Easter in old Batavia 2010

Pinisi schooners lined up at the wharf in Sunda Kelapa. The crews come from all over Indonesia so it’s an interesting place for people watching.

It’s great being back in Asia! We’re really enjoying Jakarta even though the air is polluted, it’s completely overcrowded and the traffic situation is tragic. Nonetheless the city is vibrant with great restaurants, great shopping and great people! As long as you don’t want to get anything done quickly or go anywhere very fast you’ll enjoy living here.

Our new car – no bumps or scratches yet.

We’ve finally got our car, a shiny new Toyota Innova. It’s quite large with a third row of seats in the back but we’ll take them out so there will be plenty of room for bikes, surf boards, golf clubs and any other toys we might need to transport! Actually it’s a Kijang in disguise! Kijangs are Indonesia’s own brand of car and previously were not known for their power, styling or comfort but since they have gone into partnership with Toyota their cars have improved tremendously. So far we are happy with it and, once we got the courage to tackle the Jakarta traffic, have enjoyed running around town.

Neil was thinking about stowing away on a Pinisi schooner – until he saw the size of the rats on board.

Happy Easter by the way! It was a long weekend here to – Good Friday is a national holiday! In fact Indonesia is quite a secular (despite the way it is often portrayed by the western press), since we’ve been here we’ve celebrated Chinese New Year, Nyepi (a Hindu festival) and Easter – not bad for a Muslim country! We spent the weekend in the city and on Easter day we went up to Sunda Kelapa – the harbour in the old Dutch quarter of the city. This is where the Pinisi schooners dock and there were about fifty lined up along the wharf. These old style wooden cargo ships are still built in the islands (particularly Makassar) and still carry rice to Sulawesi and cement to Java and whatever else, it’s great that there remains such a huge fleet actively working.

Like most Asians Indonesians just love to find a bule (foreigner) to have their photo taken with.

We planned to go to the Maritme Museum but got caught in a downpour and ended up sheltering for an hour by an empty shed which smelt like a dunnie! Happy Easter to us! We stopped in the old town at the Cafe Batavia which is a must if your like colonial architecture and ambience. In the square outside there were fire-eaters and acrobats, I’ve never seen such a dirty, scrawny, unprofessional bunch of street entertainers! The fire-eaters were taking great swigs of kerosene then spraying it out of their mouths and lighting it with a torch. Another part of the show involved cracking huge bull whips which the Fagin-like character who seemed to be the head of the tribe did with gusto. It was cruel and mediaeval and quite sureal!

The entertainment in Fatahillah Square was bizarre; the young kids were performing their tricks with a gritty, fatalistic bravado

Currently we are finalising the details of the lease on our new apartment in Kabayoran Baru. We are leasing it unfurnished which then lead us into the wonderful world of furniture rental, an area of business I never knew existed before but anything’s possible in Jakarta! We visited a few showrooms and have finally managed to acquire almost all we need – shame they don’t have curbside refuse collections here like they do in Perth! Anyway we will be moving in the middle of May – four months after we arrived here but I think it’s been worth the wait. With a bit of luck our other gubbins from Perth should have arrived by then so we will finally be settled somewhere.  

Cheers!

Suzy and Neil