There's no such thing as a free lunch...Or is there?

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It's official. The next president of Indonesia is former army general Prabowo Subianto. Quite how the next five years will pan out is anyone's guess but hopefully the foreign pundits who always bring up his dodgy human rights record will be proven wrong. Nonetheless, on policy making, Prabowo's popularist move to literally offer the poor 'a free lunch' every day of the week does not augur well for the future. Such a policy - if it ever came to fruition - would cost a phenomenal amount of money and likely lead to huge inefficiencies (food waste) and poor incentives (make people lazy). Another concern is Prabowo's strong nationalist bent. Thus, in the possible event that he finds himself with his back against the proverbial wall in the face of stern economic challenges, there is a big chance that he will simply scapegoat foreigners. But he will have to be careful. Construction of the new capital city, Nusantara, for example, is highly dependent on foreign in
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The Eiffel Tower was built in Indonesia too!

Truth is stranger than fiction ~ Mark Twain

Well I’ll be damned: a bamboo replica of the Eiffel Tower!


Eiffel Tower in Indonesia

Whilst not quite as grand as Central Java’s world famous religious temples Borobudur or Prambanan, this Indonesian version of the Eiffel Tower is still very impressive in my opinion and, reaching an impressive height of 40-50 feet, must have taken quite an effort to construct. As was so often the way in the old colonial days, the tower was built in honor of someone: in this particular case for the coronation of Princess Wilhelmina who took the throne of the Netherlands at the spritely young age of 10 in 1898.

So where was the tower built? In Tasikmalaya of all places – a pretty much nondescript town in West Java not known for too much really except its large number of pesantren (Islamic religious schools) and umbrella making industry.

Quite what the locals made of it is anyone’s guess of course (bamboo isn't as durable as iron!), but I’m sure if they had smartphones at the time they would have been lining up to take the ubiquitous selfie!

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