Buhay Bangkok

Been to Jakarta last week. Chi and I took a three-and-a-half hour Thai Airways flight so that we could attend a lecture forum by SEAPA member ISAI and AJI’s 14th anniversary celebration. We stayed at the Atlet Century Park Hotel, just across the Bung Karno sports center. It’s like their equivalent of Manila’s Rizal Stadium, but has a larger area open area and with more trees.

Some random notes:

• Jakarta’s CBD has a lot of similarities with Makati. Unlike Sukhumvit and Silom where there are numerous stalls and hawkers under the shadows of their skyscrapers, Jakarta’s skyline is impressive and the major streets remind me of Makati, Ayala and Buendia avenues.

• Indonesians look like Pinoys.

• Indonesians sound like Pinoys. Bahasa Indonesia shares some notable words from some of our own languages like Tagalog, Ilocano and Bisaya.

Examples:

- masuk = pasok (Tagalog)

- pintu = pinto (Tagalog)

- keluar = luwas, luwar (Bicolano / Aklanon)

- anak = anak (Tagalog)

- mangan = mangan (Ilocano)

- bayar = bayad (Tagalog)

Can you imagine Mike Enriquez growling: “Jiggy Manicad, masuk!!!”

• Indonesians act like Pinoys too. Unlike Thais who are usually inscrutable, hiding their real emotions behind their smiles, Indonesians are more open. They eat with their bare hands too! The ISAI guys treated us to dinner in a Javanese restaurant on our second night. Once the food had been served, we all dug in!

• I love goreng. My first meal in Jakarta was seafood goreng at Senayan Plaza. It cost around 77,000 Rupia or something like 372 Baht, with a glass of ice peach tea, but I tell you, it was worth it. The dish was a bit spicy, but not as hot as Thai chili, and the herbs mixed with it should have made the goreng I ate worth more than 500 Baht. The two huge tiger prawns was, to mix metaphors, mere icing on the cake.

• I had been wrong to assume that all Muslims are conservative. The Indonesians I met were moderates, I didn’t even notice they were Muslims. Some of them drink beer! Needless to say, one can easily buy cans and bottles of Heineken even in small stores.

• I also met some interesting people. One of the ISAI officials had been a political detainee under Suharto for, get this, 14 years. He had been arrested during the 1965 coup and was released (along with some of his mates) only in 1979 after an appeal from then US President Jimmy Carter. He had even been sent, along with 10,000 other political detainees, to an Indonesian version of a gulag. I forgot the name, but it’s an island where he and his fellow detainees grew rice to feed the Indonesian military. Another used to be a journalist who covered Indonesia’s occupation of then East Timor. A top-ranking official of AJI, meanwhile, is so disarming with his witticisms and folksy humor, he can even trade jokes with Indonesia’s vice president, who had been the guest speaker during the awarding ceremony.

One final note, this time, about Thai Airways. I really like this airline. They serve so much delicious food. On our trip to Jakarta, since it was a morning flight, we were served only a choice of omelet or dumplings. But on the return flight, since it was midday, we got the full treatment. Either chicken, beef, or lamb steaks, plus a wide array of drinks to wash them all down, from plain mineral water to apple juice to Coke to red and white wines to beer to heavier stuff like whisky, brandy and vodka. I should have chosen the red wine to go with the lamb steak, but at the time, I was really hankering for a can of ice-cold Coke, and regular at that!

 

The view from my hotel window. The Jakarta CBD skyline reminds me of Makati’s. At the foreground is the Bung Karno Memorial Sports center.

The Bung Karno National Sports Stadium

Wedged between skyscrapers, Senayan Plaza is dwarfed by the city’s skyline.

I stayed in this hotel for several days. It’s right across the Bung Karno Stadium. One of our Indonesian contacts told me that this used to be a dormitory for Indonesia’s national athletes (hence, the Bahasa word, “atlet”). One thing I found amusing (and intriguing) in my hotel room is the rather big bathroom with two, I repeat, two showerheads. I surmise each room at the erstwhile dormitory housed two athletes (did the two showerheads also mean they, ehem, showered together?).

I attended the dinner reception in honor of the 14th anniversary of the Alliance of Indonesian Journalists (AJI). This beautiful emcee (sorry, I can only zoom my N70 camfone only at this distance; I was seated midway from the stage) has a resemblance to Filipina actress Jean Garcia. I learned later that she is a popular TV news anchor.

The keynote speaker, his Excellency Jusuf Kalla, Vice President of Indonesia.

A mural advertising Indonesia’s leading newsmagazine, Tempo.

Indonesian handicraft

Bahasa Indonesia shares many words with Tagalog and other Philippine languages.