Only in Jakarta

Being in Singapore the last few days reminded me of an experience I had last week in Jakarta that I have begun referring to as one of my "only in Jakarta" experiences.

Jakarta is a humid city. So is Singapore, but this would never happen here. With humidity comes condensation of water molecules on cool objects. So, unless you have an air conditioning unit that dries and cools, you get moisture build up on the unit, and wet floors beneath them. When we first moved into our unit in Kemang, we had mostly older units and they dripped. The complex was nice enough to replace all the units we had trouble with.

The brand new unit in our bedroom, however, has continued to have problems. It doesn't cool very well, and it still drips. At 1 AM last Tuesday, it got even worse. When I arrived home Monday night, I put the unit on high to try and cool the bedroom after warming in the tropic heat for four days. I left it on all day at work, too. When I went to bed Tuesday night, I noticed it was dripping much more than usual, and much more frequently. Too tired to deal with it, and too late to call maintenance, I put a towel on the floor and went to bed.

I should have dealt with it. At 1 AM, my AC unit woke me with projectile ice cubes flying across the room and onto my head. They weren't large, but that isn't the ideal way to wake up. I shut off the AC and spent the rest of the night sleeping on the couch in a room with a functioning AC unit.

Thankfully, maintenance fixed it the next day and I got a good night's sleep on Wednesday. I never would have imagined an AC unit would build up enough ice internally to cause the fans to dispel it with enough power to fly across the room with enough force to wake me up. Only in Jakarta.