Jakarta, Indonesia - Day 1

Jakarta. Aptly described as the armpit of the world. Home to 16 million people and twice as many rats; dirty in a physical and bureaucratic kind of way. Jakarta. Home of the Muslim Butterfly. Cocooned in her head scarf by day, she morphs by night, reborn in a dress made out of slightly less material than the head scarf. Jakarta. Home of the limp-wristed force field of pedestrians and the surging beast of traffic that ignores it. Jakarta. The White Mans Graveyard. The Big Durian. Jakarta. The armpit of the world.

My first night in Jakarta went something like this:

I tried to take myself out for dinner at this little seafood warung (street side restaurant). It turns out that nothing in the restaurant was in English...not even the staff. After I unsuccessfully tried to order menu items by simply pointing at them, my waiter decided to make a stunning career move from the hospitality field into that industry fondly known as "Staring at the Stupid Foreigner with an Equally Stupid Expression on Your Face". I think he's going to go a long way with this employment choice. He had a real grasp for the finer nuances.

I should also bring to the table the fact that the rest of the staff, who were all girls under the age of twenty, were watching our entire exchange and probably giving themselves hemorrhoids because they were laughing so hard. Finally, a very nice Chinese man stood up from one of the other tables and came over to try and help me. And help me he certainly did. He helped me order about four million times more food than I could ever have possibly ingested. As a direct result of this, I didn't have enough money to pay for my meal. Nice Chinese man was already gone when I realized this, and I was back to dealing with my space cadet of a waiter. Basically I just held up my bank card and mimed myself walking to the ATM and then coming back. This was greeted with a blank stare, so I just gave up trying to explain and walked myself over to the ATM and came back. This was also greeted with a blank stare. Like I said, he has a solid handle on the nuances of his new career.

The kicker to the whole story is this:

When I met Dagan and his flatmate Luke after they were done work, I told them this whole story. Dagan kind of grinned, but Luke just lost his mind laughing. Now, I think that my story is kind of comical, but I have no delusions about just how humourous it is. And it wasn't funny enough for Luke to be laughing that way. So I asked him what the deal was. After he relearned how to breath, he just beamed at me and said:

"But they all speak English there!"

Yeah.


Quote of the Day:

There were about eight of us sitting around a table one night, playing poker and discussing quantum physics. You know, regular old card playing conversation. We were basically tossing around random theories that we'd heard from one place or another, mostly just to see who had heard the same things and whether or not we thought they were true. Then all of a sudden, James, who had previously been completely silent in the conversation, pipes up with:

"You know that theory, where if you half a distance, then half it again, then half it again, then half it again, and just keep going, that you'll never get there? Well I don't get it. I reckon, just aim for twice as far and you'll get there straight away."