Idea Transcript
The Dear Departed Pak Soeharto This is an article that I filed onto the Travel Forum at CompuServe, when we were still living in Jakarta. It gives you a pretty good outlook on what life is like down there Life itself in Jakarta can be pretty varied for us. The initial culture shock and excitement has worn off now and we are fully "indoctrinated". I'm afraid I have to admit that Jakarta is truly a hellhole and I can't imagine a more frustrating place to live. We will probably stick it out for a couple of years, but certainly no longer. The expat community tends to bond together well and they don't mix much with the locals. There is almost a sense of "a tour of duty" syndrome - gut it out for 2 years, make some money and leave. Jakarta simply has to be the most filthy, dirty unhygienic city in the world. People simply drop trash all over the place leaving food to rot, paper to disintegrate and plastic to stay forever. The only form of trash organization is paying someone to collect it and throw it onto a smoldering fire/trash pit. The scenery is potentially beautiful, but is desecrated by trash. Generally you hardly ever see the sun in Jakarta itself because of the pollution. The exception to this is when it rains - the rain clears the pollution from the atmosphere and when the rain stops, you can often actually see a blue sky! There is no real environmental authorities or policies of note and everyone seems to live to survive today, without thinking about tomorrow. Cars and buses spew out constant plumes of oily, black smoke and there is no such thing as lead free petrol locally (Although the state oil company, Pertamina, does export it!) Tap water is unfit for human consumption and can't even be used for teeth brushing or washing vegetables without enormous infection risks. All water has to be bought from a distilling company. You have to be very careful when you eat out as only certain restaurants prepare their food hygienically. The local vegetables have such a high lead content that the government recently issued a statement advising people to limit their vegetable consumption to try and limit lead poisoning. Many people disobey the law. Indonesians outside Jakarta are extremely polite and respectful, but in the city there are many surly, arrogant, corrupt and compulsive liars and thieves. The nation is predominantly Moslem, about 95%, and I have asked some local friends of mine how they can condone "sinning", given that Islam is such a strict religion with regards the law. My friend told me that "sinning" is strictly forbidden but the "sinners" believe as long as they pray and "confess" at least four times a day, Allah will automatically forgive them for everything! Can you imagine what it would be like in the States, you steal or lie about something constantly, go to church, do a token prayer and you are automatically a good person again - not quite like the occasional minor indiscretion seriously spoken to a priest in a confession! We have already had a servant vanish with an expensive camera and other bits and pieces tend to disappear from the house as well. If we ever leave the house we have to "lock the valuables up". The lying is an interesting one. In Indonesia it is a loss of face to admit if you don't know or haven't done something, so people will tell you they do know whatever it is you want to know, when actually they have no idea. To give you an example, you can ask your driver to take you to a meeting and if he knows where it is. He will invariably nod and say, "yes, mister" and then proceed to drive all over the place until it is apparent he is totally lost. If you have an appointment it really messes you up. Similarly, in the office, they will tell you they ordered new stationery etc., even when they haven't. In both cases when you confront them they are not even embarrassed and simply smile. Aaaaaaaaaaarrrghhhhh!!! Similarly, no-one can take responsibility for their individual actions, and self thought/self starters are almost non existent - those that do tend to be highly successful because of this fact. Of these types, a very high majority are ethnic Chinese Indonesians which leads to a lot of racial jealousy. The Chinese have a strong financially orientated work ethic that serves them well in Indonesia. They have a community within a community and they watch out for one another’s best interests. Corruption is rife and I am so used to bribing police now that I might land in almighty trouble if I am ever stopped by a policeman the next time I am in Europe or the States! Generally, they pull you over for no reason at all, simply to try and elicit a bribe. If you don't pay, they will either take your ID card or even in some cases, beat you up. The first time I actually naively asked the policeman to write me a ticket as I did not know what I had done. He refused and kept asking for money until I gave him some. You really have no option. When they see you are white, they can't believe their luck as they charge you a "bule-price". "Bule" is literally the local translation for a "white honky". (Because we almost always have more money than most locals, any price gets inflated, whether it be paying a bribe, buying a piece of furniture, or even getting a tooth extracted! It's always bule-price). When the police actually do confront a genuine criminal he could be in for a bad time. Most days we read in the paper that a house burglar, car thief etc. was shot trying to resist arrest. Amazingly, almost 100% of their wounds tend to be fatal - even although it was dark and the guy was running away, he quite often gets shot in the head. Stupendously consistent accuracy! I guess it saves money on a trial! If he does make it to trial he frequently recants his "confession" saying it was beaten out of him, which in most cases may well have been, guilty or not. Human rights abuses are a daily occurrence in Indonesia and you're no doubt familiar with East Timor? The UN and Amnesty International have being giving Indonesia a hard time over human rights abuses there for years. Nobody believes in queuing and you can be standing waiting to pay for something in a shop or at the bank when after a long time someone else walks in and either ambles to the front of the queue or even barges their way in. If you say something to the tune of that's rude, to bring it to their attention, they look at you as if you are crazy. They can't understand the problem. It is the same at traffic lights. Generally traffic in Jakarta varies between hellish and downright unbearable. Everyone ignores the red and green and tries to force their way across a junction. A bus can sometimes see that there is no place for him to go once he crosses the junction because the traffic is backed up on the other side, yet he will drive onto the junction, get stuck in the middle and block off the traffic coming across from his left and right sides. Eventually everybody else pushes and squeezes forward from every direction until there is total gridlock. At this point a bunch of young guys with whistles will magically appear and start to order drivers around to try and clear up the mess. Unfortunately since each whistler tends to have his own agenda, matters simply become even more screwed up. Alternatively, if you try and change lanes, cars will invariably speed up to effectively prevent you changing. It is almost as though it's a "macho" thing and it will be a loss of face to them if they let you in. Bus drivers, in stationary traffic, will also jump out and put a brick under the wheel to stop the bus rolling away as generally the brakes might not work too well! Taxi drivers. with the exception of Silver Bird, are always smelly, dirty and rude. If you get in a traffic jam they turn around and start screaming at you as if it were your fault! Never mind that you are not exactly happen to be in a jam yourself. Their logic is that if you hadn't asked them to drive you, they wouldn't have been where the jam occurs. If you are unlucky enough to be in serious accident you are in trouble. I have heard of (local) people bumping into a pedestrian, being pulled out of their car by a ranting and raving mob and being beaten to death. We are under office instructions to drive away from the scene if we have a bad accident. If you injure someone, irregardless of whether it is your fault, you have to pay "blood money" compensation to the victim's family to "pacify" them. I suppose it cut's out the need for US style lawyers and prolonged lawsuits! My driver (when I was not in the car) was hit by a careless motorcyclist. In this situation it was not my drivers fault, but immediately a crowd surrounded the car as the cyclist was injured. My driver luckily managed to get off with spending the whole night at the hospital with the cyclist's family negotiating the amount of blood money. As it happened right by our house, we had to stay well hidden as if the mob had seen that the driver worked for Westerner's there could have been a problem, at the very least the Blood Money would have shot up, "Bule-price" again!. Driving on the roads is also very dangerous. Although most people drive on the correct side of the road, it is not unusual to suddenly face a car, truck or bus bearing down on you on your side. In the countryside it's worse. At the weekends when everyone is streaming either out or into the city, traffic frequently backs up to a crawl with 10 mile tailbacks. As everyone tends to be heading in the same direction, this means that the other side of the road can often be fairly empty. Many drivers who are too impatient to wait simply take off on the wrong side and continue overtaking 20,30 or more cars at a time. Suddenly, another vehicle may begin to come round a corner and approach the overtaking vehicle. The overtaking vehicle, without looking, simply swings back onto it's own side of the road, frequently forcing one or two cars it has just overtaken off the road. Buses are the worst. Although the speed limit is 90kph, they will do 120+ coming at you on the wrong side of the road as per above. Occasionally it'll meet a bus/truck coming in the opposite direction. You are then faced, with what would in other circumstances be a hilarious sight, about 30 pairs of arms coming out of the windows on one side of the bus frantically gesturing, waving and urging you to pull over to let the bus back onto the correct side of the road. Mostly this "system" works, but from time to time there are horrendous head-on high speed collisions. Many times I can see a collision appear to be inevitable until by some miracle the buses miss by a hair's breadth. Additionally, if you get onto a tollway you can be driving in very heavy traffic, but still managing a decent speed in the fast lane. You may be unable to speed up as there are a string of cars in the fast lane ahead of you. Even though you may wish to drive faster yourself, you have no option. However, our good old friend the Indonesian driver behind you, will sit at a suicidal 6/12 inches off your tail flashing their lights incessantly and tooting their horn, trying to get past you! I mean, there is nowhere to go and you too, are also wanting to go faster, so what the heck is their point bar ignorance? Sometimes, the Indonesian driver will not even be this "courteous". Often a car will overtake at 130/140 kph on the inside (slow lane) or even the hard shoulder/emergency lane and continue to weave in and out flashing their lights. I maybe saw this once or twice in the States but in Indonesia it is very common daily practice. You really need to keep your wits about you when you drive. Indonesians also don't understand why there are so many accidents! Linking this paragraph on traffic with the previous one on accidents and "blood money/revenge", I recall in 1994 a driver of a bus with about 40 people on it was driving like a lunatic, as per normal. Eventually he lost control and the bus plowed into a muddy river in downtown Jakarta. About 38 of the passengers died in the water. The bus driver managed to escape by leaping off the bus before it went off the road. Knowing his mistake he simply took off and kept on running, realizing if he hung around he would be a dead man. He vanished off the face of the earth for a few months before the police eventually managed to find him. I have not heard of his fate, but I'm sure life hasn't been to good for him of late! Going back to cleanliness, Jakarta is also located at sea level, on the coast. (Well, I suppose all places on the coast have to be at sea level!) In the old days at particularly high tides, any rivers flowing out to sea would back up and could flood the old downtown region. Nowadays, these rivers are no more than effluent streams, full of chemicals, dead animals, human waste, trash etc. This was beginning to cause an understandable problem when it would back up! Therefore they built dams with pumps at the river mouth to ensure the rivers kept flowing out to sea at high tide. However, all the trash started to block the pumps. Therefore a new career was born. Three guys, wearing no more than underwear, take a deep breath, jump into the waste and clear the pumps by hand! All done for the minimum wage of about $1-50 per day! These guys are aged about 30 but look twice their age and frequently die of disease or infection. Recently, a government official visited them to bestow the luxury of an entitlement to a government pension upon retiral. These guys were so proud, the tears were streaming down their faces - they had become successful and could now support their families, IF they got to retiral age. Going to the bathroom is an adventure in itself. Most Indonesians prefer to use the "traditional" bathrooms over Western ones. Traditional means basically a hole in the ground, over which they squat, without any toilet paper. Indonesians like to "splash" themselves between the legs after they have finished with cups of water to "cleanse" themselves. Consequently, Indonesian bathrooms are swimming in "used" water along with other "bits and pieces" and stink to high heaven - particularly outdoor ones in the heat of summer! Fortunately, almost all new office blocks, restaurants and expat homes have Western bathrooms where you can sit down. However, even this can be awkward as many Indonesians either don't know, or prefer not to use them correctly. In my office block, for example, if I go to the bathroom I may see footprints over the plastic seat rims as they have still squatted on it and the floors are always swimming with water. Building management tries to help by putting up little "ghostbuster" type stickers with a circle and a cross over a figure squatting on a seat rim - it doesn't really seem to help much though! Unless it is an emergency, I try and wait till I go home. Unfortunately though, "emergencies" are pretty common and most people actually come to accept getting a virulent dose of diarrhea every now and again - when we first moved there, we were struck constantly for the first month until we built up a level of natural resistance in our systems. There is no social welfare system. If you retire or lose your job there are no pensions or benefits worthwhile mentioning, bar government employees. You simply have to get by. Consequently, families are very big as you have to support your elders. However, because of the poor living conditions and malnourishment people die all the time. I work in an office of 14 and in the short time we have been here almost everyone has had a mother, father-in-law, sister etc, die. Politically, the government keep a tight lid on everything. Soeharto, the president is very autocratic. All locally produced newspapers and magazines (Indonesian or English language) require to have a government license to be published. They are always censored and the moment they hint at anti-government sentiment, the license is revoked. Three top selling dailies were recently banned for reporting little more than the truth, along with an intelligent editorial. The official government reason was that "It is being done in the interest's of having a free and responsible press"! That is a hard one to work out and justify but basically mean that you can say anything as long as the government agrees with it, ie don't upset the applecart or status quo. Anything "irresponsible", is banned as it is contrary to national security, ie could end up de-stabilizing the government. They also regulate the news on TV, and we have rechristened the nightly news bulletins,"Soehato-hour". Twice a night on every channel simultaneously for up to an hour (or even longer during special events or festivals) you have a hard job finding anyone else bar Soeharto on TV "doing good deeds" and being worshipped by some group of nepotistic locals. About the only thing it doesn't tell you is how many times he picked his nose or went to the bathroom! Soeharto, off a humble peasant background and meager salary, has managed to set up each of his many children by assisting them to own important business's such as the local Coca Cola franchise. a State Airline, the local McDonalds franchise, the biggest Indonesian construction company, the company which manages Toll Roads, etc. All the company owners (his offspring) vehemently deny that the fact that their father is who he is, has any connection to their astounding business success. Soeharto's own net worth coincides with the salary he would earn in about the next million years. In other words, there are always questionable corruption issues. Parliament often admits, for example, that it has lost and can't account for x% of the annual budget revenue. In fact a recent consultancy survey from Hong Kong identified India, China and Indonesia as by far and away, the most corrupt countries in Asia to do business. The mail service is also corrupt and one Christmas, many packages we sent out or were received by ourselves in Jakarta had been opened by the Customs. If they took a fancy to anything they helped themselves to it probably to give to their wife as a present! They then badly repackaged everything and sent it on. We even got a calendar box from Ariane's grandmother in Germany, minus the calendar! Ariane and I were very upset that some lovely local woodcraft that we had sent out arrived as little more than matchsticks. Immigration officials at the airport are not much better. Generally, you make sure that you have a $20- bill available to "help" the officer concerned process your paperwork. We have even had visitors who have had to bribe their way OUT of the country! The customs officers know you have a plane to catch and also know it won't wait for you if you're late. Therefore, they are in quite a strong bargaining position to elicit money from you. This is in addition to the $12 baggage handling tax (a baggage handler will move 2/3000 pieces a day and earn $2 - you figure it out) along with the official exit tax of $125 I have to pay as a resident of Indonesia (this is person, Ariane and my young son, Kyle, have to pay also so if we all leave for, say, a vacation, we're already down $375!!!). Recently, Ariane went to Germany on holiday. However, at the airport, once she had checked in her bags and paid all the taxes the immigration officers told her that she couldn't leave the country as her multiple exit/re-entry permit had expired the previous week. This was besides the fact that we all had had valid resident (KIM's) cards for many more months. However, without the permit, no can do. It wasn't as even if we were trying to enter the country, Ariane was trying to leave! In the end after much meaningless and tedious conversations with unsympathetic immigration officials, we enlisted the help of her airline, Lufthansa. Our logic was that if Ariane wasn't allowed to leave, then they would have to delay the flight to search for and offload her baggage to comply with security measure's. Lufthansa managed to get her an emergency exit permit on the strength of "an emergency family illness". This at least got her out. Our only problem was that it was only valid for five days and she had a three week trip - ie she would actually have to come almost right back again. This obviously was ridiculous and we went through an absolute nightmare of getting the emergency permit extended to coincide with her trip. In the end, after I had joined Ariane in Germany, I had to take a day off out of our vacation to travel 500kms to the Indonesian Embassy in Bonn and literally beg for an extension. I managed to get one with some "lubrication". I also play a lot of soccer here and had a game recently against Customs and Immigration. Their official salaries are about $75 per month but they walked out onto the pitch wearing top of the line Italian Adidas strips (about $250 each). I wonder where they got three months salary for a soccer strip??? We also had some interesting official/legal problems when our son Kyle Erik was born in Jakarta. After the hectic emotion of his birth, the next day the hospital administrator told me that all foreign babies had to be registered with immigration within 48 hours of the birth. This seemed tough, but acceptable if that’s the way it had to be. I asked what I needed to proceed with the registration. She gave me a list, the only thing on it that I didn't already have was the Indonesian birth certificate. I then had to research where I had to go to get one. Once this was done I merrily headed off to that office. After standing in an organized line (for once) and getting a series of the usual stares from the Indonesians waiting for the same thing - sometimes you feel like an exhibit at the zoo, I spoke to the official and told them what I needed. No problem they said, I could pick up the birth certificate after the seven day waiting (processing) period. This threw me and I told them I needed it quicker as I had to get Kyle registered with Immigration, to comply with Indonesian law. To this I got the tell-tale smile and associated shoulder shrug, ie I would be able to get an "express" processed certificate if I were to make a voluntary "donation" to them - and a "bule-price" one at that. In the end we went into a private room and I made the necessary donation, well - bribe, of 75,000 rupiah ($30) for a 5,000 rupiah document. This story is typical of Jakarta - even normal day to day laws and conventions don't interface successfully. It is almost impossible to get a good nights sleep here as I believe there are over 50,000 mosques (Moslem churches) in Jakarta. As much as I respect peoples religious rights and freedom, each mosque seems to be hell bent on outdoing the next one with regards to having a bigger & louder set of speakers and amplifiers. Four times a day, including at 4am, the peace is broken by the early morning call for prayer. Moslems are meant to be awake and pray at these times. However, for a Christian Westerner at 4am, it almost gives you a heart attack in your sleep. The call to prayer goes on for 30 minutes. For special religious festivals it build's up to a hysteria and goes on for up to 24 hours a day. It can be like a form of Chinese torture of incessant wailing. The expats all believe however that the 4am call is so alike each day, that in some unscrupulous mosques, a tape is probably being used and the mullah (priest) is actually fast asleep. We joke that one day we will sneak into the mosque and replace the tape with one of "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. The image of those famous classic opening chords puncturing the still of the night and booming out over the skyline at 4am is classic. It would be some reward for our son wakening to the call at 4am thinking that his day has begun and that he's ready to party with Mom'n'Dad who are stumbling around exhausted, feeling terrible and still half asleep. Our house, as we have discovered, is beautiful on the outside, but beneath the surface has a lot of problems. The owner spent a small fortune making it look pretty, but nothing on decent piping & wiring, solid flooring etc. - the beneath the surface infrastructure. Not a day has gone by when something hasn't gone wrong. Upstairs the floor has lifted "earthquake" style three times, breaking the floor tiles and leaving a ridge running across the floor. It was caused by water leaking in and bad workmanship but the owner blames us for turning on the air conditioning in the bedrooms. I mean, can you believe it - what are they there for, decoration?! Apparently we are meant to open the windows when the A/C is on! Pipes in the bathroom always leak, the stove and fridge breakdown, about two light bulbs blow everyday due to faulty wiring and we can have up to three to four power cuts a week of duration between 5 minutes and 8 hours. We have had to throw away so much food. If the power goes out now, we empty the fridge and drive to our friends and throw everything in theirs. This makes everything sound quite dreadful, doesn't it. This is why expats bond together much quicker than anywhere else I have worked. In Norway and the US, as a Scot I found it easy to adapt to the minor differences from home and mix with the locals. I believe you have never experienced what culture shock is until you have lived and worked somewhere like Jakarta. There are a lot of self help groups and it is very easy to make friends (with expats) as everyone else is experiencing the same problems you are. I suppose its psychologically similar to the principle of binding together with strangers in times of crisis. In Jakarta we also say that Murphy's Law is the rule of thumb. Life is not always awful. We have found many things that we love. Outside Jakarta, there are still areas which are beautiful and being selective you can find areas not to messed up with trash. We have two or three places, about 2 hours drive away where we can go at the weekend and escape the city. One is on the south coast of Java called Pelabuhan Ratu (Jakarta is on the north) where the water is clean and clear and we've discovered a small resort owned and managed by a German guy who lives there. Being German, he has the place really well run, spotlessly clean and "western" style rooms. It has a restaurant with great food at incredibly cheap prices and very "safe" to eat as well! The cottage complex is called Bunya Ayu and the restaurant Klaubauterman (tel 62 268 41111). Ariane also has a friend in the German Embassy, and the embassy owns a house in the mountains in a beautiful area called Puncak. We had access to it a couple of times through Ariane's friend and love the peace and relaxation. Being in the mountains it is also a good bit cooler and the air is much cleaner. Consequently we try to get away as often as possible. Unfortunately, it seems like half of Jakarta has the same idea leading to the type of traffic problems discussed earlier. Another interesting place to go to close to Jakarta is Bandung. This used to be a major Dutch area/resort when Indonesia was still a colony of Holland. Bandung used to be called the Paris of Asia and although it has deteriorated a lot since it's heyday, it is still well worth a visit. We would highly recommend staying at Chedi's Hotel (tel 62 22 230 333 / fax 62 22 230 633). This is a beautiful new "environmentally natural" hotel. It is like walking into a tranquil oasis. All fixtures and fittings are tremendously well thought out and encompass lots of local handicrafts. It is spotlessly clean and has a very friendly and helpful Swiss manager. The food and views are outstanding. The pool is built on the side of a drop into a valley and through deceptively clever design, if you are swimming it looks as if you swim too far you will simply drop over the edge of a cliff. Around Bandung are volcanoes, including one where you can drive all the way up to the rim. From there, there are some strenuous but enjoyable walks to less accessible areas such as hot sulphur springs where you can even boil fresh eggs! We also have a series of restaurants that we love in Jakarta and often eat out. Prices are more than reasonable compared to the States, even for food/meat imported direct from the US. Jakarta also has a duty free store for expatriates only, a nice little perk. There we can get imported food and drink for rock bottom prices. A case of 24 Budweiser's or Miller's , brewed in the States, or Beck's and Lowenbrau from Germany and shipped to Jakarta can be bought there for $17 - not bad really. I try and drink imported beer as the local brew, called Bintang, is rumored to be laced with formaldehyde! I also invested in a satellite dish which allows me to pick up a variety of channels including CNN and ABC news programs live from the US. With the aid of a de-scrambler, I'm also able to pick up not only CNN, but also American channels like ESPN International, HBO, TBS, TNT, Discovery and the Cartoon Network. ESPN is good as it has ton's of live baseball, football, basketball, and ice hockey (well at least for me - Ariane doesn’t quite agree!) So far on Indonesian TV only the big events like the Superbowl get covered. Indonesian TV itself is amusing. Being an Islamic country, public displays of affection such as kissing are highly frowned upon. This translates through to the media and on TV it is impossible to see a kiss, even on a sitcom or serial like Neighbors - let alone a "naughty" movie. However, conversely, and even perversely, the same TV stations have no problem with adult language or violence. Therefore you can see a martial arts film (very popular in Asia) with people getting their heads cut off, teeth smashed in and F*** and B****** being screamed every two seconds. You can therefore get away with violence, but not affection, hmmmm? We also had a major conference for APEC in Jakarta in November '94. Bill and Hilary Clinton attended so we also had that to look forward to. They stayed at the local Hilton. Prior to the conference, a strong rumor swept the expat community that the Indonesian version of the SAS/Green Beret's decided to practice a hostage rescue situation at the Hilton. They swung into the hotel on ropes suspended from helicopters and destroyed some huge and valuable plate glass windows on the way in. A previous international conference in '92 was even funnier. Once again, with a plethora of foreign dignitaries arriving, the Indonesian's were concerned about security. Downtown, there are a series of underground drainage sewers. They thought that terrorists could potentially use these to access the conference area. They simply therefore blocked them off, forgetting about the simple principle that the water and waste would still be around and would run off elsewhere. Unfortunately for the oil company Shell, this elsewhere turned out to be the sub-basement of their office tower. More unfortunately, this area was being used as a store for all their valuable exploration data. In 2 minutes the basement was under 8 feet of water and millions of dollars of seismic sections and logs were bobbing about in the goo. Ariane has gotten herself involved with the local German "baby" group. It's basically a bunch of women her age with young children who get together weekly. Ariane likes it as she can meet people her own age and talk German. As mentioned earlier, I play a lot of soccer. One of the leagues I play in is the International League with national teams representing the UK, France, Holland, Russia, India, Japan, Denmark, Germany and Korea! All of us play for fun except the German's. They are incredibly well organized (Teutonic discipline, no doubt) and play to win. They come marching out onto the field with perfectly pressed, newest model, German national strips. They haven't a hair out of place and some of them would give Rudi Voller's hairstyle a run for it's money! They actually wouldn't look out of place playing a proper international. However, they are also famous for one other reason - they were caught bribing the referee and no one forgives them for it or lets them forget it! We won the league this year but lost to them in the end of season cup. However, for our cup match they "imported/borrowed" two Indonesian pro's, three star Serbians and a Swiss into their team. One of the Serb's used to play for Red Star Belgrade. I smelled a rat during the game when they started talking strategy to one another in English! In other words, they would do anything to win! We have also discovered a German butcher and German baker so we can get good bread and almost good sausage. However, Ariane pines for the real thing. Likewise, I miss good Scottish food like Haggis. E-Mail Us. Click here to return to my Indonesian Cool Links Page Click here to return to my Travel Page Click here to return to my Day Trips From Jakarta Page