No durians please
The hotel stay in Jakarta was pleasant enough, Hotel Ciputra is located at the edge of the city along the main highway to the airport. Its central location makes it a favourite for businesspeople and one can access the industrial estates like Bogor and Cikarang within 1 to 1 1/2 hours. It is connected to the Central Shopping Mall with hundreds of shops and many restaurants. One of the nice things as a Singaporean, is that many Singapore brand food chains have setup in Jakarta, like Bread Talk, Crystal Jade, J Co amongst others. In addition, the banks like UOB, OCBC, CIMB and DBS are all over the place.
Interesting sculpture outside the hotel
Indonesia has roughly 220 million people spread over 3 major islands and hundreds of several smaller ones. It has in 2004 been hit by the world's worst ever tsunami, from an underground earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale and killing some 250,000 people in 10 countries with over 200,000 from Indonesia alone. It has had its fair share of natural disasters such as tsunamis as the island of Java lies very close to the fault lines which are under the sea.
Regardless of the natural disasters, as well as the occasional terrorist threats, the Indonesian people remain resilient and steadfast in the desire to move forward from the tragic events of the past. In 2002, there was the terrible bombing in Bali and in 2008 there was the Marriot Hotel suicide bombing which have put Indonesia on the world's headlines. But in Jakarta, life is peaceful and although I would not recommend walking the streets at night, it is relatively safer now than it was in 2000 when I last visited as there was massive unemployment, leading to lots of people begging in the streets and just hanging around.
View from the front of the hotel
Just as my visit to the seafood restaurant reinforced my impression that Indonesians have embraced the good life with good food, transport and shopping, I am still reminded that it is still very much a 3rd world country with the average salary hovering about S$ 300 per month or less. A lot of people get by with S$ 70 to $ 100 a month working as maids, drivers, gardeners or stall hands.
On the way back to the Sukarno Hatta airport
At the top end of the income scale are the very very rich people who never have to work a day of their adult lives. There are a significant minority of them and there presence can be felt very clearly during the weekends or public holidays in Singapore top shopping centers like Ion, Orchard Central, Mandarin Gallery and Somerset 313 ; the children of these rich Indonesians come to shop at the brand name stores and gamble in our casinos at their whim and fancy.
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