Yesterday it rained a lot and Jakarta flooded.

Picture: Reuters

Thousands of commuters were stuck for hours in Jakarta’s gridlocked streets as heavy rain caused floods, paralyzing road traffic and holding up trains on Monday.

Massive traffic congestion was mostly concentrated in areas that are regularly flooded by heavy rain.

Yudi Purnomo who works in Kuningan, South Jakarta, said it took four hours just to get to Al-Azhar Mosque, South Jakarta, from his work place.

“It is only 30 minutes on other days. This is really the worst traffic I have ever encountered,” said the employee who has been working in the Kuningan area for four years.

He was still stuck near the mosque area at 10 p.m. last night.

So, with the weather forecasters predicting more heavy rains to come, make sure you don’t get caught out like poor old Yudi. Good preparation is always key!

How to survive a flash flood in Jakarta

1. Have a predetermined place for you and your family to meet if you are caught in floods away from home.

Obviously, the place you choose to meet should be on higher ground: the top of Monas or BNI 46 is ideal.

2. Build your home in an elevated manner (possibly on stilts, if appropriate). People in Jakarta are already learning to do this.



3. Consider the damage that could be done to low level areas of your home and act accordingly: i.e. only use the first floor of your home as your living quarters. If your home only has one level – as many houses in Jakarta do – well then you’re f**ked.

4. Construct your OWN floodwall – everyone for themselves, right?


5. Keep emergency rations in the event of prolonged floods. This should include a few days worth of non-perishable food, high strength fags and water but NO instant noodles (especially those made by ********).

6. Purchase an 11-foot rubber dinghy for Rp18 million and store it in a safe place (where rats can’t get to it). Will allow you to evacuate your home. If you don’t have the funds to buy one of these, a rubber duck will do.


If all else fails beat the Jakarta floods with a rubber duck!

My wife’s brother has a huge house in the historic Central Java town of Jogyakarta, and from the balcony on the second floor, you get a view something like this:


But the monkeys are already scrambling down from the slopes of the volcano to lower ground.

They know something is up.

And if they are right, this might be the view from my wife’s brother’s house anytime soon:



Merapi eruption 15 May 2006, photo APP

Thankfully, though, the volcano is a touch over 20kms from Jogyakarta (judging from this NASA satellite image), so anything less than the “really big one" shouldn’t directly threaten the city (Jogyakarta’s far enough to be safe from any lava flows reaching it).

But could Merapi erupt big time?

Well, some people seem to reckon so:

Surono, head of the Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Agency (PVMBG), said the distension of the mountain’s slopes was much more rapid this time around, indicating a higher-pressure build-up of gas and hence a much more explosive eruption.

“We believe Merapi will erupt explosively, as it did in 1930, and not just spew gas like in 2006,” he said.

“However, that scenario is only a guess. No one really knows when Merapi will erupt and how much volcanic material it will spew out.”

But it could be even worse. The eruption in 1930 was big, but pales into insignificance to the devastating eruption in 1006, which, according to Wikipedia, “covered all of Central Java with ash and led to the collapse of the Hindu Kingdom of Mataram”.

Heck. No wonder SBY is worried.

He might want to make some offerings while he still has the time!

Postscript
Shortly after I wrote this post there was a major eruption and tens of people were killed – essentially incinerated by the extremely hot (500 degrees Celsius) gas clouds that came rushing down the slopes of the volcano at speeds well over 100km/hr. One of those killed was Mbah Maridja, a mystic who tragically failed to understand that man is no match against an angry and powerful volcano. And then a few days later there was another major eruption and tens more were killed in a similar fashion. Over 150 people have lost their lives altogether. I can’t really understand why the authorities hadn’t evacuated everyone a safer distance from the volcano, but they didn’t, and that was that. Below are some pictures that I was sent by a family member – who was a safe distance from Merapi when it errupted; so you can imagine how hellish it must have been in the danger zone!




And the crazy thing is that once Merapi settles down again, the locals will return to their villages, some only around 5 kms from the volcano’s peak…

God, I hate Honda. I really do.

It’s only a few days away, and they’re gonna launch the Honda VTR250…



… in Thailand! Arggg!!!!

But why not here in Indonesia? Hell, it’s not as if there wouldn’t be any demand; there surely would.

And I’d be the first to put my name down on the waiting list!

But so far, the big Japanese motorcycle manufacturers – with one notable exception, Kawasaki – have failed to come up with the goods. For them, the Indonesian motorcycle market is just a huge “mass market” of seething mediocrity, meaning they only produce and sell girly little bebek (duck?!!!) motorcycles (which strangely enough are mostly ridden by guys) and relatively low-performance men’s motorcycles like the Honda Tiger and Yamaha Scorpio.

Yet will things change? Well, possibly. Because now that the AFTA (Asia Free Trade Agreement) has been signed, Indonesia can no longer impose ridiculously high import duties on motorcycles made in other Asian countries – as was the case in the past.

This is what has made it possible for Kawasaki to launch the high performance Ninja 250 on the Indonesian market (made in Thailand, the Ninja 250 is a very quick bike with great looks).

But will Honda buck up the courage and follow in Kawasaki’s footsteps? Well, speculation is rife that they will, and some pundits have even said that Honda might manufacture the VTR250 in Indonesia rather than import it from Thailand!

Not that I am holding my breath…

Honda VTR250: essential specs

Engine and transmission
Engine type: 2 cylinders, 4-stroke, 90° V-twin
Displacement: 250 cc (15.28 cubic inches)
Cooling system: Water cooled
Power: 29.91 HP (22 kW) @ 10500 rpm
Torque: 22 Nm (2.24 kg-m) @ 8500 rpm
Throttle: Cable operated
Gear box: Manual 5-speed

Dimensions
Wheel base: 1405 mm
Seat height: 775 mm
Weight 161 kg

Other
Fuel capacity: 12.4 l

To save the 33 trapped miners in Chili cost a lot of money. US$20 million to be precise. So was the money well spent or should it have been used for other purposes – like on life saving operations for the poor, for example?

Welcome to the red hot academic mini industry.

Trolleyology.

It all goes back 20 years to one of the most famous dilemmas ever devised in philosophy, which, as I remember, put my ethics professor at university on the edge of a nervous breakdown (I think he was only saved by heavy bouts of whisky drinking).

The core problem involves two thought experiments - call the first “Spur” and the second “Fat Man.”

In Spur, an out-of-control trolley—or train—is hurtling towards five people on the track, who face certain death. You are nearby and, by turning a switch, could send the trolley onto a spur and save their lives. But one man is chained to the spur and would be killed if the trolley is diverted. Should you flick the switch?

In Fat Man, the same trolley is about to kill five people. This time, you are on a footbridge overlooking the track, next to a fat man. (The Fat Man is now sometimes described as a large gentleman. But fat or large, the fact of his corpulence is essential.) If you were to push him off the bridge onto the track his bulk would stop the trolley and save the lives of those five people—but kill him. Do you push him?

Strangely, almost everyone will sacrifice spur man but not the fat man – even though in both cases, one person is killed to save five others. It all gets very complicated and there are many variations on a theme but the general idea is that we might choose NOT to save the optimum number of lives – even though that would be the most logical decision.

Or maybe we just don’t fancy pushing fat people off bridges…

Morality, of course, is always an interesting topic and there are certainly plenty of conundrums that expats will face living in Indonesia…

The expat in Indonesia morality test

1) Although liberal minded, you would never consider sleeping with a prostitute since the purchase of sex for money represents male hegemony over women. Besides it’s a disgusting thing to do (although sleeping with a girl for fun is okay). Anyway, it’s your second week in Jakarta and you find yourself in a nightclub with a few of your new expat friends - and it also seems with some new, scantily-clad female friends who have sat down unrequested at your table. One of them is - you have to admit it - extraordinarily cute, and she leans over and whispers something into your ear about liking you a LOT and wanting a place to spend the night and just a little “taxi money” to get home the following day. Do you:

a) stick to your guns and refuse her offer
b) think about your other gun instead and say “YES!!!!!!!”

2) You’ve been in Indonesia a few years when your two domestic maids suddenly go back to their villages (to get married they say). And it’s not long before you’re desperate for help as you’ve completely forgotten how to do any sort of housework - even how to iron a shirt! Finally, a week later and you get a call from the maid agency saying they have found you replacements. Two hardworking, honest and reliable girls from East Java. And 15 years old. Do you:

a) Freak out at the suggestion of employing “children” and slam down the phone in sheer disgust.
b) Utter a sigh of relief, ask for the two girls to be sent over immediately, and then get yourself a cold beer from the fridge.

3) Getting in a taxi to go home, you find a really nice smartphone in the back of the taxi (this happened to a good friend of mine recently). Do you:

a) wait for the smartphone’s owner to ring, and then ask them to collect the phone from your office.
b) instantly remove the back panel of the phone to get out the SIM card before muttering under your breathe “Great! A nice new handphone!"

4) It’s your first visit to Mangga Dua and there you find yourself in piracy heaven with expensive computer software and DVD films and music CDs literally selling for “a song”. Do you:

a) purchase a s**t load of discs for only US$100, joyful at the thousands and thousands of dollars you are “saving”.

b) leave the mall with your hands empty but your conscience clear and promise to buy yourself three new original DVDs on Amazon.com

5) You’ve been a supporter of environmental causes since a kid but one day you get a call from a headhunter who offers you a job with a well known company whose record on the environment is – to be frank - little short of disgraceful. But the pay is twice what you’re getting now. Do you:

a) accept the job and start planning for that skiing holiday now (the monkeys in the jungle can always live in the zoo, right?)
b) refuse it. Money ain’t everything right?

6) while sleeping with a minor celebrity, it suddenly dawns on you she is married to someone else and is from a part of Indonesia renowned for its “strong commitment to family and religious values”. Do you:

a) call the whole thing off, treasuring the relationship as a “happy memory”.
b) get out the Nokia…

7) (this is especially for the dude over at Ravespot) A bunch of rock groups including some foreign acts such as the brilliant Smashing Pumpkins are gonna do a gig at Ancol - sponsored by one of the big Indonesian cigarette companies. Do you:

a) go to the concert – what’s the problem?
b) give it a miss - as the concert promotes smoking to the younger generation - and instead stay at home and watch the live English Premiershits game on TV – sponsored by our friends from Djarum.

8) (this really happened to someone) Going home in the early hours – and driving a bit too fast – you hit a bump in the road, lose control and wipe out a hapless nasi goreng seller who had been pushing a food cart. You’re nicked and taken to a cell. Do you:

a) agree to negotiate your release for a not inconsiderable sum
b) You strongly oppose the idea of “perverting the course of justice”, so you take your chances in the Indonesian legal system - even though you could face a stint at Jakarta Hilton for the next three years.

Yes, they do send people to Coventry in Indonesia! And in the most unlikely of places: Bali!!!! No it doesn’t sound too bad I know, but being sent to Coventry in Bali is actually a far worse proposition than being sent to Coventry in England.

But ostracism anywhere is of course no fun at all and according to psychologists is actually a form of mental abuse (you’ll be well aware of this if you’ve ever been caught by the wife or girlfriend looking at some things on the internet you shouldn’t have, and then she decides to give you the hump for the next few days).

But in Bali things are taken to a whole new level:

If he (Made Rai) leaves his family compound, his neighbors look away and refuse to speak to him. He is banned from the village temples, normally central to Hindu spiritual life in Bali, and when he dies, his body will be rejected from the village cemetery.

Mr. Rai’s grandchildren, who play at his feet, rarely venture from the family compound and are “psychologically affected” by the situation, he said. Unborn when the dispute started, the children are barred from the village school and, under the same village rules, are forbidden to exchange a word with the other children who play in the streets outside.

To find out why read the complete article in the NY Times.



Being ostracized will drive you mad!

This is from the Jakarta Globe:

Jakarta. With 3,000 candidates vying for just 164 positions at the Ministry of Trade, getting the right answers on the recruitment test was always going to be vitally important.

Imagine the surprise of many of the applicants, therefore, when they were confronted with the following multiple-choice question in the general knowledge segment of the exam: “Which one of the song titles below is included on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s third album?”

Trade Ministry spokesman Robert James Bintaryo told the Jakarta Globe he did not know anything about the question because the exam had been compiled by a special team.

“Now my question is, what is wrong if a general knowledge question is about Pak SBY’s song?” Robert asked.

“It’s part of the general knowledge questions. There were 30 or 40 questions in that section and the song title was only one question.”

He added: “I can assure you, there is no hidden agenda behind the question.”

So, which one of the song titles below is included on the third album?

a) You’re So Vain – Carly Simon
b) Let’s Stick Together - Bryan Ferry
c) My way - Frank Sinatra
d) (If I Could) Walk on Water – Eddie Money
e) Road to Nowhere – Talking Heads
f) Ada Apa Denganmu? – Peter Pan
g) Do You Think I’m Sexy? – Rod Stewart

And the answer? It’s a trick question and ALL the answers are right (except g)!!! Par for the course, par for the course…

As time passes by - making way for new history to be created - it is inconceivable to think of history ever coming to an end.

But what if there is an end of history in the political sense? What if Western liberal democracy really does signal the end point of political development and the final, everlasting form of government?

After all, can you imagine a better form of government than liberal democracy? In which citizens are free to do what they want – within certain limits – and the government is elected by the people?

Probably not.

And neither can most of the people living in free and democratic countries.

In the now classic End of History book, Francis Fukuyama convincingly argues that political progress takes place as contradictions in societies are inevitably resolved.

Discrimination against blacks, women or homosexuals, for example, violate society’s notions of equality and human rights, and so it is inevitable, argues Fukuyama, that such contradictions must – sooner or later – be ended.


Another point that Fukuyama makes is that history unfolds in one direction – and there is no going back. Once progress has been made, it’s been made. Slavery has ended for good. It will never return. Similarly, women’s voting rights will never be taken away either.

So what about Indonesia? What are the inherent contradictions that need to be resolved as the country takes further steps in becoming more democratic?

Well, there are many of course - and even in the country’s cconstitution which states that:

…every person shall be free to choose and to practice the religion of his/her choice.

However, in reality, the government only actually recognizes six “religions” (Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism)!!!

Now in my book that’s a bit like saying you can have a car in any color you want.

As long as it’s black.

The complications soon pile up as you might imagine, with the state ideology Pancasila stating that all Indonesians must believe in ONLY one God – failing to appreciate the obvious fact that Hindus believe in MANY.

And there’s also the little oversight that Buddhism is NOT even a religion anyway:

1. There is no almighty God in Buddhism. There is no one to hand out rewards or punishments on a supposedly Judgment Day.

2. Buddhism is strictly not a religion in the context of being a faith and worship owing allegiance to a supernatural being.

3. No savoir concept in Buddhism.

Source: Buddhanet

Now that’s a lot of contradictions to be resolved! And that’s not even mentioning the one awkward thing that might derail Indonesia’s transformation to a full democracy:

Democracy's only real competitor in the realm of ideas today is radical Islamism. Indeed, one of the world's most dangerous nation-states today is Iran, run by extremist Shiite mullahs.

In Indonesia, Buddhism’s glory days are long gone but we still have the world’s largest Buddhist Temple (Borobudur) to marvel at.


Yes, it’s truly a wonderful temple but there is one annoying thing – why are so many of the Buddha heads missing?!!!

Some say they were taken by religious vandals before the huge temple was abandoned (later being restored thanks to Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles’ efforts when he became aware of the temple in 1814) but there is actually more evidence that a lot of the Buddha heads ended up in European museums!!!

And one of them is definitely in the British Museum, which, being located in London is an awful long way from the rice paddies and countryside of Central Java.

Here it is:


This carved head, made of volcanic stone, represents the Buddha, ‘the Enlightened One’. It comes from the great Buddhist monument of Borobudur on the island of Java.
> The British Museum

So why haven’t the Indonesian government cottoned onto this and asked for the missing Buddha heads back?!!!

If you’ve ever passed through the insane maelstrom that is Jatinegara, you’ll probably have noticed a fine old church at the major hairpin intersection.

It was built in 1911-1916 by the Dutch and originally known as Gereja Bethel/De Betelkerk:

Wot, no traffic?!!!

And as it looks today, nearly 100 years later.

From an architectural aspect, the church makes use of gables (triangle wall sections where they meet the roof) and has a pleasant geometric design with nine separate sections. The inner sections of the church form a symmetrical cross.

Thankfully, the building is listed as a Class A building, and should therefore not be torn down anytime soon - either because of vocal protests from religious extremists or because property developers want to turn it into another bloody mall!

Time is the justice that examines all offenders.
>Shakespeare

With evidence mounting that parts of North Jakarta are sinking fast (*), I decided to check out the old Dutch quarters of the city before it’s too late. To get there, I took my chances on Jakarta’s now infamously dangerous busway and the lunatic bus driver made a couple of very close calls as he trashed his red-colored potential death-machine through the gears like Michael Schumacher on race day.

But it was worth the effort: a visit to this forlorn part of Jakarta really is a journey back in time and there are a surprisingly large number of very old buildings still there – even though many of them look like they could literally collapse AT ANY MOMENT:



Quite why the developers haven’t moved in and simply flattened the whole place for redevelopment is something of a mystery, but I’ve been told it’s because impossibly unwieldy bureaucracy has prevented any development from taking place. Saved by red tape, you could say. At least until the whole place either sinks or collapses.

A short walk from the Fatahillah Square - where the Dutch used to execute prisoners in all sorts of wonderfully gruesome ways - is the Kali Besar Canal. And my God do the canal’s turdgid waters stink! It’s like you’ve gone to the bog after someone with a nasty bout of the dreaded Bali Belly has just had a dump! Shit, it’s so bad even the rats can’t stand it here!

But along the road which runs parallel to the canal are some of the most notable colonial buildings in Indonesia – most of them being former palaces or houses dating from the 18th century.

Probably the most interesting is Toko Merah (Red Shop):

Toko Merah as it stood over 70 years ago...

...and as it stands today.

The origins of Toko Merah date back to 1730 when it was build by the order of the Dutch to serve as the residence of the then Governor General Baron Van Imhoff. Interestingly, the building doesn’t have a canopy attached to the front like the other Dutch buildings on this street (to provide pedestrians with shelter from the sun), since it was constructed before the regulation making this a requirement came into effect. The building got its present name “Red Shop” after a Chinese businessman named Oey Liauw Kong turned it into a store in the 1850’s, although it is now owned by state-owned company PT Perusahaan Dagang Indonesia, but has been left unoccupied since 2000.

A bit further along the street, and one of the old Dutch buildings has been turned into a nightclub called the Athena – which in keeping with the shabby character of its surroundings, is said to be a very dark and degenerate sort of place (if you know what I mean), but no doubt providing good custom for the wonderfully designed Batavia Hotel close by.

Then, right at the end of the street, there’s the bizarrely named Chicken Market Bridge (in reference apparently to a once nearby poultry market), which takes you across the canal:

Chicken Market Bridge with the Batavia Hotel in the background (picture taken in RAW and processed into a pseudo HDR image)

The bridge is over 350 years old and operated as a drawbridge when boats, many eons ago, came up the canal from the nearby Sunda Kelapa Harbor. Interestingly for Brits, the bridge was at one time called Engelsebrug (English bridge) as it connected the compounds of the rival English (on the west side) and Dutch on the other (the east side).

Hell, all this history and all these old, crumbling buildings. Nope, nothing lasts for ever and permanence is just an illusion. Look up at the stars and they look unshakably solid, but the reality is they are moving away at great speeds, eventually to fizzle out and become dark, cold bodies.

Whether or not these old colonial buildings in Kota have any relevance for modern-day Jakarta people is a moot point. Personally I think they do.

And especially if North Jakarta is destined to become the new Venice of Asia!



*Yep, Jakarta is sinking and rapidly too. In a study conducted by researchers from the Bandung Institute of Technology, it was found that land in some parts of central Jakarta around Monas had sunk by around 10-12 cm over the last eight years, mainly due to massive extraction of groundwater. Other parts of Jakarta fared even worse – land in Muara Baru, North Jakarta, and Cenkareng, West Jakarta, has sunk an incredible 116 centimeters in the same period! Time to think about ditching the filthy bajaj and exchanging them for Gondolas, lads!!!