Jakarta Urban Wilderness

The attention we received as westerners in Jakarta set the tone for all the experiences that followed. I could say that going to the clubs, and going to good restaurants with my employers were the highlights, but all these events were transformed into ridiculous amusement as we were treated like minor celebrities.

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

This place was amazing, luxury hotels are much more reasonably priced in Jakarta. The service was great, the rooms were terrific, clean and spacious, everything was new. There were several good places to eat inside, especially the Indian restaurant on the twelfth floor. Along with dinner came a live performance and a great view of an incredible city developing rapidly beyond control.

I had only been in Jakarta for a few hours when I realized that being a westerner had a certain appeal to the people there. I hadn't thought that my colleagues and I would be so conspicuous, that little kids would clamour after us repeating "hello mister! hello mister!" and that the locals would react with such displays of curiosity and reverance. Flattering as it may seem, there was something pretty disturbing about it. It wasn't until later that evening that I realized how absurd this would get. We had asked about which clubs to go to earlier in the day, and the only answer we ever got was Tan Amour. When our work was over and we had eaten and washed up, we got in a cab, and arrived in about twenty minutes. We paid the cover, got our hands stamped, and proceeded into the darkness surrounded by a driving beat, and scores of people crammed into the club. Once we got some drinks and found a vantage point to survey the scene, we realized we had many people noticing us. Everyone seemed interested, and I thought that this is what fame must feel like-just for a moment. Within minutes we were surrounded by many young Indonesian women. At first I figured they must be prostitiutes and that they thought we had lots of money to spend. Two girls came up to 'claim' two of us, grabbing our elbows and leading us away from the rest. I was pretty apprehensive, and although she was very interesting and beautiful, it took awhile for me to be convinced that she wasn't a prostitute although there were undoubtedly many there. It seemed that we were status symbols primarily, I think that western media had convinced her that the West is paradise, that we are all rich and glamourous and that our world is nothing but wonderful. I did feel pretty well off considering the poverty I got a glimpse of, but that's about it. I spent the rest of my spare time in Jakarta with Sri Warsiti. She was a very interesting person, she worked at a radio station doing voices for dramas and commercials. She had all sorts of comical voices that she would use to embarass me, and draw attention to us in public. I had a great time wandering about the city with her as the guide.

The single most impressive aspect of my visit to Jakarta was realizing the way in which this city deals with its refuse. It's all out in the open here, to see, smell, and in the rainy season when the sewers overflow, to wade through. From the airport on the way to the hotel I had no idea, I thought, how nice, there are little waterways meandering all throughout the city, like Venice, but with a third world flavor. It was pretty obvious by the time I had gotten close to these canals what thier primary function was. Hard as I looked I could see nothing resembling a gondola, no riverwalk cafes, nothing pleasant or romantic at all, unless maybe you're a sub-tropical microbe quickly reproducing in a river of human feces. The entire network was entirely open, the large canals ran parallel to the main streets, stretching as far as the eye could see. About forty feet wide and God knows how deep they contained dead animals, old tires and empty bottles all sitting in a dark, stagnant muck. These larger channels split off in all directions, running alonside the smaller streets. I followed the canals to their destination. At the end of this journey was the largest, most impressive sludge pit I have, and probably will ever see, waiting to move out, untreated, into the ocean.

All of my overseas travel has been work related. I would not have had the opportunity to see what I saw in some of these places had it been otherwise. I worked as a muralist, painting and installing items that the studio I was employed by had prepared back in New York. My life for several years was structured around going from one construction site to the next, every few weeks. I was able to compare sites in different parts of the world with the many I had worked on in America. The most startling would have to be the one in Jakarta, because of the abject poverty and horrible working conditions it illuminated for me. I was surprised before I even entered the site, noticing three old women breaking up the parking lot with sledge hammers. There were no jackhammers, the lack of power equipment was surprising in itself. The next thing I noticed was a group of young welders, barefoot, about five stories high, working on an enourmous steel seahorse. They had no masks to protect their eyes, so they'd look just to one side of the weld to avoid cornea damage. They all had shoes, but only one pair, so to prevent them from getting dirty or worn out, they would go barefoot on the site. I was told by an older carpenter who made six dollars a day, that most of the others were making one to three dollars a day. Most lived on the site, and when we would arrive in the morning the Mulims would be finishing their prayers, and rolling up the mats they used for beds. Everyone was so kind that, at times I felt it came out of fear. The progress moved so slowly on the site, instead of power equipment and even other basic tools, they had manpower. It was so crowded and unsafe, there is no equivalent to OSHA as far as I could tell, the scaffolding was bamboo roped together. I wondered how many construction workers died or were seriously injured during this boom time.