A Hard Rain's a gonna fall

It happened twice last week, a sudden downpour of rain in Jakarta did its usual, closed the bloody place.

Motorists were stuck in traffic jams on the Kebayoran Lama underpass, the Casablanca underpass in Central Jakarta, specifically because the underpasses were full off motorbikes who, when it starts to rain head for cover. This in effect brings the normal three lane road down to a desperate single lane, and, will the bikers move, will they fuck.

Head of research and development at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, Ragtag Bobtail, said motorists would still need to anticipate heavy traffic jams due to heavy rain in many areas because the weather was predicted to last until June.

"We technically entered dry season this month but the amount of rainfall is still high," he said, adding that the changing weather would not cause floods in Jakarta as it would end next month.

He said another rainy season would start as usual in October. "We are currently watching the temperature of the Pacific Ocean to determine a weather forecast,"

Now correct me if I am wrong, traffic jams could be minimised if the roads remained passable, and, it is not the water that caused the restrictions, so should the police clear the bikers out of these areas?

The answer here is of course, yes, but, will it happen (see above, will the bikers move, will they fuck), Happy days……

Meanwhile, the toll roads remained bike free thus ensuring I never got caught!


But, that was nothing compared to what was to come, when two days later and for the third time in seven months the toll road to the Airport was flooded.

Bill Gates arrived in that day, over on a two two-day visit, with airline passengers forced to hitch a lift on heavy trucks to pass the flooded sections. (May contain fibs, I’m sure Billy boy flew into town on a chartered helicopter)

The first floods were purely caused by rain, the delayed start of the Rainy season arrived with a vengeance, in February the airport was closed for almost 12 hours due to flooding caused by the combination of rain and high tides. For three days the city ground to a halt and the conditions made thousands temporarily homeless or without a car. Last weeks closure was once again due to rain and high tides.

The Jakarta Post was able to dig this gem up where they quoted: "Memo to self: do not visit Jakarta in the rainy season again," wrote Hong Kong-based economist Jim Walker in a note to clients after he was stuck in traffic for nine hours in early February trying to get to Jakarta's airport, a trip that usually takes no more than one hour.

In addition, The Singapore Straits Times quoted Walker, the head of independent research firm CLSA, as observing: "Today's traffic problems are an apt metaphor for Indonesia: Stuck in first gear with long periods of sitting around waiting for the jam to clear. The country is stuck with lousy leadership, weak institutions and below-potential growth."

Don’t hold back Jim, tell it like it is……however, the Jakarta Post continued with an attack on the Toll Road Operator as follows:

”Ironically, the flooding on the toll road took place as the Toll Road Regulatory Body was approving a proposal by state-owned toll road operator PT Jasa Marga to raise the tolls on the Airport toll road by 12.50 percent.

More confusing was that while newspaper front pages on Friday screamed of the havoc on the airport toll road, the business pages of some newspapers headlined the 1,300 percent increase in the net profit of Jasa Marga for the first quarter. (Also note that Fuzzy Bozo, Jakarta’s Governor stated last week that the Council would not invest in a high speed train link from the centre of town to the airport, something that I’m sure Jasa Marga endorsed)

Something appears grossly amiss here. The ridiculously large profit booked by Jasa Marga seems to reflect the government's attitude in treating such basic infrastructure as freeways, airports and seaports as profit centers.”

That in itself would have been all well and good, but, they missed the point, last weeks floods were not caused by incompetence from the toll road operators, it seems City Hall actually had a hand in it. (No big surprises there, fuckwits to a man.)


Photo - Jakarta Indonesia Urbanlog

Hidden away in the same newspaper was a report that coastal residents in North Jakarta will have to rely on sandbags to hold off tidal waves until July, as the administration continues its tender process for the reconstruction of the embankment that holds water from the Java sea.

"We're still profiling the candidates for the projects. We hope we'll sign contracts with the (tender) winners in July," the head of technology development division of the Public Works Agency, Whothefukarwi, was quoted as saying last week.

He said his agency had allocated Rp 15 billion (US$1.6 million) in the 2008 budget to repair several parts of the broken embankment on the northern coast of Jakarta.
So, the tidal flood which caused the blockage, resulting in dozens of flight delays it transpires was actually caused by a collapsing part of the embankment near the airport. Poor old Jasa Marga (well, perhaps not so poor) were unfortunately landed with the blame, deflecting criticism from poor old City Hall.

According to reports, last weeks high tide reached 2.14 meters, while on two occasions last year a 2.20-meter high tide submerged various sub-districts, causing, let me guess, floods, traffic congestion and forced residents to flee their homes.
Previously, Deputy Governor Pripaic said that the embankment repairs are expected to finish in October, four months after the city administration finished the tender procedure.

Accordingly, until them while waiting for the tender process, the administration would have to stall high tides with sandbags and pumps. Which, guess what, they do not have enough off to do the job properly.

So there we have it in a nutshell, it was all the councils fault, oh and lest I forget, these fucking motorcyclists.

Bastards, all of them!

EDIT: 15th May 2008 - From the Jakarta Post...


Airport toll road operator PT Jasa Marga will build a dam to prevent floods caused by high tides, the company said Tuesday.

The dam, made of concrete, will measure 4 meters high by 8 meters deep and 2 kilometers long.

"It will run from kilometer 26 to 28 of the toll road, which is the area most susceptible to flooding. We expect it to be completed in June," Jasa Marga corporate secretary HOkkie Kokkie Marlina said.

Funny that, I would have thought that the council should be doing that, and, "finished in June" ..... amazing what one will do to avoid bad press.

No walking away from this one....

Don't ask me how, it seems that Jakarta's finest somehow manage to make the most difficult things possible.




On this occasion I do not believe the gentleman concerned survived to see his skill appreciated.

Spa.......

Something very unfortunate about the choice of name....

Pressure Hour

Every Friday evening at the Eastern Promise there is an event nown as Pressure Hour. Essentially free beer is served between 5pm & 6pm to all in the bar on condition that no-one goes to the Toilet and that anyone who enters the bar does not leave during this time.

It has a 50-50% success rate, the amusement comes from the punters screaming abuse at anyone who looks as though they may break the rules.

A week ago last Friday I was unable to attend, however, the evening took a turn to the ridiculous which was retold to me over the weekend.

A gentleman (lets call him Wobbly Dave) had been drinking for most of the afternoon and as the hour approached, used barstools to barricade the bathrooms in an attempt to prevent their use.

The bell rings, the free flow beer commences and 15 minutes into "Pressure Hour" Wobbly discovers to his horror that he needs to vomit.

Heading to the door, amid howls and curses from those who are sure he is going to leave the bar, thus ceasing the free flow, our hero opens the bar door, puts his head out of the gap and proceeds to empty the contents of his stomach onto the pavement outside.

Happy at having acomplished this without transgressing the rules of engagement, he closes the door and starts on his next beer.

I am unsure whether he should be applauded for his bravery or sectioned under the mental health act (does one exist within Indonesia) but either way, I have made a mental note to sit very far away from him in the future.....

Pappa Cafe moves from Jalan Jaksa to Sydney

Every now and then a little gem appears which causes me to giggle like a loon. The latest of these was submitted by a gentleman known as "Tablet" who wrote this piece purporting to be an ex Jakartan journalist who moved back to Australia about a year go.

I requested his premission to re-print this (to which he kindly acceded) and the rest is, as they say, almost Private Eye material.....(Apologies to the real Mr Simpson)


G'day everyone.

It's Roy here. You all still remember me, right? You, Nick? You, Dan? You, Roger? Especially you, Roger. Remember me, yeah? I was your lanky, long-haired, quasi-journalist mate from Jalan Jaksa. Think Pappa Cafe, table top, drunk, sleeping, dawn - that was me, usually.

It's been a while now since I departed the exotic, palm-lined shores of Indonesia and returned to my native soil, that being Australia, former trash can for British scumbags, misfits and the defrocked (I myself am descended from the Reverend John Willis Touse, transported in 1781 for stealing a prostitute's handbag, boring a glory hole in the church confessional box, and screaming blasphemies from the church spire), and I thought I'd let you know what I'm up to.

Some people, I know, believe that as soon as I returned to Oz I cut my hair, rolled up my sleeves, grabbed a rake and began plowing the family farm. Others seem to think that I spend my days scouring the budget shelves of DVD stores in search of curious old movies to send to my mates, you all, in Jakarta.

Other people even believe that I never left Indonesia at all, but built a cardboard shack on Ancol beach, where I live in tranquil obscurity, surviving by collecting bottle tops which I sell by the sack to recyclers, while avidly writing a biography of David Jardine, titled 'Batavia Bloke: The Life and Times of a Male Bag Lady in Indonesia'.

And I know that at least one of you thinks that I returned in my time machine to my home century, the Twelfth one, living the life of an alchemist. So I'd like to set the record straight.

Currently I am in Sydney (the city, not a bloke), and am in the process of opening up an Australian version of Pappa Cafe. Why? Indeed why. Bintang is the reason. Pure Bintang. When I got back here I immediately began to miss the stuff. How could I not?

Throughout my years living in Jakarta only prostitutes' tits spent more time at my lips than bottles of Bintang. When I wasn't shagging and catching venereal diseases I was amassing emptied green bottles on the table before me.

In fact I believe that, in a moment of befuddled inebriation, I may have, well, probably did, that is, I seem to recall, trying to shag a half-full, fizzing, frothing, gorgeously wet, erotically tight, bottle. But, er, we won't go into that.

So I began to import Bintang, at first just for personal consumption, say five or six crates a week, to be drunk while watching hilarious old Goon shows and ancient episodes of Derek and Clyde on my TV, but it wasn't long before I had the idea of opening up a bar that dispensed, exclusively, Bintang, to my fellow Australians, of spreading the word that even a Muslim country like Indonesia can produce a great beer, one that the prophet Mohammad himself would have approved of, for infidels.

My bar, naturally, would be modeled on that very model of Jalan Jaksa refinery and style, Pappa Cafe. If authenticity was to be achieved, this venture was not as simple as it first sounded.

Where, for example, does one find a dozen cat-sized rats to let loose around the place? Or actual cats with crooked tails to sit plaintively at your feet as you eat a chicken curry? Armadillo-sized cockroaches scuttling along the skirting boards? How does one build a urinal that pongs like a tramp's underwear and for repellent grubbiness is second only to the maid's toilet in Nick Aaron's shared house?

How would it pass muster with the city's health inspectors? What about wobbly tables, and chairs that come apart in your hands? Glasses with dirty paint spots on them? A fifteen-year-old menu? What about gaggles of squat prostitutes who drown out the sound of the television?

Glue-sniffing street urchins who sit outside in the hope of a pedophile passing by? On a positive note finding a dozen drunken losers of mixed nationalities to patronize the place at two in the morning wouldn't be too difficult in a cosmopolitan city like Sydney, and they themselves would help create that genuine Pappa Cafe atmosphere, of glum hopelessness, of squalid sexual tension, of beer-induced paranoia.

It was a tough task. But after many Bintang's worth of pondering and an expenditure of 327 Australian Dollars I think I have succeeded. I have recreated Pappa Cafe, with all its unique characteristics, its spiritual nooks and crannies, its very heart of darkness, in the heart of Sydney.

The hardest part was reproducing Danny Pope, as he sits there alone, night after night, brooding over the ultimate fate of the universe. But a replica Danny I had to have. Pappa Café without him would be incomplete, like a mutiny without a Bounty, a bum without an arsehole, a Bule without a Gila. I settled on a full-sized glossy cardboard cut-out of him, complete with a mechanical arm that lifts a bottle to his lips every 17.5 seconds, sporting real hair, planted at a corner table, looking grim and anti-social. It’s very lifelike. I would go so far as to claim that it’s indistinguishable from the real thing under the dim, sclerosis-yellow lighting.

Sadly no other cut-outs were required. Pappa Café once teemed with regulars, a broiling bevy of skint English teachers who rioted bacchanalially every night and only ever behaved when they had passed out; but they moved on over the years, at first to Uncle Pedro’s mighty Yaudah bistro with its long list of no-nos, its German-Swiss versus the rest of the world racial segregation, its somewhat better food, and then to Captain Morgan’s ship-shape establishment across the road, where blacks and whites harmoniously sing sea shanties together nightly, jigging to the hornpipe, being careful that the captain doesn’t slip the King’s Shilling into their beer glasses.

And so I would like to invite you all – even you Richard Bennet - to the soft-opening of PAPPA CAFE THE OZZIE WAY, the date of which I wall announce at a later, er date.

Large Bintangs will be served at a fifty three percent discount, and will be placed outside in the blazing sun for a few minutes before being poured in order to warm them up to that authentic Pappa Café temperature.

There will be an all-you-can-gorge buffet of near-lifelike Indonesian cuisine done the Pappa Café way, complete with amusing misspellings on the menu, and European food, including hamburgers of heated luncheon meat.

Entertainment will consist of a stand-up comedian doing impersonations of famous Jalan Jaksa characters past and present - see Commander Bob getting turfed out of Yaudah for sneaking in whiskey in a plastic bag, or Nick Aarons being threatened with a Samurai sword for going to the rescue of a fellow African, or Jason O’Donnell singing My way his way, or Michael Clarke attempting to penetrate a fellow teacher on the floor of Romance. Please come. I will pay for your fare, as long as you swim.

Yours, Roy Simpson
Manager and Patron, Pappa Café The Ozzie Way
72 Gay Kangaroo Avenue
Sydney, Australia

On Customs and Import Duty

I flew back from Thailand yesterday, laden with a prize, 3 kg of high quality pork sausages. Pattaya Porkers is the brand name and although expensive in realtive terms, they are first class haram bangers.

Wandering to collect my bag I saw the ominous chalk mark on my case, "Oh no, here we fucking go" were my instant thoughts and - sure enough, I was asked to open the case.

The guys at the X ray machine were OK when they saw the sausages, also accepting the statement that they were "Haram' without any problems.

Trouble came from the corner of my eye, a little brown shirt with a cheesy grin. "Come with me, you have a big problem" - "Here we fucking go" I thought.

After getting told off for not declaring the meat products, telling me that on my declaration form I had lied about the sausages (a criminal offence I may add) he then demanded the Import Duty....

Funny how they all back down when you ask to speak to their commanding officer!

Bastard!

Stranger than Fiction

The things one see's on the Cikampek Toll Road!