Indonesia's great for animals, you can get all sorts here, and they don't last long, which is even better! Scabby cats are ten a penny. Who needs to take in strays, when for just a dollar you can buy a prime 'guaranteed high quality' specimen from the ojeg drivers on the corner.
You might even get lucky and buy a blind one, or one with some strangely exotic and highly contagious skin disease. And it'll help you build a bond with the local community when you go back to replace Flaky Flaps, or whatever you call it, on a monthly basis.
Dogs are a little more expensive, and they need more food, but are great fun for scaring little kids on bikes, especially if you file their teeth to razor points and shave patches of hair off.
If you some cats too, well that cuts down on the food bills... If you want to go upmarket, there're plenty of 'tropical' options. No birds fly freely here, because they've all died of bird flu. Hold on, I'm wrong... Oh yeah, they're all in cages!
The bird market is really where your bargaining skills come into play: why buy just one? Just go to the guys outside the shoppping malls with bird cages and buy five - then you'll get one for free, and maybe a sweet discount on a 30cm-square cage to put them all in!
For an extra few thousand rupiah, you might get them all colour co-ordinated in pink, blue, yellow or whatever other colours you can get permanent markers in. The lower maintenance, less contagious, though less cuddly, option is the snake. Available again from the mall-front entrepeneurs, these are the masculine alternative to kittens, and will surely dazzle all visitors to your house.
The best time to get one of these bad boys is on a Friday or Saturday evening in the city centre, when there are many Western Shrivelled Trouser Snakes (Buleus floppius) on the prowl, looking for some chicken. Be careful not to let it escape in a public area, as it is likely to be hammered flat by a scared pembantu, or have all of the blood sucked out of it by a Chinese man in search of extra 'oomph'.
The true connoiseur of the pet market will love to take the opportunity to raise a primate here. For less than a bag of monkey nuts, you can buy a whole monkey, nuts intact. THis season's monkey fashion essential is arguably the 'Spongebob Squarepants' babygro, though for a little more you can go upmarket and get one with an Air Supply t-shirt.
The life expectancy of a pet monkey is notably short here, as they seem to be bred without an immune system, though will be able to give any children nearby a good respiratory disorder as they are humping its leg. For the pet lover on a tight time-frame, goats are a good way to go. Prime goat-buying season is about a month or so after Ramadhan, and you won't have time to form too close a bond with it before you have to say goodbye.
Soon after you have named it, had the vet remove all of its expensive yet invisible parasites and got in some good goat-style quality time, your neighbours will hop the fence in the dead of night, stealthily making as much noise as possible as they wrestle it free of its chain. If you're not up by the crack of dawn the next morning, it's too late - poor Billy (I'm sure your name will be a whole pile more imaginitive) will have been chopped up and distributed to the locals. Not to worry about the boring old land-dwellers, though.
Indonesia is surrounded by water, and that water is filled with wonderful potential pets. First off is the easily-kept Jakartan Brown Trout (Turdinina turdina). To get hold of one of these friendly chaps, wait for some local boys to go swimming in the stream and carefully pluck one from their hair. Keep them in a well-ventilated pond or in a cup of tea in the staffroom fridge, if you want to extend their lifespan.
Once you have mastered the low-demand fish species, it's time for a step up into the world of turtles. Turtles are endangered everywhere in the world except Indonesia. How do I know that? Because I asked a man who was selling one. "Is it OK to sell these?" "Oh yes Mister, very OK. You want?" And that, of course, is conclusive proof of the acceptability of buying and selling turtles.
These pets will set you back a great deal, perhaps enough to feed a whole family of turtle-catchers for a month, but they will give you a free black plastic bag to carry it home in. Turtles truly are a challenge to keep alive, but don't worry - their shells make great souvenirs, and you can bulk-send stuff home for next to nothing. The perfect coffee-table ornament, next to the collection of coral.
Indonesia is truly wonderful for the pet lover.
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