On 1 July, I boarded a Cathay Pacific flight from Jakarta to Hong Kong and officially left SE Asia behind. I'm very, very sad to see it go. Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Indonesia. I'll miss the chaos and the feeling that anything could happen. I've used the word "chaos" to describe just about every place I've visited on this trip, and it refers to an all-pervasive energy that both invigorates and enervates, which is both awe-inspiring and debilitating. I think it would be a challenge to live a balanced life in SE Asia but I would never be bored, not for a moment. The extreme always makes an impression, and my trip has been a disorienting study in extremes, capped off by 5 days in Jakarta, possibly the most intense city I've ever visited. I remember the cities best of all from my trip throught out Asia. Chennai was both chaotic and conservative, Shanghai ruled by single-minded capitalism, BKK a hub of multi-cultural hedonism. Siem Reap introduced me to the ancient crumbling majesty of Angkor Wat. The S-21 prison in Phnom Penh filled with me a sense of dread and hopelessness amidst the hustle and bustle of a city and a people courageously rebuilding itself after decades of devastation. The derelict buildings and crushing poverty of Jakarta mixed uneasily with high end malls and fancy cars and oher evidence of abundant wealth in the hands of a very small privileged minority. I saw firsthand the fierce nationalistic pride of the Vietnamese and the searing scars still remaining from its wars of independence. I arrived in Sydney in the middle of my travels throughout SE Asia and it felt like the volume was turned down, like I was barely awake.
SE Asia affected me in many ways, some of which are too personal to discuss here. But suffice it to say that the whole trip, especially the SE Asian portion, jump-started my system after a long period of paralysis and inertia. Many of my experiences were wonderful and positive, some difficult, some a confusing combination of the two, some of them beyond words or any kind of neat definition. The other day in Jakarta I walked over a bridge stretching across a busy street connecting to Blok M Mall and passed by a woman beggar with what looked like an Adam's apple massively swollen to the size of a grapefruit. What can you say about Cambodian amputees walking the streets in Siem Reap, victims of Khmer Rouge landmines? I saw prostitution thrust out in the open and on such a massive scale that it has become an integral part of the societal fabric. I saw terrain in Central Vietnam where to this day roots could not grow more than 5 feet beneath the ground because of all the toxic chemicals my country dumped on the country in the 60s and 70s. I saw young Thai men bashing themselves into premature brain damage in a boxing ring. I saw things that filled me with wonder and things that filled me with guilt and anxiety. I also saw human warmth and empathy in the most unexpected places.
I knew the least about Indonesia before visiting and it turned out to be far more complex, perplexing, difficult, amazing, and memorable than I anticipated. What I could not prepare myself for were the Indonesians themselves. Indonesians are the friendliest people I met on my travels (next would be the Cambodians) and they love Bules (white people). They are naturally outgoing and are unencumbered by Western notions of personal space and privacy and will strike up conversations with perfect strangers and fire off personal questions without hesitation. (The women, however, tend to much more shy than the men, especially when it comes to the opposite sex.) I am a very private person, an introvert, and adjusting to these cultural norms proved to be quite challenging. My Indonesian tour guide, an Australian, told me that every travelerer should go to at least one place where there are no other foreigners around, and I experienced that to a large degree in Jakarta, which has almost no tourism. Expats are generally only here to work and those numbers have thinned considerably since the economic decline in the late 90s as Suharto was forced from power after decades of rigid control and widespread corruption. I did not stay in the backpacker area my last time in Jakarta and when I walked the streets and wandered the malls I was often the only Bule in sight. I was openly stared at and gawked at and the intensity of the silent and not-so-silent attention focused on me became a bit unnerving. I had to periodically retreat to the relative anonymity of my hotel room in order to escape from this gaze. But I also managed to make friends wherever I went, no small feat for an introvert. I also learned to smile at every available opportunity, as the smile functions as an all-purpose social lubricant in Indonesia, to fill in pauses and save face and smooth over awkward moments. This was a good exercise for someone as stony-faced as myself.
There was a dark side to Indonesiam good cheer as well. The poverty was relentless. Corruption and graft are commonplace. There is basically no infrastructure and no central organization. Food shortages and rising gas prices are stressing an already overburdeend population. Jakarta is a mass of endless traffic jams and sweltering heat and vast economic disparity. I thought of the famous traffic jam setpiece in Godard's Weekend as I crawled through gridlock inch by precious inch, as two lanes magically became three, as I miraculously inched up to 40, 50 and even on one rare occasion 60 km/h. Jakarta seemingly has no rules and no laws and I heard tales of vigilante justice meted out to pickpockets where thieves are beaten within an inch of their life or dipped in gasoline and set on fire. However, Jakarta has a reputation for being quite safe, given its poverty, especially for Westerners. I wanted to check out the (in)famous club Stadium in Kota but decided against it after being warned by multiple people that I would be accosted by drug dealers and mama sans and that someone would liberate me of my wallet. The nightlife here is unbeatable but also disconcertingly decadent. The natural beauty in Indonesia blew me away so many times, but it's the product of a volatile ecosystem always at risk for earthquakes and tsunamis. Overall, for all its difficulties and complexities, I loved Indonesia and I hope to back there sometime soon!
1 July 2008. I turned on my mobile phone today for the first time in nearly six months.
you should have hit the stadium club, it's an unforgettable experience, and next time your in indo, spend some more time outside of jakarta, there's so much more that the country offers, and believe me, you won't be the first buleh to roam the streets.
Posted by: chris | September 30, 2009 at 08:33 AM