Historical coincidence

This picture heralded the resurrection of the blog; it was taken during a "historic" meal at a country club near Jakarta airport.

Many, may, many years ago - we're talking the 1980's here - when working in Britain, a terrific bunch of coaches used to band together every night after competitions for the purpose of culinary and nutritional research. When the bill was presented at the conclusion of the experiment, it always worked out at twenty-seven pounds fifty pence each. Always. Without fail. No matter what we'd eaten, no matter what we'd been drinking. It was uncanny.

The Jakarta meal bill was Rp394,735 which is S$57 which is twenty-seven pounds fifty pence. Uncanny. That was for three of us, eating like Kings, Emperors, Sultans and swimming coaches. I'll scan the bill and add it to the post when I'm near a scanner.

Jogjakarta

YoghurtCarton (see previous post) is nothing like Jakarta. This from Wikitravel:

Jakarta's nickname among expats is the Big Durian, and like its fruit namesake it's a shock at first sight (and smell): a sweltering, steaming, heaving mass of some 10 million people packed into a vast urban sprawl. The contrast between the obscene wealth of Indonesia's elite and the appalling poverty of the urban poor is incredible, with tinted-window BMWs turning left at the supermall with its Gucci shop, into muddy lanes full of begging street urchins and corrugated iron shacks. The city's traffic is in perpetual gridlock, and its polluted air is matched only by the smells of burning garbage and open sewers, and safety is a concern especially at night. There are few sights to speak of and most visitors transit through Jakarta as quickly as possible.

It's "twinned" with Manchester and Singapore!

Yogykarta or Jogdakarta,on the other hand, is delightful, quirky and the "ethnic" center of batik manufacture.

Oxymoronic airport security

Martini and I wanted to go to Jogjakarta to see her family, so onto the world-wide interweb to research train timetables. Web access was only from the hotel lobby, was intermittent and was a challenge as the site was in Indo and Martini had stayed up in the room. I keyed in what I thought was the correct spelling but eventually settled for calling the place YoghurtCarton! It turned out the only train I could find was the overnight one which would get us in at 4 a.m.; I wasn't keen as we'd been up until 6 a.m. the previous night anyway.

The following morning Martini tried and, guess what! No trains! A train crash was blocking the track.

What about flying? A telephone call to a travel agent resulted in a quote of 400,000 Rupiah (Rp) but accompanied by the caveat,

"That price is only available at the airport and I cannot guarantee there are any seats left."

We decided to take a chance and just go to the airport 'on spec'. I love 'third-world' chaos in airports - see the photo. After queueing, and being queue-jumped a couple of times, we were told there were no seats left; bummer! But, just as we were walking away from the little enquiry window a total stranger 'siddled' up (no other word for it; very subversive and B-film-ish) saying he could get us seats on the 2.30 flight for 1 million Rp each. It was now 2.15 so I said,

"We won't make it."

"Don't worry," was the reply, "we'll delay it."

He showed us his ID which Martini accepted as reasonable enough to trust so we gave him our ID and she accompanied him while I went to the ATM (or "8 a.m." as Martini understands my accent) to buy Rp2,000,000 (OK, I'll save you the trouble; its S$290). I won't tell you his name, even though I suspect he worked for Lion Air with that being their way of getting higher prices for last-minute tickets.

When he returned at 2.25 p.m. he had the two boarding passes; one for Tri Martini and one for Dani Herman, which was to be me. The real Mr. Herman must have been bumped because we paid more than he did.

My suitcase, labled Clive Rushton, was checked in as Tri Martini, then "Mr. Dani Herman" and his partner, Mrs. Tri Martini, went to security. Security scanned the boarding passes so they had a record that Mr. Herman had passed through their electronic gate. And an interesting electronic gate it was; every single passenger set off the beeper so everyone was subsequently frisked with the wand thing. It was now 2.40 p.m.

Martini is easily distracted by shiny things and bright ideas and she stopped to tell me a story about something or other until I reminded her that the flight was waiting for us.

"Oh, yes!" she gasped and off we went again to gate B2 where we were told there was a two and a half hour delay. "Don't worry, we'll delay it," now began to make sense.

Well, the thought of sitting on the floor at a departure gate for 150 minutes was no fun so we decided to go back out and look for restaurants, cafes or bars. There was an open gate next to security so we went out through that without anything being scanned - Mr. Herman and Mrs. Tri M were officially still inside the departure gate area.

No beer in the restaurant but there was beer in the little KwikiMart, so we took that into the restaurant which, apparently, is an OK thing to do.

When it was time to return we were re-scanned at security but no-one picked up the fact that we'd entered twice without "exiting". So, to recap; using my real ID, I bought a boarding pass under the name of a passenger who had already purchsed the ticket. Had Mr. Herman checked on any luggage I wonder? I then checked my luggage using Martini's boarding pass. Then I exited through security without any checking, then re-entered without being picked up. I could have met Ossama Bin-Liner or one of his "Stan" friends in the restaurant and he could have got on the plane using Mr. Herman's boarding pass. A full laden 737 out of Jakarta is just as lethal as a 737 out of Boston. "Airport security" is an oxymoron.

A little postscript; Martini and I were seated separately and she got talking to the girl next to her; she had paid Rp200,000 for her ticket!!!!! I never speak to my neighbours on planes.

There are 156 people called Dani Herman with Facebook accounts, one of which has this as his/her (its an androgynous name) profile picture.

HAIR

I want long, straight, curly, fuzzy, snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka dotted, twisted, beaded, braided
Powered, flowered and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled and spahettied,

Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow, my hair

HAIR, The Musical

Shaken not Stirred

Elliot asked me a question the other day which deserved a proper reply. The picture was at a sumptuous meal we had while waiting for my flight back to Singapore last Sunday. The two “girls” are Martini – serving the soup – and her best friend Tiara, who asked me to invite Elliot to Indonesia!. When I told him he said,

"Apart from the girls, why are you in Jakarta?"

Fair question.

Martini and I are an item! Sit down for this next bit. Are you sitting comfortably? She’s 30. In Asia women don’t have the ageist attitude prevalent in the “west,” or northern hemisphere, so the age difference is not an issue at all. She is divorced and has a seven year-old son (Xena) and a five year-old daughter (Tia), who live with Martini’s parents in Solo, near Jogyakarta, in the middle of Java, while Martini works in Jakarta at the north of Java.

So, apart from the girl (singular), there was no reason at all to be in Indonesia.

I met the whole family while I was there – father, mother, brother, sisters, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, son, daughter; so it was a major visit. The plan is for Martini to move out to Singapore sometime in the future and get work here but, your me being me, there’s a complication; Martini's religion is Islam which explicitly bans Muslim women from marrying non-Muslim men. (It’s OK for Muslim men to marry non-Muslim women, but go figure the logic of that). So, unless I change my name to Ossama Bin-liner or somesuch, Martini will have difficulty getting a work visa here as she will have to come in on a visitor’s visa and leave/re-enter every 30 days. The 30 days is not a problem as she will go back to the kids more often than that anyway (S$78 return flights!!!) but the visa status is a problem we have to solve.

She’s exuberant, vivacious, clever, kind, maternal, considerate, funny, rides a motor-bike, used to be a golf caddy, loves hiking and she likes me!!! She ticks all the boxes!

Phoenix rising from the flames

Yes, believe it; the blog is resurrected!

"And, about time," I hear you say.