What I saw on the Road... Floods, Demonstration, etc...

We touched down at Jakarta airport and was picked up by Emil, Sean’s business partner in Indonesia. He was with his wife-to-be, Elsie. (More about them in "Friends, shopping, eating, etc.”.)

After dropping Elsie off to work, we sat in his car to go do some sightseeing… His car is a 1-yr-old Honda Odyssey! Actually was Elsie’s car, but then since they are getting married soon, made no difference whose car is it liao!

The traffic jams were very serious! It made me appreciate Singapore more so now... When we asked Emil how long it takes to bring us to the eating place, he told us that the place was very near, should be reaching soon. So I thought the car-ride would be about 15mins or so...

It turned out that we took 1 hour to reach the place!!! So, a car-ride of 45-min to 1 hour is considered "near" in Jakarta! (What??!!!) And the furthest we took was about 2 hrs...

Anyways....... No choice lor... We just had to get used to the long travelling time!

Along the way, we witness some serious flooding situation!

I was very surprised! This is Jakarta city! I always thought flooding could only occur in the countryside whereby sewerage and drainage systems was less advance… According to Emil, it rained everyday in Jakarta, that’s why there was flooding everywhere in town area…




What a sight! Being so pampered in Singapore, I have never seen a serious flood before
(Choy! Choy! Choy!)… Not that I yearn for one! Hyahahah


Most of the people going to work or school had to take off their shoes!! That reminded me of the days when I was young and my Mum always insisted us to wear our slippers to school during rainy days and changed into proper shoes when we reached school...


Well, I saw that some of the roads were not well done and I think the drainage might be a problem.. See this small lane? It was drizzling only and the road started to form some small pools of water liao! Soon, it would be flood again!



Anyway, side-tracked a bit… Having nothing much to do and not wanting to shop, we decided to go watch movie!!


We watched “Fearless” by Jet Lee… some of the scenes were so gross that I covered my eyes and missed about 40% of the whole show!! Sigh…. I secretly took some photos of the scenes! Hahahaha!!! Just for fun only lah, not for sale!!

Ok, back to the topic… after the show, me, Sean and Clement sat at Starbucks for coffee… Just then, we saw something interesting and definitely new to us…

A DEMONSTRATION! Just outside the shopping mall, Plaza Indonesia!

We were so excited that we rushed outside to take pictures. There were this van, playing loud music and we saw a lot of people around, wearing the same T-shirts and some of them carrying flags…



I have no idea whether was this a demonstration, so just some political party doing some publicity… Maybe it was just a friendly gathering? Well, anyway, I have no idea at all… So please don’t quote me!

But I did see some reporters and cameramen rushing around frantically, trying to capture the scene.. So if anyone out there who know what happened on that day, pls let me know, yah? (Date: 27 Jan 2006, timing… about 5pm or so…)


Saw this statue... So nice...

Sidetracked abit... There were alot of statues in Indonesia... I took a few, but due to shortage of memory space, I only retained the below picture... rust me, there are alot more out there!


Anyway, back to the topic... When we were on our way back to hotel, I spotted this wordings carved on the road pavement...

Think this might have been left behind after some riots against America...

The traffic was very slow and eventually I got used to the slow and jammed traffic liao...


There were alot of people selling stuff along the streets... There are boys selling newspapers, drinks, flowers to motorists who were jammed in the traffic... Amazingly, I saw this young man trying to earn some money by providing music to motorists!

So funny! Who would actually wind down the window to listen to him? Everyone was very irritated by the slow traffic liao, who would have the mood to listen to your guitar?

Anyway, this man was earning a decent living lah, at least he was not one of those street beggars, who combed the traffic and knocked on car-doors to ask for money.... Along the way, I did see some childrem knocking on car-doors and begging for money...

Well, just for a thought...

Most of the time, I saw alot of people idling around... Even during working hours, I see a lot of people sitting along the road, lazing around town, without doing anything... But since this is the first time I been to Indonesia, I cannot and would not judge them by just what I saw... There might be some culture differences... Maybe they are waiting for someone? Maybe they are guarding something? Maybe they are just tired and taking a rest? Or maybe that's their way of life!

Scenery in Jakarta and Bandung

I stayed at 4 different hotels during my trip to Indonesia... One hotel in Jakarta and 3 others in Bandung...

For the first night, I put up at a Millennium Hotel at Jakarta.


The above were the scenery from the Hotel's window... You can see that although this is the City of Indonesia, there are still lots of small and old houses around town.

After one night in Jakarta, we travelled about 3 hours to Bandung.

For the 1st and 2nd night in Bandung, we checked into a resort named Sangria Resort & Spa. This place was situated in Lembang, just beside Bandung and about 30 mins ride from Media's house.


The scenery was so much better and I really enjoyed this place alot!

Such a soothing morning, drinking coffee and enjoying the cool fresh breeze....


It is just like HEAVEN... The fine scenery was just right outside our balcony! It was so near that I thought I could just jumped into the greenery! I like to laze around at the balcony, sipping hot coffee and letting my mind wandered away into the greens... However, one flaw... There were just too many mosquitoes around, which sort of spoilt the whole feeling... I actually wanted to eat oranges out at the balcony one late night, but the mosquitoes were just too irritating!

Sigh... What a waste!

Anyway, I spotted this Iguana on my way to the spa room... (Is it an Iguana? Or just a Monitor Lizard?? I have no idea at all! I then saw another 2 of them! Seemed like they are also the tenants there!)


Anyways........

We checked out of Sangria on Sunday and decided to check into Ardjuna Boutique Hotel and Spa at Bandung that night (See post on "Friends, shopping, Eating, etc."). This is a newly opened hotel (launched in Oct 2004) and it seemed really empty when we were there... Thus, we thought that we would be able to get a room on Monday.

BUT......... We were wrong! Ardjuna Hotel was fully booked on Monday! I couldn't believe it! How can it be possible? The hotel was so empty last night and now it was fully occupied on a Weekday, and it was only Monday leh!!

No choice lor... We decided to turn back to Sangria, but it was full too! (Why would people book into Hotel on MONDAY???) Weewee tried a few other places too, but all fully booked.

So out of no choice, we booked into a local hotel, near Weewee's house. The hotel was called Abadi Asri at Jl Dr. Setiabudi Road. Weewee had never stayed in local hotels before and all of us were sceptical at first... But I felt it was not that bad!


Although the hotel was old and not as glamourous as those big boutique hotels, it had all the basic facilities. (But Clement commented that the towels smelled! Hahahaha! I was too tired to notice that by the way!)


Don't you feel that the furniture looked very old and ancient? Just like those olden 80's! but it was basically clean lah. Can't complain much cos the price was really cheap! Cost us only 250K Rup for a night! (Which amounted to about S$43 only!)

After we checked out of Abadi Asri Hotel, Weewee took us to the new boutique Hotel named Bilique Hotel, also in Bandung which we stayed for the last 2 nights (Time flies yah!).



The entrance looked normal and there was a disco just beside the hotel!

Doesn't look like a disco to me leh!


The views were great, although not as good as Sangria... And the food there was terrific too! We ate there for 2 nights! As this hotel was at the hill-top, surrounding us were big and grand houses owned by super-duper rich people!


Heard the above house was owned by the local "bookie"... Wow darn! Grand, right?? Such a nice big house! I really envy him leh.... How could anyone own such a nice big house? I only see such houses in movies and dramas!

See those clouds??? It was sooo BEAUTIFUL!!! Beyond words!!!





The room was good too! The decor was very Zen-nish and very clean and new!


I love this dressing table. Very innovative and slick! The mirror-cum-light was "suspended" by 2 wired-rods from the ceiling! So cool!



Well, that added up to my 6 nights of adventures! Which I feel that I enjoyed Sangria most. Probably I was not so tired out then...

CNY Eve Fireworks! - at Media's House in Bandung

It was CNY eve and we were having dinner at Media's house...

Then Weewee told us that he bought some firecrackers to play after dinner! So fun! Reminded me of the days when I used to celebrate CNY in China... I played firecrackers in Beijing, Suzhou and Wuxi before...

Anyway, after dinner, about 9pm, we went outside with the kids to play the fire crackers.

Weewee bought some small fire crackers....



And BIG ones too!



See the holes? These are the holes where the gunpowder were placed in, and then, when lighted, the fireworks will shoot out from these holes...

In order not to burn the neignbouring trees, they decided to place this giant firecracker onto the roof-top...



And then... WAOW!!!! Got a scare though! Cos I didn't expect the explosion to be so LOUD!!! Thundering!!!




When all was over... Media's dad did the final check, cos we were unsure whether all the firecrackers were being fired or not...


Yeah, and at last... We went back into the house and we continued our night with a mini pool competition! (See post on "Friends, shopping, eating, etc!")