Jakarta, Part One

I arrived safely in Jakarta on Monday.  The city is massive, confusing, loud.  I openly admit I wasn’t looking forward to leaving Bali.  But I knew I would have to in order to conduct my research with the Corporate Sector – almost all of it is located in Jakarta.  So here I am.

 



In this example, "across the street" is actually across a canal as well

And so far so good.  Many people (almost everyone in fact) in Bali would give me the “too bad” look when I told them I was shortly to be leaving for Jakarta.  I had allowed that to cloud my judgment to an extent.  I was also intimidated because I was told it would not be a good idea to have a motorcycle here – it’s that much crazier than Denpasar (and WAY crazier than Solo) so it just wouldn’t be safe.  It’s hard to put into words the sense of freedom one loses when no longer having reliable access to transportation.  Yes Jakarta has public transit, but honestly, who knows where I would end up with my limited Bahasa and general ignorance of this giant metropolis?  I also distinctly remember, from my previous journey to Jakarta – (for finger-printing, via an 8-hour train ride from Solo in April 2009, under the cloud of the worst illness I have ever experienced, most likely from food poisoning) – witnessing hundreds of people riding on the elevated train.  Notice I said “ON” the train, not “IN” the train.  Yes there were hundreds of people, 20 metres above the street, riding on top of the train.  So with that I bid a fair No Thank You to the Trans-Jakarta public transit system!

 

My official plan is to get comfortable with the general vicinity in which I live and work (I still do not have permanent accommodation – that’s the plan for this afternoon) and gradually find a few places that I enjoy and can get to without too much hassle.  The plan has gone to pot so far, as yes, I got lost on my way home from work yesterday.  The streets all look the same, they are poorly signed (if at all) and nothing makes sense to me.  I found myself asking random strangers how to find my home (luckily I remembered what it’s called and also the name of the street it’s on – or I would still be wandering the streets – “Hey why is that sweaty Bule crying?”).  Remember from posts in my previous blog here: www.solodiaries.blogspot.com, the rule in Indonesia is that you must ask as many people as possible for directions because for them to say “I don’t know” is culturally unacceptable; as a result they will completely lie to your face.  It’s not a bad thing; it’s just is the way it is.  Only once you have several people telling you generally the same thing can you have even an ounce of trust in the information.  I did eventually find my way home, soaked to the bone with sweat of course – the humidity makes it feel close to 40 degrees Celsius all the time.

 

Is this a construction site destroyed by recent flooding?

Jakarta itself is home to about 11 million people, but with its larger suburban area included, it actually becomes the 2^nd largest urban population in the world (after Tokyo, Japan).  In typical Indonesian fashion, which eschews simple ‘first letter’ acronyms for elaborate created words, this larger urban area is called “Jabodetabek” – which is created using the names of the regions surrounding the city:  Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, & Bekasi.  The urban area spreads far beyond these regions and the population of Jabodetabek is estimated to be approaching 30 million people!

 

The city is extremely spread out – the central business district (or “CBD”) where I will spend most of my time, is massive; and Jakarta is not pedestrian-friendly by any stretch.  Every building is completely separate from the street on which it’s situated.  It’s actually difficult to describe, but I’ll try:  If I was at building A on Java Street and wanted to go to building B on the other side of Java Street, I would have wait at the main entrance of the building, use the building concierge or security detail to hail a taxi, navigate a series of traffic medians, one-way streets, strange traffic lights, and intense heat, and then go through an intense security screening just to get to the main entrance of the building across the ‘street.’  I’ve heard that due to Jakarta’s famous gridlock, this simple journey of a few hundred metres can often take an hour or longer.  Honestly I don’t know who dreamed up the CBD in Jakarta, but it seems it was almost intentionally designed to be difficult, or to keep the people ‘out’ if that makes any sense.

 

Jakarta is also a city with a tumultuous history.  The threat of terrorism and violence is everywhere, so every building has an elaborate security system in place – all vehicles are subject to having their trunk inspected by one security guard, while another uses a mirror to look underneath before they even get near to the entrance of the building.  Then one must pass through a metal detector and give government-issued, non-expired ID to the people at the desk in order to be granted access to the building (luckily my Ontario Driver’s Licence was acceptable as I don’t carry my passport around with me at all times).  All this in an effort to prevent a bombing.  Indeed when I was in Indonesia in 2009, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here in Jakarta was bombed by a group of hard-line Islamic terrorists.  Luckily, no one was killed, and that was also the last bombing in Jakarta, to my knowledge.  I don’t feel (much) danger today, as the government has cracked down relentlessly on domestic terror groups (a raid recently occurred in my old Solo stomping grounds) and Indonesia seems to have achieved an uneasy peace with itself.

 

And on that note, I will break here, and continue my Jakarta adventure in the next post….