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Published: June 11th 2008
Dunkin Donuts!
They are everywhere here! Note -- photos will be added in the next few days!
All the stories are true: flying in to Indonesia, the smog is truly remarkable. It is a thick brown cloud covering the entire city. But I arrived with my 40kg of luggage with no problems. Except that I was 20kg over the limit and had to pay a huge fee to bring it all onboard. The woman at the check-in counter seemed quite embarrassed for me, as if I had just packed too many clothes and shoes. She told me I could take some out to leave behind instead of paying. I didn’t want to explain that 75% of the weight was various forms of scientific supplies, totaling a rather significant amount of money, and that there was no possibility of me leaving any of it behind. And besides, suggesting I could manage to take out half the weight of unnecessary items did seem a little optimistic.
I was collected at the airport with Jenni and driven back to the office. It’s good to finally be in a real Asian country with real traffic jams and squat toilets that don’t flush, let alone automatically. I got a crash
course in Indonesian culture and frustrations, withdrew 1.2 million rupiah ($120), and I’m good to go!
I spent the first night at my advisor’s house, a really beautiful house with a wide assortment of pets. The next day I headed out with Jenni up to Bogor, a town outside of Jakarta that is much higher in the mountains and therefore has much better air quality. We were meeting with an American who has been tremendously important in getting my project organized. Upon arrival, we had a shopping spree with a man who sells antique Javanese beads. Since I’m arriving as Jenni is leaving, I benefit from all her shopping savvy and am finding the really unique stuff!
We had our “meeting” at a local hot springs; getting there involved driving up into the hills on a crumbling track that lurched steeply upward then dipped steeply downward while slowly gaining elevation and bringing us through terraced rice paddies. Though rather hair-raising, it was certainly beautiful. Once we got there, we were quite surprised to find a real resort built into the hillside. It was really very understated and beautiful, and we were able to soak in the hot springs
and get full massages all for $15 each. My first real massage experience and it was really quite excellent.
Back in Jakarta, we hit the town for the going away party for one of the team members here. Jakarta has one amazing club scene - I’m told the biggest of all of southeast Asia and they routinely attract the biggest names on the DJ scene. We went to X2, a mega club if there ever was one. We went straight into thumping techno and I couldn’t stop grinning, something about that bass beat gets me every time. Unfortunately, my group spent the night up in the hip-hop room where there were less than illustrious DJ’s (using their MacBook Pro’s only and no tables…). All the same, it was extremely fun to people watch southeast Asia’s richest young folk bopping to American hip hop/R&B. Indonesians are hardly formal Muslim’s; maybe half of all women still wear the jilbob (no idea on the correct spelling…), and those who do wear ones adorned with embroidery and sequins. It was a first for me to see women wearing jilbob at a club! Ironically, it was a promotion night for Virgin-brand female condoms (check
out the photo of the female condom-shaped light covers). Later in the night we were treated to a performance by the very un-muslim promotion dancers; while they were quite decent by American or European club standards, these girls were not what I was expecting.
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anonymous
non-member comment
I am enjoying the blogs and I agree with your friend that you would make an excellent travel writer!! Love Granny