Lantern Madness

More than 100 flights at Chiang Mai International Airport have been cancelled and 50 flights have been rescheduled during next week's Loy Krathong festival.The move was taken as a safety measure to ensure planes avoid the lanterns released to celebrate the event, according to the airport.

Almost 20,000 passengers are affected by the flight cancellations and the airport will lose about 2 million baht in revenue, said airport director Group Captain Wisuth Chantana 

During the festival last year, a total of 1,419 lanterns fell in to the Chiang Mai International Airport area, according to Gp Capt Wisuth.

The lantern issue was also discussed at the cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

Deputy government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said the cabinet agreed to the safety measures which stipulate that lanterns can only be released after 9pm between Nov 5-7.

Meanwhile, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has banned people from releasing lanterns on Nov 6, Loy Krathong day, over key historical areas as well as government offices, airports, tall buildings and residential areas of the city.

Doubt very much that any bans will be policed, hard to break the habits of a lifetime...., 

Test. Is this still working?

Whodunnit!

An angry mob surrounded the offices of Greenpeace Indonesia yesterday in what some are viewing as a "hired help" demonstration having been commissioned.


The potential candidates who ordered the hit include:


Mattel "Barbie destroys natural forests and pushes rare species such as tigers to the brink of extinction," Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Bustar Maitar said.

Sinar Mas (APP is the Pulp and Paper arm of this Conglomerate within Indonesia): "APP is bad news for Indonesia's forests. It treats Indonesia as nothing more than a vast disposable asset, grabbing rainforests that are vital to forest communities," Maitar said.

Could it be the Police?

No matter who, it seems that anyone who attempts to save the natural resources within Indonesia ultimately gets attacked, dismissed, transferred or just generally derided such that any impact that they may have had is marginalised.

Yesterday, it was the turn of Greenpeace to feel the heat, although, funnily enough it appeared to be an attempt at extortion rather than "negative selling" with legendary Jakarta thugs the FBR (Betawi Brotherhood Forum) making all the noise.

Known locally as rent a mob, the FBR are known to turn up, make amusing unreal demands and then adopt a threatening stance when they are treated as a petulant child.  Their stance yesterday was that Greenpeace was an illegal organisation as they had not registered with the Jakarta City organisation. 

Greenpeace spokeswoman Nur Hidayati retorted with the fact that they had, as required by law, registered with the Minstry of Justice and Human Rights.

The piece below is from today's Jakarta Globe:

An FBR spokesman yelled at Nur Hidayati, saying her response was “arrogant” and indicated that the NGO was concerned about being audited.

The Greenpeace representative said they had nothing to hide and each year received 50,000 individual donations in Indonesia alone.

Greenpeace has recently been in the news for its sustained campaign against the palm oil industry in Indonesia, in particular deforestation activities by major palm oil companies, including Sinar Mas.

FBR spokesman Fajri Husbin demanded that Greenpeace stop spreading negative stories about Indonesian companies, particularly those that created local jobs.

Protesters outside the offices also demanded Greenpeace employees sing the national anthem and recite the state ideology Pancasila and if they could not, face eviction from Indonesia.

 Love it here. No matter what goes on there's always a whiff of WTF ......

One mans fag is another mans medicine!

I quit smoking at 7:36pm on the 6th of April 2010 and have not indulged in a cigarette since then. One single draw on a cigarette about a month later was all the encouragement I needed to stay away!


However, the people in this country have differing ideas on the effects of tobacco, so much so that they use it to cure cancer!





The tobacco industry is huge here and the Indonesian governments new tobacco bill aimed at reducing the amount of tobacco consumed in an attempt to stave of future health problems is under attack from the farmers who claim ( quite correctly I imagine) that there will be massive job losses.


What better way to protest than show that you have faith in your product!


 


Figures suggest that kids start smoking around 10 years old and that approximately 30% of Indonesians smoke at least 12 cigarettes a day!. Nice local market to have, but, the governments plan to eliminate Tobacco Advertising, prohibit smoking in public and put the obligatory diseased lung shots on the fag packet will cause a gaping revenue hole for the local manufacturers.





With the government at odds to save some of the 400,000 people a year who die from smoking related illnesses or to consider the tax revenues from this industry there are tough decisions to be made and once again, Indonesia proves that it can pretend to do the right thing while ignoring the problem.


Hence the reason for the Smoking Hospital being mentioned earlier.  It has all the permits, health credentials and is allowed to operate as a health care facility and is unlikely to be closed.


Cancer. no probs. Let me get a wadge of smoke in your earhole....





Piles, we got you covered, let me inject some of this shit into your big toe!





Sort of says it all.....Indonesia, never a dull moment.

Not as far away as one would think!

My mother came to visit, the usual stuff was planned, visit to Bali, shopping, see her grandchild's school and so on. I re-discovered that there was a limit to what one could actually do in Jakarta before the traffic wore one down and that even if the Monas is a "must see" that the one hour trek to see it becomes tedium of the highest order.

Inspiration came via a glance at the hills on my way to work last Wednesday. One of these bright and clear Jakarta mornings showed the Gunungs in the distance and I knew instantly where we were heading that afternoon.

Taking the Jagorawi Toll, a journey which I have only made three times, two for the A1 Motro races and one for the obligatory visit to Tamam Safari, we chose not to take the well trodden Bogor / Puncak / Tamam Safari road and instead headed right at the junction and made for Ciawi.



As soon as the dual carriageway stopped it became apparent that the decision to avoid the more common tourist route was a good one as the road narrowed and the small market town ahead bustled with "real kampung" activity (as compared to Jakartan kampung activity)



Between the small villages, paddies, hill's and landscapes changed with each kilometre travelled, no two vita's were the same...



The ubiquitous handicraft stores were strewn along the roads, however, not so much "in your face" as Bali can be....



Garden Furniture....



WTF, still never figured this stuff out...



Rattan....



Pottery....

Meanwhile, as we travelled, the little bit's of landscape which makes this place unique unfolded...



Downhill....



Uphill....



The strange multi-storey living accomodations...



Bamboo Car Ports....



More high rise housing....



Wobbly Roofs



Cock Fighting!



Just houses and mountains...



More Paddies...



More mountains and clouds....



Mosques under construction...



Small hidden Kampungs



And finally ending up South of Bogor.

All in all, a three and a half hour trip well worth making...I should do this more often methinks....

Giving it "back" to the Man!

With age comes wisdom, and, it seems in the case of Patih Laman, almost 90 years old and still capable of raising two fingers to authority that this is as true now as it ever was.

Patih is the leader of the Talang Malak Tribe in Sumatra and has won an award for conservation efforts in the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park where he and his kinsmen live.

However, recently he made the journey from the forest to the Provincial Governors Office to hand the coveted award back and ask that it be sent back to Jakarta, presumably with a note saying “Shove it up yer arse”



Patih was displaying his disappointment on the lack of control that the government has with illegal logging operations in the park. Specifically he was disgusted that having saved and conserved over 1,800 hectares of the once massive Penyabungan and Penganan jungle the Government’s inaction toward checking deforestation in his area has caused devastating deforestation.

Putting the problem in perspective is that although he has saved quite a substantial amount of forest land, the surrounding area which consists of 104,933 hectares in Tunu River, 98,577 hectares in Durian Jajar and 21,901 hectares in Kelumbuk Tinggi Baner, has all been converted into oil palm plantations. The rest of the non national park land has been given over to paper production.

Strangely, the areas on the map below which have a red border are areas where the pulp and paper manufacturers are raping the forest are also among the areas where the majority of wildlife sightings have been made.



The tribe who have lived in the forests for many generations used to grow and tend Sialang Tree’s, a preferred home for Honey Bee’s. These tree’s are spread a distance apart to allow a large and varied coverage area for the bees, which, when the honey is ready would supply about 150 kgs of Honey from each tree on each harvest. Sadly, it seems only ten such tree’s exist.

As is the way of things here, it seems that the local government, despite claiming to actively promote conservation, refused to see Patih and he left the award with lower level staff who presumably now have it hanging proudly on their office wall.

That Sinking Feeling!

There’s an awful lot of talk and not a lot of doing! Yes, it’s that time again when the floods, landslides, storms and the numerous other contributors to Jakartan misery all join forces at the same time.

Flood relief canals are yet to be finished, waterways that were dredged are once again laden with the plastic debris that Jakarta seems infested with, Dengue Fever strikes again in the slums of East Jakarta and Bekasi and, it is thought that the worst has yet to come.

Yet, despite the torrential downpours, the city is dying through lack of, yes, you guessed it…water.

It is currently thought that Jakarta is sinking at a rate of between 5-10 cm per year and, given these figures it is clear that in the not too distant future the floods of today will appear miniscule compared to the problems a city below sea level faces.

Groundwater extraction is considered the main culprit, however, it is estimated that more than half the city relies upon the subterranean water sources.

To get a better idea about groundwater usage and it’s sustainability I found this picture on Wiki and scarily, it shows how the aquifers replenish and more importantly, demonstrates that unless carefully used the system can fall into the millennia curve which is where the pundits claim Jakarta is heading – fast!




Estimates to connect houses with mains water and sewage systems are astronomical and no-one, not even private industry can see a way of making any return on investment on a project whose scale cannot be properly imagined.

Think tanks have another option; let’s move Jakarta away from Jakarta. Not strictly speaking what they intend, but, the movement of political power from Jakarta to a fresh site would allow a new start with an infrastructure designed to handle the requirements that a modern capital city needs.

Locations in Central Java and even Kalimantan have been suggested; hopefully with an eye on what impact such a move would have on the existing area, yet, it seems that on the whole such a scheme is destined to failure, mostly due to “what will we do with the old place”?

It is off course about money. Who will pay for a relocation?

If we don’t move, who will pay for the MTR the city so greatly requires?; who will pay for the large scale water conservation programme that is required?; who will pay for the increased green area’s that will be needed to soak up the cities daily figure of 13,000 tons of CO2 emissions?; who will pay for the clean water and sewage systems mentioned above?; and, perhaps more importantly, who will NOT pay for the shortcuts, permissions and general skulduggery involved in any project that is approved.

Ironically, Jakarta stands on a brink, stark choices have to be made and as of today there is no single body that has the power or financing to oversee such an ambitious plan and execute these schemes in a co-ordinated manner.

Until that body is created, it seems we must endure the shitty air (347 days out of 365), be prepared for 2014 when the entire city is expected to become gridlocked, expect to be one of the third of the population who are sickened by respiratory illness once a month, and as for the shits, get used to them, they may be here for many years to come.

Top Investment Tip: Buy shares in any company who manufactures a product that will stop you coughing your guts up or shitting yourself. I foresee a continued demand for these Jakartan essentials.