

It takes a further half an hour to reach our hotel, partly due to the crawling mass of cars, bikes, lorries and ancient buses, but also because Jakarta is a very big city indeed. It’s the twelfth largest city in the world, home to more than 22m people – or, to put it in perspective, more than one fifth of the total UK population. What’s more, they’re all apparently going home, or going to the shops, or going to work, or just going, because it seems as if every single one of them is on the roads.

Glad that the journey is over, I step out of the car at the doors of the Ritz-Carlton. Gods and monkeys, if the heat and humidity at the airport was startling, this is something else. My glasses mist over, cliché be damned, it is exactly like stepping into a sauna, and really quite uncomfortable. Quick, let’s get inside, where they’d better have air conditioning or I’m not staying. What? They won’t let us in? Oh, we need to go through Security, have all our bags X-rayed and step through a metal detector. It’s a requirement for everyone who wishes to enter the hotel.

The Ritz-Carlton is a swish place. Marble floors and walls, a huge lobby area with seating and tables, and blessed air conditioning. “Hello, Mr McCulloch!” trills a receptionist, which is slightly unnerving, because I’ve never met her before. Some communication must have taken place between car and hotel, I assume. Registration complete, I’m handed a key card for Room 3001 and told that it’s on the 30^th floor.

Did I say room? It’s not a room, it’s a flat. On my right as I walk through the door is a good-sized kitchen, with fridge freezer, large microwave, water cooler, sink, washing machine and cupboards full of plates, cutlery and glasses. Further on is the living room, with sofa, coffee table, dining table and chairs, big plasma TV, sound system, DVD player and floor to ceiling windows. Then to the left is the bathroom, separate bath and shower room, usual offices. Finally, there’s the bedroom, bed the size of a football pitch, desk, another plasma TV and balcony. There’s a set rate for accommodation, surely they can’t have secured this place for the standard Civil Service allowance? I remember one of the last emails I had from the Jakarta office – “Since you will be staying for 44 nights, we are able to get long-term rate which is cheaper “. A copy of the lease has been left on the coffee table, and it includes the price. This luxury marble-floored flat is costing less than a single room in the Holiday Inn, Glasgow.

Well… this will certainly suit me. I drop my bags in the bedroom, open the French windows and step out onto the balcony. Whack!, my glasses steam up, argghhh, this terrible humidity! Below me, thousands of cars crawl through the streets, while all around, modern office blocks stretch high into the night sky. An amplified alien wailing cuts through the noise of the traffic, is someone torturing a robot? Oh, right, it’s six o’clock in the largest Muslim country in the world, that’ll be the call to prayer, then.

I set up the laptop, get some music going, and unpack. I’ve agreed to meet Zeina in Reception so that we can have dinner together.

“So… do we eat in the hotel?”

“Dunno, it looks a bit too expensive…”

“The woman at Reception said that there are restaurants in the mall next door.”

That sounds like a better bet, we’ll go there. And yet… it’s possible that the mall might be too expensive, too. As we explore the first few floors we see a large Hugo Boss place, Bvlgari jewellers, Louis Vuitton, Mont Blanc and any number of upmarket retailers where the goods in the window are never priced. Gosh, there must be some money in this town…

Luckily, the fourth and fifth floors of the mall are given over to reasonably-priced eating places. We have a real selection to choose from, too. Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Italian, Indian, Malaysian and Vietnamese restaurants ply their trade alongside the Indonesian specialists. Faced with this exotic array of taste sensations, what do our fearless travellers go for? They go for a burger. Well, we have work tomorrow, no sense in taking chances with unknown spicy food, time for that at the weekend.

We walk back to the hotel, agree a time to meet the following morning, and I return to my flat. It’s just gone nine, how’s the jetlag coming on? Well... fine, really. It feels like nine at night, I’m slightly tired but not ready to sleep, I’ll watch TV for a while. A leaflet by the remote control lists the 60 channels available, most of which mean little to me, but at least they have BBC World News. Casually flicking through the channels, I’m reassured that there are quite a few in English, including four film channels.

A couple of hours later I feel ready for bed. Setting two alarm clocks in case the jetlag comes on overnight, I slip between the sheets, my last thoughts being that I think I’m going to enjoy my time here.

I think I’m going to enjoy it a lot.