Jakarta Friday and Saturday

Friday is Jakartan Independence Day, and no one is in the office. We decide to work out of the hotel, as there is no benefit to head in to the office. We have a meeting with the directorate and CIO in the morning - another update on what we've accomplished and the plan for moving forward. After the meeting we worked until about 2PM - just over a half day - wrapping up the week's activities and planning out the rest of the trip based on the feedback in our meeting.

For lunch, we went to an Indian restaurant - the first one I've ever been to. Our Indian travel partner is vegetarian. We've had some interesting gastronomical challenges trying to find restaurants that served vegetarian meals and/or meals without chicken or seafood. Lowest common denominator is vegetarian, so we look for that. One day, we didn't have enough time to go out for lunch, so we went to the Wendy's in our office building. The vegetarian in the group ordered a "Cheeseburger" - I ordered a salad and chilli. We were surprised when he sat down with the cheeseburger. He, apparently, was more surprised that a "cheese"-burger came with a meat patty. He thought it would be a grilled cheese sandwhich. We had a good laugh about that one.

The Indian restaurant was very good. I put myself into the hands of our vegetarian, and had lentils and chick peas. It was extremely good. So much so that I'll probably eat more Indian food. The lamb curry they served on the club level at the hotel was okay, but wasn't anything that made me curious to try more. The food at this restaurant, however, made me want more. However, I couldn't get the smell off my hands, and I tasted the food the rest of the night - I don't think my body was accustomed to Indian food. I finally crashed about 10 PM - forgoing dinner - and woke at 9 Am the next morning. It was a long week.

Saturday, while the same crew from last week went golfing - at a much better course (they had both golf carts AND caddies - they rode on the back with the clubs) - the rest of us had convinced one of our local colleagues to show us around Jakarta. The plan was to go to an area of town that sold antiques, visit the new, upscale shopping mall, and then tour old town Jakarta.

When we arrived at the "antiques", I initially thought we were going to see something no different than the shops you see in Mexico that really just sell junk to tourists. I was very mistaken. There was a lot of the tourist junk - wood carvings by local craftsman that you can find in a mall - but there was some major finds, too. They had 9 foot porcelein vases. They had artifacts from ships that have sunk in the waters around Jakarta - diving helmets from the US Navy, navigational compasses, manual calculators that look like typewriters. If I had $1000 to spend, I probably would have purchased a lot of what I saw just to sell it on eBay.

One of my colleagues had mentioned that a few years back a road merchant tried to get him to buy some coins. He was tempted to buy an 1810 US dime, simply because of its age, but didn't. When he returned to the states, he looked it up online and discovered that it was worth several hundred dollars. With that in mind, when I came across some coins, I was intrigued. I ended up buying two 1840 US Silver Dollars, and 1870 US Silver dollar, and several Spanish coins from as early as 1704 and as late as 1776. I paid roughly $8 each. I looked up the value of the 1840 US Silver dollars when I returned to the hotel and discovered they are worth up to $500 each! I can't find a value for the Spanish coins, but I imagine they are worth far more than the $8 I paid for them.

In addition to the coins, our colleague was able to locate some Kopi Luwak coffee. I'm not a coffee drinker. I've never had a full glass of it in my life - I can't stand the taste. But a good friend of mine owns a coffee shop. Ever since I've known him, he has been interested in trying Kopi Luwak coffee, as it is considered the best tasting coffee in the world. With a wholesale price of $250-$600/lb, however, he didn't want to try it that badly. For those of you who have never heard of Kopi Luwak read this, it's basically monkey poop coffee (now I'm sure you'll read about it). It's made in Indonesia, and I got it for $8/lb. If it turns out to be as tasty as its reputation, I may begin importing coffee on a small scale.

The mall was not much different from an American mall, other than the employees outnumbered the patrons nearly 2:1 in the department stores. A far cry from roaming the store looking for someone to help. I bought two Indonesian dolls for my daughter, but couldn't find anything authentically "Indonesian" for my wife or anyone else. I did find Ralph Loren polo shirts for $18, but don't need any clothes, so - unlike my wife who would have bought them because they were cheap - I didn't buy anything.

We then took a tour of the city. We toured the Jakartan equivalent of Manhattan, Wall Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue. The Indonesian Capital, Supreme Court, and other ministry buildings were interesting. The national monument is similar to the Washington Monument, only there is a 24k gold flame at the top. I was finally able to take some pictures, but I have been disappointed in how many pictures I've taken. I thought there would be plenty of pictures worth taking, but, quite frankly, Jakarta is so much like any other big city, I didn't encounter anything that I would say was picture-worthy. There is much beauty, and much uniqueness here, but it's just like Chicago, New York and other large metropoli.

The only time I've ever felt unsafe on my entire trip out here was in old town Jakarta. As its name suggests, it is much older, and much more run down than the other areas of Jakarta. It is also the busiest part of the city. Their is a major trade center in the heart of old town where they sell everything - including cheap electronics that you need to replace after 3 months. The traffic was immense. We were literally side mirror to side mirror, 20-25 cars wide. City buses would come to a complete stop in the middle of the road to unload and load passengers. We were moving about 10 feet per minute. I kept thinking someone would see the only white face in the crowd and come up and mug us. Thankfully, it was bright daylight, and I later saw a heavy police presence - and nothing happened.

The last stop on our trip was again cheap DVD's and CD's, where I bought 10 Disney cartoons for $7. When we returned to the hotel, we all grabbed some dinner, and returned to the club level for some dessert, drinks, and pool. We met colleague from the environmental group from the NOLA office. While sitting at a table having drinks, he casually asked if we were up for some billiards. We go back to the table, where he proceeds to play without ever allowing us a shot. He breaks, runs the table, and shakes our hand. "Anyone for billiards?", I guess was code for "do you want me to kick your butt in pool?"

It's now Sunday morning, and we have four days left in our trip. I've really enjoyed both the work we've done, as well as what I've experienced - but we're all ready to get home to our families. I would definitely be up for doing this again. Hopefully next time, I'll get to see the mine site. Everyone has said they prefer the mine site, but their wives prefer Jakarta for the shopping. I need to make one final trip to the shopping to buy gifts for the rest of my list, and then my shopping days are over for this trip. When I get back to the States, I'll post my coins on eBay and see if I need to send one of my colleagues back to buy a lot more and send them to me (people don't buy things on eBay from an Indonesian address or he would sell them himself).