Another full year

Unlike most bloggers,  I have kept writing and  have reached another milestone in my blogging life. I am into my 4th year of writing and commenting on life in Jakarta, my trips around the country and England and all in between. I have deliberately (as mentioned many times) kept away from work and the stories one could and perhaps should tell as it is all truly unbelievable, rather just focusing on everything away from there and how it feels to live here.
Since 2009 I have written about many things and it has and continues to help me deal with some of the pressures of being an Expat and so far from home. This is also my 5 year in Indonesia and I still do not have any real reason to complain about life here as I chose to come here and to stay. I have yet to feel forced to move on, go home and have never felt that. I am sure that will continue.
As I have continued my life out here, the change from working in a foreign country to living in a foreign country has become more and evident as things change. Housing, furnishing, weddings and supporting a family change everything and so it should. Disposable income is reduced as I now have bills and commitments each month. I have a staff off one now as well which is odd. The nanny looks after the house and keeps us in food and clean floors which is nice.

It is very hard to describe the life and living in another land far from what you call home andso  my blog serves as a way of describing and explaining it. I am rather lazy or forgetful when it comes to recording some things such as the traffic but I will one day that's for sure. The smells I cant describe. The litter, the mannerisms, the differences in peoples beliefs and culture. Their daily lives, how they tackle life. I wish I could sometimes as it would explain so much more.

At the end of the day, I enjoy my writing and my photos and this blog and I continue to put my energy into to help people see my life and learn a little about Indonesia.

According to Statcounter.com nearly 40000 people have visited my blog (my visits are blocked and not recorded) and I have been visited by people from 163 different countries (as recorded by flagcounter.com), so someone must be getting something from my writings. These numbers amaze me so much and one of my aims is to be visited by someone from every country, if only the people in Greenland wanted to come here and researched it through the internet.

Anyway, enjoy the day and always enjoy a smile.

Smiley Doughnuts from Dunking Doughnuts awesome

"A blogger is constantly looking over his shoulder, for fear that he is not being followed." - Robert Brault.

Hot

For the 3 months the city has been sweltering with no real end in sight. Daily temperatures are around 32 degrees and in the early morning they are around 27 degrees.
This is before any humidity or anything else nature throws at you to make it feel any hotter. The air is dry and full of bad air, the sun rises as a big red ball and sets pretty much the same colour.

This image is from Yowindow.com for Jakart and and as you can see its 32 degrees but feels like 37.  Ignore the clouds with rain signs as thats just misleading. (its not just Yowindow that  predicts rain that never comes, all the weather sites do).

Anyway this heat on a bad day makes the people worse, the driving worse, the manners worse and me far more moody and grumpy and sweaty. Making life more challenging is the fact that the ground well is starting to run dry and so the water coming out of the tap is at a trickle but it does come. So we are learning to conserve water and use it more sparingly and that is again, taking some getting used to.

There is however a permanent breeze which at times is nice and helps a little bit. So whilst it seems the rest of the world is reporting floods, tornados, typhoons, Jakarta and the majority of Indonesia is in the middle of a very dry spell. I can only hope this will begin to change later this month and in October. 

I am also missing thunder storms and the torrential rain riding home at night. I am sure though that I wont miss it for too long.

Jakarta Zoo

Finally after 5 years, I plucked up enough courage and went to the Zoo in Jakarta. Ragunan Zoo to be exact, is a sprawling park in the south of the city. Cheap to get in, easy to get to but hard to forget, sadly for all the wrong reasons.
Wikipedia has described the place as being in a 'lush tropical setting' perhaps that needs to be revised as I will explain shortly.

 The map at the entrance from the busway, up high and not easy to use

 This sign post more than helpful if you are planning to leave or visit the animals

I took the TransJakarta bus to the Zoo as there is a terminal right next to one of the 3 entrances to it and so access is very easy and simple. Paying the fee of 4000 rupiah to get in, you wonder what you will get for your money. I got exactly what I expected from an Asian zoo. Hot, sweaty, chased by mosquitoes and the chance to see the usual animals in open areas you would expect to see in any zoo anywhere. However, the one exception was the Komodo dragons which were good to see and also the Gorilla sanctuary was also nice.

This is in the zoo somewhere and so helpful

Komodos, worth going to the zoo, just to see these amazing animals

The problem I have with any zoo is the treatment of animals and the conditions in which they are living. So advertising showing bears performing tricks, monkeys on bikes, seeing fires in animal pens lit and burning away, more rubbish than in a land fill and the lack of information about the animals re-enforced my beliefs about zoo's and that Ragunan Zoo should be avoided at all costs. Taman Safari is better or perhaps just go to the rainforest, jungle or woodland north, west, east and south of Jakarta to experience animals in their real habitat.

Dancing bears, always a favourite 

There are a lot of animals in this zoo and there were many keepers trying, I guess, to make sure that the animals are well cared for and overall I would say that they are. The elephants looked relatively alert, the tigers were busy chasing each other, the monkeys were busy committing monkey business and the gorillas were in a great and well thought out part of the zoo.

Fires and more smoke in the zoo

The whole zoo is covered in random drink and food sellers, and due to this fact there is an uncontrollable amount of litter and rubbish created by this and therefore hence the need to burn the rubbish to get rid of it. I saw people jumping over walls to sell drinks and food, people were passing more food and drink over walls and despite a large police, fire and security presence, no one cares.

Setting up for the day

All the grass has gone just litter

Stalls and more stalls

The zoo is a place for people to come and sit about in and thats why it is so cheap and so popular. There are lots of quiet grassy areas for picnics and to lounge about all day and so people do take advantage of this, with hundreds of thousands of people coming over weekends and national holidays. It is a shame that they don't pay more attention to their litter and approach to seeing the animals.

Always nice to see

Inside the zoo is a primate centre, the Schmutzer Primate centre which is dedicated to the conservation and the protection of various types of monkeys and apes etc. The cost for this is 7000 per person, no bags or food, lots of rules and people stuck by them and the place is well thought out and planned and the gorillas clearly were having a great time. However, the place is a maze, and like the rest of the zoo badly laid out and signed and there were many empty cages through out. I saw one Orang utan and no chimpanzees while in there. The gorillas were hiding from the sun so they were barely visible.

Excellent idea and well funded at some point

Gorillas enjoying the day

The walkway over the Gorillas compound

Many of the attractions in the centre had been closed through neglect which was a pity as it could be really good. But then I say that a lot here in Indonesia, but that's the way it is.
I hope one day someone will update the zoo and make it world class but until then, don't go. Oh and if you do, bring your own food and drinks. Someone tried to sell me a bottle of water for 10,000 rupiah, about 4 times the asking price anywhere else. 

Gelora Bung Karno Stadium

Being married is all about sharing caring and making sacrifices and what more can a married man do than to agree to get up at 6am in the morning and go with the wife jogging, despite drinking the night before and desperately needing a lie in and a chance not to wake up before 8am, still that can happen next time. 

So up at 6 off we went to find somewhere to jog and that place happened to be at the main sports stadium of Gelora Bung Karno at Senayan. 

Every Sunday now in the city in the morning is now car free which means from Senayan to Thamrin only TransJakarta buses can enter. Push bikes, roller blades, skateboards, and people on foot are also allowed but cars and bikes etc have to find other ways around the city. Now that's OK today as there are still lots of people coming home from Pulang Kampung but next week it will be more crowded.

Anyway, after paying the security guard 5000 rupiah ( I think it was only meant to be 2000, but it helps prevent my helmet get stolen) we headed to the stadium. 

The place is locked and you can not get inside it, which is a pity but instead you and countless others get to go anti-clockwise around it for as long as you want. 

My wife went off running or something and I staggered round taking in the morning air and the sounds of peaceful people not shouting or screaming and which was very refreshing. Totally ignored by all I was free to take some pictures and I even managed to walk around the outside of the stadium twice. 

The walkers / runners

Social at 7am

Nice Statue

Ball Seller

Inside the stadium through the fence, it looks quite nice.

It appears that if you need free medical check ups then Sunday morning there are free consultations, there are also keep fit classes, Tai Chi sessions, more badminton than is probably necessary, bikes and runners and walkers and promoters promoting allsorts as well as the never ending vendors selling food and drinks all the way round from behind the fence. 

However for me, the best thing was that the whole area around the stadium was completely free of litter, nothing on the floor, no-one throwing stuff about and people seemed to be more aware to keep the place clean and tidy. If only this could manifest itself to the rest of the cities open spaces.

Anyway after an hour, we went back home and I went back to bed thoroughly tired out from watching everyone keeping fit. 

Food Stalls

Whilst out and about I came across a wide range of food stalls and so I thought I would share pictures with you. This post may be updated on a frequent basis.

Soto Ayam or spicy yellow chicken soup which is really very tasty.

Baso Sapi or Beef Meatballs, basically grey balls of no name meat with noodles.

Soups, Meatballs, Rice and things. Cart complete with Awning and chairs

Just drinks, cigarettes and mobile phone vouchers

Coconuts, Ice and not much else. Very nice, very sweet and very filling

Fried stuff, don't know what, Very popular and quite nice

Traditional Icecream and lollies

Empties and more stocks

More returns and stock for later

TransJakarta Buses

Wanting more excitement in life but within some safety for a change, I decided to ride the TransJakarta Busway across the city from Mampang in the south to Kota Tua in the north, changing only once at Dukuh Atas.
For 3500 rupiah you can literally ride all over the city as long as you don't get off the system and you are prepared to shaken, vibrated and squeezed, pushed and pulled, sneezed on, stepped on and basically want to feel hot and sweaty in the company of a bus load of strangers.
The network of bus lanes is huge and is continuing to grow. You can go from Kalideres in the west to somewhere called Pulogandung in the east or from Ancol in the north to Kampung Rambutan in the south.

The system is easy to use and almost friendly. All the shelters are signed with the direction of the bus and if you are lucky there are announcements made before each stop so you know where you are. There are no maps of the network on the buses that I saw but you never know there might be.

As a rule the busway is over subscribed and you normally have to fight your way on and off the buses and then when you need to change bus routes you have to queue in shelters waiting for the buses to come. There are a lot of buses so it seems you don't have to wait that long. At Dukuh Atas you have to change to get the bus for the Blok M Kota route. This passes Harmoni Bus hub which is just not nice when full of people and with no ac and lots of noise never a favourite spot of mine. 

However as luck would have it, you don't have to change as the bus goes straight into Kota which is good.

For some reason getting out of the busway system at Kota involves an underpass and a circular walk down before going back up. As normal the signage is limited and getting back to Busway shelter at Kota involved climbing through a broken fence and then back through the underpass again. Bizarre, there must be another way I am not aware of. 

Still I wont complain too much for the price.  Due to it being the holiday the bus to Kota was completely empty so it allowed me to take in the interior of the bus. The ripped seats, dirty air vents, damaged doors and dirty windows and signs. The buses are so over used they are wearing out fast although I am sure a good wash at the end of the day would help preserve them a little longer. 

As for the drivers, the ones I had stopped for old ladies to cross the bus lane, jammed on brakes due to motorbikes pulling out in front of them and basically seemed to drive carefully across the city. I can  appreciate a little more when reading about the accidents on the bus way how hard it is for the driver to control these things. Trains kills people every day as people cross the tracks with out looking and the bus lanes are no different. More bridges across the 8 lane roads, traffic lights and crossings with enforced rules would help things along. But I guess it will never be the fault of anyone but the bus driver when accidents occur as they should know that motorbikes, people, cars, kids will  consider themselves more important and have right of way in the dedicated busway lanes which are for buses only.

As a motorbike rider who crosses the city everyday I will not ride in bus lanes as bikers treat them as race tracks, the police stop lots of people and they even more dangerous than the rest of the road. I guess they will never be entirely safe until there is 2 meter high fence between it and the rest of the road, I live in hope.

For more information about the busway go here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransJakarta

or

http://www.transjakarta.co.id/