A Hit Of Java

After a luxuriant week in Bali’s cozy confines, we caught a morning flight west to Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city situated in the northwest corner of the island of Java. Vik made sure to book us on Garuda Indonesia, the country’s national carrier boasting a much newer fleet and a far less dubious safety record than several of its upstart, discount competitors with such confidence-inspiring names as Air Adam and Lion Air.

Much larger in size and breadth than Bali, Java is not only the most populous of Indonesia’s 13,000 islands, but also the most populous island in the world. It domiciles some 60% of the country’s 200 million plus residents (a scale of citizenry that ranks Indonesia as the world’s fourth most populous country after China, India and the U.S.). Java also contrasts sharply with Bali in that it is overwhelmingly Muslim, like the vast majority of Indonesia proper. Before taking off, we were surprised to learn from Jason that Indonesia is on the U.S. State Department’s Travel Warning list because of past violence targeting western tourists and embassies not only in Bali but also in Java.

Upon touching down in Jakarta an hour later and making our way out of the terminal, we were conspicuously reminded of the veracity of Indonesia’s anti-drug policy (as if recent incidents involving Australian tourists weren’t reminder enough). Stopping us in our tracks, a large, conspicuous billboard displayed the mugshots of five apprehended smugglers, each captioned with the quantity of illegal narcotics found on their persons and the associated follow-on punishment administered, almost invariably being a death sentence.

Sufficiently sobered (in all respects), we stepped outside to catch a cab. After struggling mightily to locate a roadside taxi willing to take us downtown for a fair price and then discovering that Vik had absent-mindedly left his pocket travel notebook on the plane, we were forced to regroup. Fortunately, the exceeding courtesy of the Javanese came to the fore in short order. Within minutes, Vik was handed his notebook neatly wrapped in Garuda’s Lost And Found office. Shortly thereafter, a helpful airport hotel representative escorted us to an awaiting air conditioned Silver Bird taxi equipped with a fully-functional meter.

For a city of its size and scale (the metro area holds 23 million people), Jakarta struck us as remarkably open and manageable. To our eyes, the cityscape lacked the overwhelming urban density of other Asian cities like Bangkok or Hong Kong, and seemed liberally peppered with expansive green space. When we finally arrived at the hotel, we were riveted by the elaborate and thorough security process which involved opening all of the doors of the car to be visually inspected at the beginning of the hotel driveway and then passing through an airport-caliber metal detector at the hotel’s front entrance.

After enjoying several hours of downtime in the hotel (mostly characterized by repeated stealth raids of the executive lounge’s cold beverage arsenal and Kaberi’s and Jason’s complete fascination with rebroadcast American Idol episodes and unusual Indonesian game shows), we made arrangements to meet up with our gracious Indonesian host, Anin, for dinner. Having not seen Anin in over six years, Vik left early to meet his friend for a pre-dinner drink and to catch up on happenings since their time together in California.

After some time, a svelte and very stylishly-dressed Anin and a not-so-svelte-or-stylishly-dressed Vik were joined at the bar by Yuri, Anin’s childhood friend and current colleague, and then, Kaberi and Jason. Soon thereafter, the five of us sat down together at the colorful and exquisitely-appointed Lara Jonggrang restaurant to enjoy a mouthwatering feast of Indonesian dishes personally selected by Yuri. The night’s menu consisted of an extensive sampling of melt-in-your-mouth satays and copious amounts of full-bodied red wine.

Our dinner conversation comprised observations about our travels, perspectives on life in Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia as well as enthusiastic retellings of Vik’s and Anin’s Stanford exploits (Vik’s account casting Anin as the party animal and Vik as the studious bystander was summarily dismissed out of hand by his friend). Just as in Bali, with the amazing food and the great company, time flew by all too quickly. As the evening came to a close, we decided to hold Anin and Yuri to the promise that our evening together was merely an appetizer for the compulsory follow-up visits to come, either in Indonesia or back in the States.