Alterity | Jakarta and Bali

Life may be a proverbial piece of shit, but many of us don't really realise how lucky we are.  Look at this guy in the photo above, for example. He spends his day just cycling around Jakarta and delivering donuts to simple warung in the kampung for resale to their customers. Can't really make much money each day but he still has the wherewithal  to keep his bike in good nick. Respect!  

A long time ago I came up with a list of the top ten restaurants in Jakarta .  Now while these venerable establishments remain among my favourite eateries in this great city, there is one place that I would definitely add to the list if I were to compile it today: the rather ungainly sounding yet completely authentic Tengkleng Pak Manto Solo in Bintaro, South Jakarta.  Nope this eatery won’t win any prices for having the coldest aircon or the fanciest cutlery or even the finest furnishings. Because this is a humble place where the rakyat can afford to eat.  And the food is fantastic!  Specializing in goat meat dishes, the restaurant is named after its trademark dish, tengkleng, which is basically a kind of goat bone soup cooked with tons of Indonesian spices and of course chilies! Other dishes include goat sate and, my favourite, garang masak, a dish containing small chunks of goat meat cooked with – you’ve guessed it – lots of Indonesian spices.  The food...

The lifeblood of Bali’s economy may be tourism but the authorities seem to have finally had enough of the disgraceful and unlawful behaviour of foreign tourists (WNA), especially of the Caucasian type.  Such sentiments were echoed by the Coordinating Minister of Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Pandjaitan, who said that “misbehaving tourists were not needed in Bali as lots of “trash” would harm the island”.   From immigration violations to driving offences, WNA have been behaving as if they are on holiday in a tropical paradise (true) where the rule of law does not apply (not true). Anyway, the crackdown has now well and truly begun and tourists will no longer be allowed to rent motorcycles. While this will unfairly punish law abiding tourists and badly hit local motorcycle rental businesses, it will at least spare us the sight of some idiotic bogan driving around shirtless on a Honda Scoopy. Of course, don’t ask why the law was never enforced in the first place...

The Beatles music is “a form of mental disease”. >Sukarno As I laid back into my soft sofa at Star Live in Kemang, watching a neatly dressed bunch of lads reeling off covers of old Beatles songs, I found myself thinking: what was it about the Beatles that Sukarno hated so much? I mean music as innocuous as this? Seriously. WTF! In fact, Sukarno was so irked by the sounds of the Fab Four that he actually took polices to ban their music in Indonesia and take measures against anyone who followed their fashion sensibilities. Incredibly, the police were instructed to stop any male and test that their trousers weren’t too tight! The way they did this was by trying to insert a soya sauce bottle into the trousers. If they couldn’t do this, the trousers were deemed too tight and then they were promptly cut in public, so that the person looked like they were wearing shorts! Hahaha! In a similar vein, Sukarno also condemned miniskirts. But they weren’t cut in public or things...

Holy smokes! The all-girl South Korean punk band the Rumkicks are doing an Indonesian tour! And their first gig is at Star Kemang in Jakarta!  WTF! This is quite a coup for the owner Mark as overseas bands very seldom tour Indonesia (can you imagine the bureaucratic issues that need to be overcome?).  I’d never seen a punk gig in Indonesia. So there was no fucking way I was gonna miss this one. The Rumkicks are pretty popular too. They recently toured the UK and have featured in the legendary British music rag, the NME. They even sell their tunes on Bandcamp to reach an international audience. The punk community in Indonesia , while not large, is very close. So news of this gig was going to spread like wildfire, that’s for sure. There was gonna be a big crowd. We’d have to get their early. The promotional poster for the gig features a trio of bands, led by the Rumkicks of course, supported by a couple of Indonesian bands: The Desire and the delightfully named Glen & The Vi...

Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games  We got everything you want, honey, we know the names Dragged back into the past, yet again, at Star. This time a Guns and Roses tribute band that played and looked the part (see videos below). With a few beers inside me, the music evoked memories of my travels to Indonesia back in the late 80s/early 90s, particularly Surabaya and Jogjakarta where the songs off the band’s brilliant first album (Appetite for Destruction: a misogynistic masterpiece) were being played in tourist cafes and eateries, and even once, I remember, in a sleazy discotheque where the crowd went absolutely mental to Sweet Child of Mine (what else?)  But time has moved on of course. And not far away at the nation’s parliament, Indonesian lawmakers - much to the consternation of foreign observers – have just taken the decision to outlaw intimate relations between non-married couples. Watch out tourists! You may be banged up for banging! That seemed to be the conce...