Revisiting the Old City

On my first visit to Jakarta about three months ago, I visited the Old City of Jakarta. While I was there I was in the old governor's residence, which is now a museum, and I met a young woman in the museum. Her name was Tary. She was nice and we have kept in touch on Facebook. When I decided to come back she said that she would be back in Jakarta as well. We decided to meet again. We arranged to meet on the Sunday. This was the day after I managed to misplace my wallet, and I was a bit blue, so it was good way to distract myself. I find it's always good to spend time in the company of an attractive woman. (I had found some information on the website of my bank. It turned out that of all the countries in the region, they have a branch here in Indonesia, and it's in Jakarta. I will visit them on the off chance they can fix the problem here without me having to do anything more drastic.)

I started out early in the morning, as I wasn't sure how long it would take to get to the old city. I planned to take the Busway, but so far I have noticed that it is crowded going in that direction in the mornings. And this was Sunday. When I got to the main street with the Busway line, I noticed something very odd. There was virtually no traffic. Vehicular traffic, that is. There were all these people walking down the middle of the street. There were a few buses, and taxis moving along the side of the road by the sidewalks. Other than that, there was nothing. I was amazed. I hadn't seen anything like since Seoul closed its downtown for the World Cup games, and before that for the beef protests. But those events were late in the day and into the evening and night. This was Sunday morning when people would presumably have time to spend with family. There were be expected to be a lot of traffic. And there was nothing. I asked one of the Busway attendants if there was something special happening. I was told that it was Sunday and Sundays were car-free days on some of the major roads of Jakarta. This is in a city and a country known world-wide (and locally) for corruption and rule-breaking. And people were abiding by this initiative that was presumably begun in response to greenhouse gases and climate change. People here are voluntarily not driving their cars on one day a week, at least in small parts of Jakarta. And the U.S. won't ratify accords like Kyoto. Canada thumbs its nose at climate change with big emissions and maligned projects like the Alberta tar sands. Australia proposes and then waters down a carbon tax, that probably will not make any difference at all in how much people drive and use oil. It's a bit lop-sided if you ask me. But then, nobody did. (Now, you may not believe me about this without a photo. Unfortunately, I didn't have my photo card in my camera at the time that I took those photos and so they were not recorded anywhere. I'm on a roll.)

After marvelling for a few minutes about the people walking down the middle of what had been a busy street the day before, I hopped on the Busway and headed to the old city. I arrived waaaaay early. So, I wandered around the old city square for a while. There was some kind of festival on, the Warung Festival. I have no idea what 'warung' means, but there were two great big tents set up for some kind of shows. (These turned out to be puppet shows, as I found out later.) While I was wandering about the square, I noticed the bicycles. I have seen some strange “fashion” motivations before, but this one was really quite amusing. If you look closely at the line of bicycles, you will see that the helmets are colour-matched to the bicycles. And they looked so incongruous, all polished and shiny in a square that is all dirt and grime.

And in a bit of a stranger twist, there was this line of bicycles. A couple can ride these ones, with the man having a colour-matched helmet, while the woman (I presume the woman at any rate, as I doubt any man would wear them) gets to wear a dainty sun hat, also colour-matched. It escaped me why the women get something that will fail to protect their heads in an accident of some sort.

After wandering around for a bit, I sat down to wait for Tary. While I was waiting, a man approached and started talking to me. I am usually fairly wary of talkative strangers now, as it usually ends up with a price tag of some sort at the end. But I was waiting for my friend, and I figured that if he came up to me and started talking to me, then I could easily refuse any kind of fee at the end. He was an English teacher in the school here in Jakarta and liked to come to the old city to find people to talk to and to practice his English. We chatted for a while and then Tary showed up. Great, I thought, a way to get away. He was nice and all, but I have become jaded and I figured the hit up for money was on its way. Tary came over, and the man introduced himself. Then he started telling us about the museum of the Bank of Indonesia, which was just nearby and was free. He offered to show us. Uh oh. There it was, the offer to show us something, which would turn into his having been a guide, which would turn into me owing him some money. But I couldn't figure out a good way to refuse, especially in front of an Indonesian who also didn't object. So off we went. Well, I figured, the last time I got shown something by a nice helpful Indonesian in Jakarta, it had only ended up costing me about 30 dollars. Even in my reduced circumstances, I'd be able to manage. And then it occurred to me that he had approached me in order to practice English. Aha!!! I was saved. I could just turn around and explain my tutor fee. I could even make it high enough that I would be owed money. Haha!

When we arrived at the museum, I was allowed to take my camera in, but no other belongings. I had to leave my backpack, and even my camera bag, in the check room. I found that odd. Usually its the other way around. A bag can go in, but there are to be no cameras. But whatever, I could take photos, so that was nice. And the building is quite nice. They are still refurbishing it, but a lot of is has been renovated and the history of the banking system is really well presented inside.

It is even presented in both Indonesian and in English (and the English is quite well done). I hadn't expected it to be quite so interesting. It's just the banking system, after all. Banking systems are quite dry subjects, if you ask me. So there were the usual sorts of displays with the old currencies in the country, and how it changed over time, particular from pre-colonial days of tribes and other groups, to the introduction of the colonial currencies, to the post-colonial currencies up to the present. Dry, as I had thought. But then they also presented the anatomy of the IMF crisis of 1997, that had begun in Thailand (I think), and then spread in a kind of domino effect through much of east and southeast Asia. Indonesia was quite hard hit by it all, and the presentation of how it came out, how it started and proceeded, then how it was healed (and continues to be healed even now) was quite fascinating. Another big room had examples of all the different currencies from the different periods on Indonesian history. But they also had currency from many of the countries around the world. It was too dark to take photos in that room, unfortunately, but it was really quite neat. As we were walking around the courtyard area there was a stained glass window of Hermes.

While we were looking at it, the man who had brought us was approached by some kids who asked him if I would take a photo with them. I agreed. They were cute.  (By the way, that is not my hand.)

Then we headed back out into the sunshine and back to the courtyard of the old city. At that point, I fully expected to be hit up for cash. We went to look at one of the puppet shows, which were on by this time. And the man just wandered off and started talking to some other foreigners who were in the square. I guess I had misjudged him. Damn all those people who do hit the unsuspecting tourists up for money for showing them something interesting! It ends up being so unfair to the ones who really are just being nice. And it puts the tourist on guard instead of fully enjoying an experience. Sigh!!

Tary and I went for some tea, then we went shopping. She knew about a place where there was cheap clothes. She wanted to do some shopping and I just had nothing better to do, so I went with her. It's always good to know locals. They are the ones who always know the non-ripoff places to shop. We went to this place called Tanah Abang. It was HUGE! About 14 floors tall and filled with all kinds of stalls selling mostly clothes. There were muslim fashion floors. There were non-muslim fashion floors. There were men's clothing floors. There were sports floors. There were accessory floors. Tary found a dress she bought, and then I decided I needed a hat, if I could find one. My ball cap had fallen apart some time ago, so I bought a cheap one in Australia. Unfortunately in tourist spots where one buys caps, they are almost always covered in some kind of tourist schtick. Or they are advertising for some sports brand or other. I hate all that. But I didn't have much choice. I ended up buying on that said “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” on the head part, and “Australia” on the sun visor part. I was annoyed by that, but there just wasn't anything else that I could buy that was cheap. At Tanah Abang, although it was somewhat complicated by the fact that Indonesians apparently have much smaller heads than westerners, I ended up finding a good hat that fit well and was blissfully unadorned with anything at all. And it seems to be well made to boot.

But while we were at that mall, I became aware of something interesting. In the west, we have this triskedekaphobia, the fear of 13. I still recall how, when I attended the University of Calgary, the library had 14 floors. Only the elevator went from the 12^th floor to the 14^th floor without a button for the 13^th floor. It existed and it was possible to stop there, but only with a key. And the only thing on the floor was a bunch of machinery for the running of the building. In Asia, there is a problem with 13 as well, but the real problem is with the number 4. In Chinese the word for 4 closely resembles the word for death. So many of the Asian countries, who have been heavily influenced by Chinese culture throughout history, don't like to use the number 4. In Korea, instead of using 4 in elevators and such, they use an “F.” And here in Indonesia, they have another solution. (And they also dealt with 13 in the same way, labelling the floor 12A)