When is a chicken not a chicken.

The Bugils Group owns a number of good bars here in Jakarta and truth be told I frequent two of them on a regular basis.

I am apparently well known in De Hooi and Eastern Promise, an irregular visitor to Cazbar but, unknown in the One Tree bar in Block M.

Block M, or more specifically Jalan Faletehan, the street One Tree Bar and many others are situated in has a reputation for friendliness which can be purchased, the purveyors of such affection are known as "Ayam" (Chickens) and they contribute a great deal to the street's popularity.

One Tree Bar has until now been Ayam free but, it appears that may no longer be the case. The bars latest promotion had me scratching my head......



However, in fairness they do operate under an equal opportunities programme which forbids sexual discrimination. I am sure that Monday nights in One Tree must be a delight for us straights and rugmunchers alike!

Poaching for beginners

Poaching has never been so easy. No need to get into the jungle, set traps, avoid conservation officers or any of the real “poaching stuff” .

The new method is simple, a bit like buying a TV Dinner instead of cooking, the cunning plan, get your animal fresh from the zoo.

Police in the believe that it was an inside job questioned the vet and five other workers from the Taman Rimbo zoo in the town of Jambi in Sumatra after its Sumatran tiger was killed early on Saturday.

Detectives suspected the thieves poisoned the female tiger, and slaughtered her in the wee hours when the zoo was almost unguarded.

The police found remnants of meat bait that contained anaesthetics and intestinal parts of the protected animal in her cage. It was also thought that the tigress did not attack as she knew the intruders.

It appears that the cage had been left unlocked to allow zoo workers to feed the tiger, which had been settled in the zoo for 20 years since its birth at Ragunan zoo in Jakarta.

Obviously the recession is biting deep in Sumatra......

Burn Baby Burn

Last week in Sumatra it appears that hundreds of people rallied and burned down tens of houses in a red light district in Pelalawan, as part of a vigilante style anti-vice campaign ahead of Ramadan.

Police apparently stood by and stated that they could not stop the crowd from damaging the properties.

The Jakarta Globe reported…

Earlier, residents living around the red light district had demanded its closure, but their request was ignored, which led them to take the law into their own hands.

Initially, people were only vandalizing property in the area, but then some began setting fire to the dwellings. The fire spread quickly as most of the homes were made of wood.

The tenants in the houses attempted to extinguish the blaze and limit the damage to property, but it was too large.

“The people have long warned red light district operators to stop their activities but the warnings were ignored. This is the result of their arrogance,” said the third chairman of the local chapter of the Council of Ulema. (Pardon me but the use of the word arrogance is questionable here)

He said the red light activities in the area had been going on for decades and its presence had made the local community feel uncomfortable. It was also hurting the morality of the younger generation, he added.

Bit heavy handed but it seems that if you are moral enough, mob rule overcomes Law and Order.

All it amounts to is that the former customers will be deprived off (see photo below) for a while…..

There is something so very wrong about this!

Captured at a mosque presumed to be in Bandung...I wonder if he knew what his tee shirt implied!

Another WTF moment! (Thanks to Geoff for the heads up on this one)

It Beggars belief!

Sit at any traffic light in Jakarta and within seconds there will be the sound of grains of rice in a water bottle being rattled outside the car window. The beggars are everywhere and despite begging being illegal, it seems the city authorities are powerless in the matter.

However, with Ramadan on hand, the city fathers have ordered a “clampdown on the surge of beggars who flock to capital” during the holy momth.

One official went on record to state:

“On the second day of fasting [Sunday], there were 200 beggars caught in five municipalities,” he said. “This is part of the bylaw enforcement that aims to anticipate the sudden surge in the number of beggars during the fasting month.” 

It has been claimed that that in 2008, there were 7,000 beggars caught in raids during Ramadan. Around 5,000 were placed in social shelters, about 1,100 were sent home and the rest were taken back by their families. 

Under the 2007 bylaw on public order, the city administration bans people from giving money to beggars. It advises the public to channel their alms instead to trusted aid organizations. The bylaw regulates that giving money to beggars is punishable with six months' imprisonment and maximum fines of Rp 20 million. Those caught receiving alms on the street would be sent to a “Social Institution”  in West Jakarta.

The Social Institution is in essence a short time prison, the arrested beggars would sometimes be in the same cells as other petty criminals. Report’s have been made that Public Order Officials locked up a wide range of people, from 3-in-1 jockeys who used to be thugs, to homeless people and sex workers.

The Jakarta Post ran an editorial in June which contained the following quote!

While rules against violators of public order are supposed to be indiscriminate, what catches our attention are most often arrests of roadside vendors, traffic "jockeys", sex workers, squatters or beggars - coincidentally, it seems, all members of the urban poor.

Public order officials have thus earned little respect in their efforts, behaving like thugs in uniforms. A public outcry followed the recent death of a sex worker in Tangerang (just west of the capital) who jumped into a river to avoid a raid. And the latest uproar followed a raid on vendors in Surabaya during which a pot of boiling water belonging to a noodle vendor was overturned, fatally scalding the vendor's infant child.

Despite angry calls to dismantle the entire institution of public order, Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo says it is still needed, to help uphold city rules.

There are however moments of amusement. A few years ago a raid on beggars at the Istiqlal Mosque in Central Jakarta, turned ugly when dozens of people inside the mosque chased the officers away, hurling plastic bottles and chairs at them. Seeing the public order officers approaching the mosque at about 11:30 p.m., many of the beggars ran inside the mosque.

This interrupted a Koran reading, the participants of which thought the officers had come to check their identity cards. The participants put down their Korans and gave chase to the officers.

It seems this year that the city is serious, I’ll keep my camera in the hope of seeing a mob of the faithful in full flight after the city officials……….. 

Presumed Not Guilty (At least by a photograph)

I know that much of the stuff I post avoids political issues and as yet I have not commented on what is either a political "framing" or a "crime of passion", but, something in the Jakarta Globe yesterday made me smile wryly.


For those who are not within Indonesia the suspended antigraft agency chairman Antasari Azhar is reputed to have ordered the murder of another state firm executive called Nasrudin Zulkarnaen apparently over a love triangle between them and a rather tasy looking "Golf caddy" who was the victims third wife.


It has also been suggested that blackmail may have been an additional motive with the dead man using the romance as a lever to prevent his own company being investigated for corruption.


Yesterdays Jakarta Globe rand a story yesterday with the opening lines as follows:


"Antasari was suspended in May from the KPK and on Tuesday was handed over by police to prosecutors, a sign that his trial is imminent


Antasari Azhar returned to the South Jakarta Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday — not in his former role as head of the office but instead as the suspected mastermind of a murder, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of death. 

Despite being under police escort, the 56-year-old looked calm as he entered the office, where he held the top job until 2007, greeting several prosecutors who used to be his subordinates."


Now, this is where my wry smile came in! Look at the picture below and ask yourself, does it look as though the prosecutor is really going to go after the accused?





Looks more to me, looking at the body language that the outcome has been predetermined!


Another case of "I'm all right Jack" in my opinion. Place your bets please.......

On doing F*ck all

It's that time of the year again, an opportunity to get back to the house and do absolutely nothing. After all the shit in Jakarta during July I really thought I'd better get my head down and clear my desk up to ensure nothing would linger and haunt me during my vacation.

I managed to achieve this and last Friday used a chunk of airmiles to upgrade my economy class ticket to a business return and buggered of to Thailand where I am now typing from the garden and looking forward to two weeks of virtually nothing.

Ice cold beers, shorts and flip flops, great roadside food and a huge sense of "smug" are the order of the day for the foreseeable future. I reckon the only thing that would piss me off is if Krakatoa blew the big one and I was not there.......

Later!