Golf Jakarta style

On a hot day at the golf course it's always nice to have someone else to carry your clubs. The pro golfers on TV always have their own personal caddy, but I can't remember ever seeing any like these caddies at Cengkareng golf club in Jakarta.

Fire, water, burn

This morning we were limping along in peak hour traffic when I heard sirens approaching from behind our car. I expected to see a Police vehicle escorting a rich Indonesian in a BMW or Mercedes running late for an appointment, or an Ambulance making a futile attempt to get through traffic to treat an accident victim.

As it turned out, the sirens, and flashing lights, were on six bright red motorcycles, and on each of the bikes were two firefighters, wearing their full fire uniforms and helmets, but carrying no equipment (and certainly no water). Given that fire trucks generally make it to the scene of a fire at least an hour or so after receiving a call (because of the traffic), I'm assuming these guys are some kind of first response team who try to do what they can before the big red trucks arrive at the scene. High pressure fire hydrants and hoses are few and far between in Jakarta, so I tip my hat to the motorcycle-borne first response team, who presumably do what they can to rescue trapped people while keeping an eye out for nearby water sources that might slow the flames until the trucks arrive.

Cowhides and Colonialism

Yesterday we had brunch at the Cafe Batavia, which is a delightfully restored building that was built in the early 1800's and is located in the old Dutch quarter of Jakarta. The menu is extensive and reasonably priced, and the presentation of dishes is first class. All walls, including the rest rooms, are covered in framed photographs of celebrities, movie stars and historical figures.

As for the cowhide bar and matching waistcoats, I've got no idea what that's all about.

BB's Blues Club

We finally got around to checking out BB's Blues Club on the weekend, after hearing a lot about how good a venue it is. There's little to go by on the web in terms of information or reviews, so all I knew before I went there is that it's a three level building with a bar plus a couple of different rooms that have blues, rock and reggae bands, and various people had posted good reviews online.

As it turns out, BB's is a pretty cool venue, nice and intimate (read: small), albeit a fire trap given the narrow staircase and lack of emergency exits. Cover charge was a tiny Rp. 25,000, which included a free Bintang. On the night we turned up, there was a duo in the downstairs bar, which looked empty, and the first floor room was locked and presumably not in operation, so on the top floor was a 7 piece "classic rock" band, with two male vocalists who split the set list between them. The smoky room would probably hold no more than 50 people, and seats around half that number. On this night there were maybe 15-20 patrons. The PA sounded pretty good and wasn't too loud that you couldn't hold a conversation. A couple of the guys (drummer and lead guitarist in this case) were excellent musicians, and the rest of the band were capable. The singers struggled to find songs that suited them, and the quality of songs after the first 2 or 3 tunes dropped off quickly, which was disappointing.

I'd be keen to go to BB's again when a top-notch blues act is playing, as the venue would have great atmosphere with the right band on stage.

Another day, another dollar

It's not the best photo, but on the right of the photo is a roadside grocery stall located across the road from my office. Every day, two of the red pantech trucks like the one you can see in the photo arrive around 9.00am, and for the next 5 hours the stall owners and their family unload the trucks and arrange the stock neatly on the shelves in a very organised and colourful way. They also fill buckets with water from the open stormwater drain that runs behind the stall, and use the water to dampen the road surface immediately in front of the stall to suppress dust.

Eventually, around 2.00pm the store is ready for business, and the owners can take a little break until the the day shift employees from the surrounding factories finish work at around 3.00pm and fill the street with traffic as they head home. It seems to me that the store caters for people who want to buy a few groceries on the way home, plus passers-by who live in the area.

As roadside stores go, it's bigger than most, and has quite a lot of stock, which is unusual for this type of business, since it takes good cash flow to afford to buy stock to put on the shelves.

The store stays open until sunset, which is around 6.00pm all year round. Even though there is an electricity pole right next to the stall the owners haven't taken the initiative to splice a line from the power supply to light up their stall at night, unlike many of their peers, which is very unusual.

So, once trading ends sometime between 6.00pm and 7.00pm, all the stock has to be packed up into the trucks again, since the store has no way of being locked or secured after hours. I haven't stayed at the office to see how long it takes to pack everything up, but I'm guessing a good couple of hours. Essentially, there is around 7 hours of unpacking, setup and packing each day, for about 4 or maybe 5 hours of serving the public.

And they do this every day of the week.

Home delivery

We went to the mall and purchased a cot for the baby's room. The cot was imported and required assembly, so we were told that it would be delivered and assembled for us, which to our ears sounded like excellent customer service. We assumed that the cot would be delivered the next day, however at around 8.00pm the same night I took a call at home from the delivery guys, asking specific directions to our house, saying that they're on their way and would be there a little later. We thought that was a bit late to be delivering stuff to customers, but we figured it wouldn't take them long to assemble the cot once they arrived shortly.

At around 10.00pm we'd given up on them arriving that night, and by then we'd agreed it was too late to be disturbed so if they arrived we'd tell them to come back the next day. I was brushing my teeth at 10.30pm ready for bed when I heard a truck outside the house with its reversing alarm beeping. I peered out from the curtains and watched the delivery guys leave this expensive cot on our front doorstep, and drive off again. After they'd driven away I opened the door and brought the parcel inside the house, and figured I'd be assembling it myself the next day.

Of course, I was wrong once again, and the delivery guys duly turned up the next morning to assemble the cot. That didn't stop the store phoning twice later that day to let us know that the guys would be coming around that night to assemble the cot.

Smacking the little white ones

Today I discovered there is a golf driving range about 2 miles from our house, so a couple of other guys and I went for a hit this morning. The range is in the middle of a residential area, so they have lots of poles and nets set up, but it's still as good as any range back home. It's only 175 yards long, so no woods or long irons are allowed, but at $3 for 100 balls I'm not complaining. And, there is a bar, swimming pool and tennis courts in the same complex, so nice and handy actually. The golf coach is an Aussie too.

There are lots of good courses within 1 hour drive of Jakarta, and green fees ($20-40) include caddies, so I'm looking forward to having a hit semi-regularly.

***

It's Sunday night here and I'm busy replacing bodily fluids after 5 hours on the golf course (it was slow today, with an interclub competition happening on the course), so I thought I'd write about what it's like to play golf in Indonesia.

The courses are amazingly good, most are championship quality (grass grows like crazy here in the tropics, so they're easy to have looking real nice). I've played on some of the best courses in Australia, and the "average" Jakarta course I played today (owned by the Indonesian Navy) is a good as any of them. Off the members blue tees it's rated 72.8, so it's very tough.

Green fees today were $30, including a caddy. The course we played at today had male caddies, although there are a few courses in Jakarta who have female caddies. The male caddies are all very good golfers who can help your game, whereas the female caddies could tend to make you lose concentration.

My caddy was a 10 handicapper who knew the course like the back of his hand, and his club selection and putting tips were spot on for a hacker like me. I tipped him $10, which is a lot of money to a local, given that the official minimum wage is less than $80 per month.

The course was very tough, with water and sand on every hole, and some very narrow fairways that punished wayward shots off the tee. Of course, it was very hot, and my shirt and shorts were soaking wet after 3 holes. I drank 2 litres of water, 5 cans of "Pocari Sweat" (the local Gatorade) and 2 Cokes, and didn't take a piss all day.

Everywhere there is a water hazard, rough or out of bounds (you lose a lot of balls on this course), there is some guy sitting with a neatly wrapped package of 10 near new balls they will sell you for $2. So forget about buying new balls in the pro shop, since you can get 10 Titelists or Pinnacles for $2 out on the course. These guys wade through stinking leech infested chocolate brown lakes and water hazards to retrieve these balls, and that's a job I'm happy for them to do, and not me.

Today my Aussie buddy and I played with a Canuck and a Finn, as part of Sunday expat golf group called the T-Set. We just rock up at 10am on Sundays and can get a tee time without being members or booking a time. That's one of the best perks of being an expat here.

The Canuck had a set of Dunlop Loco covers on his woods, and he was telling us that last week he played at a course with female caddies, and all day the girls were pointing at his golf bag and giggling. Today he asked his male caddy if he could work out what the laughter was all about. Turns out that "loco" is a colloquial Javanese word that means "masturbate". He's now in the market for a new set of wood covers.

As we were about to hit off on the 16th tee, a security guard comes over and raises his hand to stop us, while around 30 guys (on 12 or 13 motor cycles) rode past on their way to a back gate. Turns out they were club employees (clubhouse, greens etc) on their way to afternoon prayers.

After the round, massages are available for $4-$10, and beers are $1.20. I probably lost 5lbs in perspiration on the course today, but at these prices golf is a great pastime here.

Movie time

Today (Sunday) we decided to go to the movies and had no idea what to expect. Surprisingly, the experience was almost identical to going to the movies back home, apart from the price. For $2.50 each we got to select a reserved seat in an air-conditioned 150 seat Dolby Surround cinema, to watch a new release movie (The Merchant of Venice, starring Al Pacino) in absolute comfort, with around 12 other people. Two Pepsis and popcorn cost another $2.50. I also noticed the snack bar had beer in the fridge next to the spring water and sodas. All in all, a very nice surprise. They have Gold Class cinemas here as well, so we will definitely be checking those out soon, especially at these prices.

I guess the prices have to be so low in order to entice people to venture out from their homes, given that you can buy pirated DVDs for $1. I bought the entire first 5 seasons (20 DVDs) of The Sopranos for $15, and the quality is the real deal. I suppose I should feel guilty about that.

Electricity

The power to the entire city went down from 10.30am until 4.00pm. Can you imagine what kind of havoc that causes in a city of 15 million people? Most factories and large offices have backup diesel generators, but without traffic lights the gridlock is doubly worse. We managed to keep half the factory running on the generator.

***

We had a candlelight dinner last night because there was no power for 2 hours. Given that it was just our town house compound and the adjoining kampung (village) that was blacked out, I'm guessing someone in the kampung tried to splice a line off the mains again and blew out an insulator. Happens every few weeks or so.

Lucky for us our range and oven is gas, so we could still eat dinner.

Independence Day

Australians are pretty laid back about national holidays. Australia Day is pretty tame, probably because we didn't have to fight anybody to be an independent nation. On the other hand, I know that Independence Day is a big occasion in the US, because you guys had to kick out the Brits in order to become a nation.

Tomorrow is Indonesian Independence Day, and I must say it's a huge deal here. Indonesia was ruled by the Dutch for 500 years, so when they finally kicked them out it was a significant event. Actually, in some respects the Indonesians have to thank Japan, since Indonesia was occupied by Japan during WW2, and after Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945, the Indonesians basically refused to let the Dutch back in. Of course, that's my simplistic version, when in reality there was long drawn out fighting between nationalist Indonesian forces and the Dutch for several years.

Anyway, it's such a big deal here that even the poorest families buy Indonesian flags at this time of the year to hang in front of their houses. The streets are full of red and white flags, banners and colored lights, and cars, buses, trucks and motor cycles also have flags attached. The flags started appearing two weeks ago, and it's quite a spectacular sight given that tomorrow is the day. A lot of small roadside vendors have made extra money this month by adding flags to their normal inventory of snack food, drinks, motor cycle parts, fruit, bumper stickers or potted plants.

Religion

I know most people realise that Indonesia is the world's most populous Islamic nation, but I'm not sure how many readers know what goes on with that religion. Actually, about 90% of the population follow Islam, with the remaining 10% being Christians, Buddhists and Hindus. I'm no expert on religion by any stretch, but here's what I know so far about Muslims in Indonesia.

In general, Indonesians don't practice the extreme forms of Islam, although there are large populations of more conservative fundamental Muslims in Aceh (north Sumatra, where the devastating tsumani was last year), Sulawesi and Solo City (down the other end of Java from Jakarta).

Therefore, it's rare to see women wearing the full black robe and headscarf here in Jakarta. Most Jakartan women dress in western style, although around 30% of them wear a fashionable headscarf with their skin tight jeans, high heels and blouse/tshirt top. That said, you don't see many short skirts, except for waitresses and girls looking for action, paid or otherwise in bars.

Muslims pray at least 5 times a day, and there are mosques and prayer rooms (mushollah) on every block in the city. Our factory has mushollah on site to facilitate the daily prayers. Only males are allowed to enter mosques, and on Fridays there is a one hour prayer session at lunch time in addition to the regular prayer times throughout the day. The Friday session is an important one for the guys, and they get changed out of their work clothes and into their "Sunday best". First prayer each day is at 4.30am, with the last prayer time being around 9.00pm. The times change from day to day based on the movement of the sun.

Pork products can't be eaten because pigs are regarded as unclean. You rarely see a dog here, and not because they're a delicacy like in Korea, but because dogs are considered unclean because they lick their asses. However, for some unexplained reason, cats are very popular here, even though they lick their asses. I don't know the reason for that.

The Muslim equivalent of Christmas festivities is Lebaran/Ramadan, which is held in October/November, and changes every year according to the lunar calendar. For an entire month, Muslims are not allowed to eat, drink or have sex during daylight hours, as a sacrifice and commitment to their faith. Every day after sunset, they woof down as much food and water as they can stuff into themselves, and presumably fornicate like rabbits until just before dawn, when they have a huge breakfast to get them through the day. At the end of the month of fasting they have a big feast with their family, a bit like what we know as Christmas.

The government legislates that all employers must pay their staff one month's salary as a bonus before the feast, to allow people to travel back to their home village and buy shitloads of food and gifts. During the Ramadan fast, alcohol cannot be on display, so the bars cover their windows and sell beer in coffee mugs. Last year some bars were raided by some zealots and gave the bar owners a hard time for selling booze. I'm told that the working girls still perform as normal during the fast, but they'll wake you up at 4.00am to order room service.

Because everyone is starving and running on zero sleep during the fast, productivity is very low. Our factory closes for 2 out of the 4 weeks of the fast, because little work gets done. We’ll be heading to Bali during that break for some R&R, since the Balinese are Hindu, so things are not affected by the Muslim fast.

When you've gotta go

Those of you who have travelled in Asia and visited toilets in any place other than good hotels will relate to this. This is the 8th week I've been working here, and during that entire time I've managed to avoid taking a dump at the office. I unload before I leave home and hope I don't eat something dodgy during the day. Indonesians have really good personal hygeine and grooming, but their plumbing systems and quality of their bathrooms stink. Literally.

The other drawback about using an unfamiliar bathroom here is that toilet paper is not always available. Many toilets are "squat" style - hang your trousers up on the hook on the wall, and put your feet in the "footprints" on either side of the hole in the ground, then let rip. If you're lucky there will be a tap with a hose attached to it that you can use as a bidet, wiping with your left hand (which is why you don't eat or hand anything to a Muslim with your left hand), or maybe there will be a tub of water that you can use to "clean up". So, always carry a few squares of toilet paper just in case.

Rock and roll

This afternoon we found a Tex-Mex bar about 2 miles from here called "Amigos". They have live bands 7 nights a week, and a Peavey house PA. All of the bands are locals, including one C&W band, and an Elvis impersonator on Sunday nights. My mission is to put together an expat band and get a residency at this place, since it's close to home, has a good atmosphere, and a house PA. With so many expats living in this part of town, I'm thinking blues or southern rock will be the format that will work for this venue. Wish me luck!

***

We jammed for two hours tonight at a rehearsal room cum recording studio. Nice rooms, as good as any rehearsal rooms I've played at downunder, and is only 2 or 3 miles from our house. There is a house drum kit (Pearl), no-name bass rig and a Marshall half stack. I took my rig last night, but will use the house rig next time to save lugging mine. Room rental is only $6/hour.

Everything was miked up when we got there, and the owner came and stuck a mic in front of my cab after I set up. At first I thought he was doing that for the room PA, which would have been overkill, but after we had finished and were packing up I found out what he had been up to. He'd recorded the entire session on hard disk, and he'd done a pretty good job, judging by the couple of songs he played back for us. Presumably he uses rehearsing bands as guinea pigs for him to practice his recording skills. He told us if we want to record a CD some time, the price is just $8 per hour, so we'll take him up on that offer when we're ready to record a demo CD.

Our driver is a great guy and is always keen to carry stuff for us, such as shopping bags etc, but he couldn't get my 4 unit rack case off the ground. Based on what I've seen when the removalist brought our furniture to the house and when we've had furniture stores deliver things, a bass rig would be a 4 man carry for Indonesians.

Is it safe?

There are 10 houses in our compound, and we each kick in $60 a month to employ security guards 24/7. Of course, they're unarmed and built like jockeys, so I'm not sure how effective they'd be in a clutch situation.

***

Today I was sitting in traffic at 7.00am on the way to the office, and when I glanced out the window the rider of the stationary motor bike immediately next to my window had a .38 revolver in an open holster on his belt. After checking the guy out for a few seconds I realised he was a cop on his way to work, because despite his 70's style tan patchwork leather jacket and 125cc Honda underneath he was wearing the smart and stylish uniform of the Jakarta police force. These guys are always turned out very sharply and definitely look the part.

What concerned me was that this guy's holster had no safety strap, so if he rode over a pothole his revolver could soon be bouncing along the road. But the really scary part is that any badass on a motor bike stuck in traffic sitting immediately behind the cop could just reach forward and grab the weapon. Hell, I could have lowered my window and grabbed it myself, since it was less than 12 inches from my left shoulder.

Slavery in the 21st century

I thought it might be interesting to talk a little about the cost of living and salaries for the locals, using our household staff as examples.

Minimum wage here is around US$70 per month.

We have a maid, who works a 40 hour week and doesn't live in, who we pay $120 a month. She gets an extra month's salary in December as a bonus, plus we pay medical expenses for her family up to $120 per annum. She gets two weeks vacation every year. Since we don't have kids (yet), the maid's job is pretty easy, and she spends most afternoons watching TV.

Our gardener/pool guy works 3 days a week, because we share him with the next door neighbour. He makes $50 a month for working a 3 day week, with the same medical, bonus and vacation entitlements as the maid.

Our drivers have base salaries of $120 per month for a 5.5 day week, but because they work a lot of overtime, they end up making probably double that each month, since overtime is $1 an hour, and they also get an extra meal allowance (80 cents) if they work more than 2 hours overtime. If they work before 5am or after 9pm they get an extra $1 for bus fares or gas for their motor cycle. Driving is a plumb job, since when they're not driving they just hang out with other drivers in parking lots, watch TV or sleep. If I'm in the office all day my driver hangs around at the factory sleeping and playing cards with the other drivers from 8am until 5pm when I'm ready to go home.

To put things in perspective, one of our drivers is the husband of our maid, so between them they make around $300-$360 a month. They've got 5 kids to support, aged from 3 months to 23 years old, so obviously food and housing doesn't cost much here.

***

Finding a good driver here is a real hassle. We have a great driver who is basically my partner’s driver during the day, and I've been trying to hire a driver to drive me to and from the office, to band rehearsals and (eventually) gigs. Keep in mind that drivers make twice what a factory worker makes, for doing very little. Most of the day they sleep and play cards with the other drivers while they're waiting to take you to your next destination. So, on most days this means my driver would be on the clock from 6.30am to 7.00pm and would only be actually driving for 2.5 hours.

Anyway, the first guy I tried was unfriendly and a crazy driver, presumably because he was an ex-cab driver. Yesterday I tried another guy, who is a little older (56), and drove for the Australian embassy, so I figured he might be a bit more stable. It turns out he's a nervous, leadfooted driver who can't see shit at night. I don't know how long it's been since he's driven a stick shift, but he keeps forgetting to hit the clutch when he pulls up at toll booths.

I'm not sure how long I'll put up with this guy.

***

I just fired my driver. After a week his driving hasn't improved. Twice on the way home from the office yesterday he decided to use the parking brake as his method of stopping in an emergency, and he's stalled the engine 6 times this week when stopping at toll booths.

***

Our maid has broken two things this week - nothing valuable, just a little ceramic ornament and a potted plant pot. No big deal, even though she didn't mention the breakage to either of us. You know how we found out? Both items were sitting where they are supposed to be, but are now held together with clear sticky tape (Scotch/Durex tape, depending on what part of the world you're in). Did she really think we wouldn't notice?

I've heard stories from other expats who have asked their staff about broken items, and told an evil spirit was responsible for the damage.

Extreme sports

We decided we didn't want to die in an auto accident, so we fired one of our drivers today. Generally, Jakarta drivers are assertive but courteous, but this guy was an adrenaline junkie, for sure. Road rage is very rare here, but he managed to make an enemy every 50 yards. I think the horn button is wired in parallel with the gas pedal.

I'm into my 4th week, and I spend at least two hours in traffic every day in a city of 15 million people, but today I saw my first accident, albeit a minor one. A couple of kids dumped their motor scooter in the wet on a bend in the city. Lucky for them it was 6.30am and they were riding in the opposite direction to most of the traffic flow, so all they got was a little road rash.

Given how people drive and ride here, I'm amazed it's taken more than 3 weeks for me to see an accident.

ADRENALINE

Our driver had a day off today, so I decided I needed an adrenaline rush, by driving to the supermarket. First time I've driven in Jakarta. No casualties, but a couple of near misses. Lanes? What lanes?

ROAD SAFETY

There are so many things that happen here to give you a daily chuckle.

For example, this month the Police are cracking down on motorcycle riders and passengers who don't wear helmets. So, this week, everybody you see on a bike is wearing a helmet (of some type - ranging from full face top dollar racing helmets - cycling hats - and what look like little league batting helmets), but the cops don't look twice at the overloaded minibuses with 10 schoolboys riding the running board or sitting on the roof.

I also like the helmet/sandals safety equipment combo. I wonder how many long time motor cyclists are missing toes.

At the office

Our company canteen is brand new and has hygiene and cleanliness standards as good as anything back home. That's all good, but the food itself is a daily adventure. The only food that doesn't burn your tongue out is the fruit. I love me some hot and spicy grub, but eating it 3 times a day is going to take a little getting used to.

You see bules (white people) in a lot of places you go to in Jakarta, such as hotels, supermarkets, shopping malls etc, but there are also lots of places where we're pretty thin on the ground. Like our factory, for instance. We employ 3300 people here, and there are only two bules - me, and another guy from Adelaide who runs the supply chain side of the business. We tend to be fairly conspicuous around the site, since we're both tall (by Indonesian standards) and have shaved heads. Of course, the locals all think we look alike because of that. He’s overseas on business this week, so I'm the only bule on site, a situation which some people might feel uncomfortable about if it were them. For example, today I walked down to the canteen, which seats 400 at a time (our day shift has 1200 people), and I'm the only westerner there. I can speak maybe 100 words of bahasa Indonesia, so it's not like I can talk about the baseball scores or current events with the people at my table. The people in general are really friendly and genuinely nice, but the Muslim women (75% of our workforce) are very shy around westerners, which means that most of the day all I hear are giggles behind my back. It's a real eye opener from a cultural point of view here, but it's also very interesting and enriching provided you approach every day with an open mind.

Before I started here, an auditor from our US head office came to Jakarta and he arrived with a bodyguard. That incident still gets a lot of laughs from the staff here. 99.9% of the people here (and, remember, there are 220 million of them) are welcoming of westerners and are peaceful friendly people. Unfortunately the media doesn't show that side of Indonesia.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY

I just had 40 people lined up at my office door waiting to shake my hand, armed with a chocolate cake. It was difficult to keep a straight face listening to a rendition of "Happy Birthday" from a bunch of people whose first language is not English. They did a great job!

Important things (beer)

Looks like San Miguel will be the beer of choice here. Bintang and Anker, the local stuff, cost around US$0.70 per can. Tiger, which is an excellent Singapore beer, is around twice that. VB and Fosters, the only Aussie beers that are available here (and both are crap) cost around $2.20. Corona is around $1.70. San Miguel is $0.85, and is a decent brew. The clincher for San Miguel is that is comes in bottles, whereas the local stuff is mainly in cans.

Home sweet home

We finally have electricity, so tonight is our first night in the new house. Well, we had electricity apart from one hour early in the evening when a street light across the road shorted out and caught fire. But the local utility guys fixed that pretty fast, which was pretty amazing given how long most things take to get done here. That gave us a chance to walk outside in the dark with flashlights and meet the neighbours. Our row of 6 townhouses has 3 Aussie families including us, 1 Swiss, 1 German and 1 Dutch.

I'm learning that quality control sucks here. Here's my track record for items we purchased this week -

Pedestal fan purchased for our staff quarters. Factory sealed carton, purchased from department store. Opened carton to assemble fan - plastic fan blade was missing a big chunk (still works ok)

Water cooler. Factory sealed carton. Delivered with rear panel cracked. Took a whole day to arrange refund and source replacement

DIY bookcase for staff quarters. Instruction sheet indicated screws were included in (factory sealed) carton. Nope.

Getting things done

The saga of my cable TV and internet installation is a good example of how things work in Indonesia -

We moved into our house 2 weeks ago, and the cable TV was up and running that day. Fortunately the cable guys (5 of them) were there that day with the landlord, so we were able to show them where we wanted the cable outlets (one in the living room, one in the main bedroom).

The next day we realised that the basic cable package doesn't include movie channels such as HBO or Cinemax, so I submitted a request for the extra channels, which would require a decoder to be supplied. I also requested an additional cable outlet for the maid's quarters, so she can watch some better TV than the local crap.

That day I also discovered that cable internet is through a different company, so I made an application to have cable internet activated. The cable internet company doesn't provide cable modems, so I had to contact another company to order a modem.

The modem turned up last Thursday. The cable guys came yesterday and installed a cable jack in the study, but now I need to fill out another form to get the service activated. And even though the guys were in the house installing an outlet for cable internet, they couldn't install the extra outlet for the maid's quarters, because that wasn't on their job sheet. The same guys are coming back on Thursday to do that.

Then, when I phoned the cable company to ask about HBO and Cinemax, they said there is a shortage of decoder boxes, and they don't know when one will be supplied.

First Impressions

Well, we've been here for a week now, and apart from feeling a little stir crazy from living in a hotel room we're happy and comfortable with Jakarta so far.

Jakarta is a densely populated, smoggy place that is littered with rubbish and various unpleasant odours, but it's also a modern city with decent facilities, great food, plenty of entertainment venues and very friendly people. In a city of 15 million people, there are only a handful who are building explosive devices in their living rooms, so hanging out around the city is pretty safe. Security is everywhere, which is reassuring, particularly as they're not gun-toting military types.

The language is easy to learn, and the lessons we had before arriving here have really helped us pick the lingo up quite quickly. We've now got a vocabulary that is sufficient enough to make our way around town, seek directions, deal with shop owners, order food and drinks etc.

The traffic is crazy, but after a few days you learn to just window gaze, read a book or snooze and let the driver do his job. I've only seen one auto accident so far, and it was only a minor one, but given the manic nature of the traffic I was expecting to see pileups and motor cyclist road kill every day. The drivers are actually quite courteous and patient, with road rage something I've yet to see.

Jakarta is a city of great contrasts between the rich and poor, with the well-off living in mansions that would rival celebrity homes in western countries. The town house we're moving to in a couple of weeks is "small" for an expat home, but it's still bigger than our home back in Australia. The upside to that is there is plenty of room for visiting friends and family to stay in comfort if they're brave enough to visit us.

Yesterday we interviewed for our "staff", which is something most people in western countries would probably not comprehend. Part of the deal as an expat is to provide employment for locals as maids, gardeners and drivers. Monthly salary for household staff is around US$100, which sounds like exploitation, but a salary like that is double what an average worker could make in a factory or shop, and therefore household staff jobs are keenly sought by locals. For the two of us, we will end up having two drivers, a maid and a gardener/pool guy. It sounds crazy, but that's the norm here.