Thursday, September 30, 2010

Trip to Bali

Earlier this month Sheuwen, Kate, and I were fortunate enough to go to Bali for our first vacation together since we moved to Jakarta. If you are like us, we knew very little about Bali while living in the States. We knew it had a reputation for being a Southeast Asian tourist hotspot, but we didn’t know what exactly that meant. Is it like Hawaii, Florida, or something different all together? It seems most expats that live in Jakarta go to Bali at least once during their stay in Jakarta. Some love it and go many more times again, others go once and never go back. So with all these mixed signals we decided it would be a good place for us to go for our first vacation, and then we can see for ourselves what Bali is really like.

One reason Bali gets a lot of visits from Jakartans is the convenience. The island of Bali is immediately to the east of Java Island (where Jakarta is located) and is only about a 2 hour flight away from Jakarta. It is much smaller than Java (and kinda looks like a chicken leg). The major geological feature of Bali is Mount Agung located near the center of the island. At 10,308 ft, Mount Agung is one of the largest active volcanoes in Indonesia and is treated with great respect by the locals. Much of the Hindu worship on the island is aimed at the mountain. In fact, the local Hindus believe the volcano is a replica of the central axis of the universe. The most important temple in Bali is located on the slopes of the mountain, and somehow this temple was spared (by mere yards) during the most recent eruption in 1964 which killed over 1500 people.

We decided to pay our respects to the mountain by staying well away from the mountain for most of our trip. :)

Our first two nights were spent in the formerly tiny, but now sprawling village of Ubud, which is the artistic capital of Bali. I would say it is off the beaten track, but the track to Ubud is becoming more and more beaten over time. Visitors who are looking for an alternative to a sun and surf vacation are drawn to Ubud for it’s plethora of shops, cafes, and art galleries which line the streets of the village. If you are in the market for some Balinese wood carvings, beaded baskets, or original artwork, then Ubud may be for you. Even though we enjoyed looking in a few shops, Sheuwen and I aren’t so much of the artsy/collectable type. However, Ubud does offer some amazing views of various rice fields (see picture) and offers some nice nature walks for those looking to enjoy the scenery. One walk in particular is called the Campuan Ridge Trail. This is a 3 km trail that runs from central Ubud, over a ridge, through some rice fields, and eventually to a real Bailnese village area. The views of the rice fields were quite breathtaking, the fields are an incredible bright green color and the plants look so alive. As we were walking along the trail (which I found online) we got the feeling that we were experiencing something many visitors to Ubud don’t get to experience. There were practically no signs marking the trial and we saw only 4 other trekkers the whole time we were on the trail, but to me that walk was the highlight of our trip to Ubud.

As we reached the end of the trail we had a decision to make. Do we walk back along the trail another to Ubud Center? Do we call a taxi to pick us up? Or do walk another 6 km into this unknown village along an unknown road that is supposed to connect to another road that should eventually lead to the main street which would, if we haven’t made any wrong turns, bring us back to Ubud? Keep in mind that Kate has been a trooper the whole time, riding in the Ergo (baby carrier) and pretty much sleeping most of the time. Also the weather is cloudy, rainy, and not too hot, and we have plenty of snacks. So of course, we decide to walk on. Onward we walked past villagers on motorbikes, cows with horns grazing feet way, roosters running across the road, and a woman bathing (with very strategic towel usage). The rain came and went, but our determination never wavered. Eventually we made it to all the correct roads and arrived safely back to Ubud. We continued walking to a local restaurant called Bebek Bengil (Crispy Duck), and then we headed back to our hotel (Kamandalu Resort). We made it about 1 km away from our hotel before the darkness, some stray dogs, and Kate’ approaching bedtime convinced us that we should call for a shuttle the rest of the way. All in all I believe we walked about 12 km that day. In hindsight, this was probably a bit too far and although Kate was fine, I think we threw her off her schedule quite a bit. Lesson learned, when in Ubud it is easy to “under-plan” and just make up your schedule as you go through your day, next thing you know you are walking down a narrow street, with a decaying side walk, in the dark, rushing home to feed you baby and put her to bed. We’ll know better next time.

The last 3 nights of our trip we enjoyed the
beach life at the Grand Hyatt Nusa Dua. Nusa Dua is Bali’s 5-star resort enclave, developed in the 90’s in response to Bali’s increasing popularity. In Bali’s early years as a tourist destination, the decision was made to limit most tourist development to the southern tip of the island to preserve Bali’s culture and natural condition. The result was that most of the popular hotels sprung up around existing cities such as Kuta and Sanur. Unfortunately these cities were not designed to support large hotels and the visitors they attract. There was a need to develop a new area where space was plentiful, beaches good for swimming, and the area designed for tourists – kind of a master planned tourist community. Thus Nusa Dua was built.

For visitors from western countries, if you come to Bali and stay in Nusa Dua, you may not feel like you are in a foreign country. There is a lot of western food, everything is clean, and almost everyone speaks English well. Having been in Jakarta for the last 4 months, this was a welcome treat. We enjoyed the spaciousness, conveniences, and comforts the area had to offer. While maybe not the whitest sand and bluest water in the world, it was great to breath fresh ocean air with the constant rolling of the waves in the background. While Kate didn’t quite enjoy the sand and was a little intimidated by the large ocean waves, she thoroughly enjoyed the pool and seemed totally at ease relaxing in her parent’s arms under the shade trees.

Overall I would compare Bali to Mexico with its tropical weather, affordability, and laid back culture. There is much the island has to offer that we did not get to experience so it would be nice to go back at some point. And of course if any of you all are ever interested in visiting Bali (or Jakarta), we would be happy to do our best tour guide impression, so come on down!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Ramadan Starting in Jakarta

Tuesday August 10th marked the start of Ramadan for Muslims across the world. Since about 85% of the Indonesian population is Muslim, Ramadan is a significant part of the culture here. As you probably know during Ramadan, Muslims fast during daylight hours (typically 4am until 6pm). What I didn't know prior to moving here is that when nearly everybody you work with and deal with on a daily basis hasn't eaten all day, it can result in some interesting social interactions. Take lunch for example. You walk into a normally busy restaurant that is now quite empty except for a few other expats and some non-Muslim Indonesians. You place your order with a clearly Muslim young lady (and probably a quite hungry one) behind the counter. Of course you are there to eat so you receive your food and start eating while the hungry Muslim lady watches and asks if she can bring you anything else. She is polite and helpful, but the incongruity is glaring and one can't help but be a little more discreet while eating in these situations.

Ramadan really draws a line through the population. If you didn’t know who was Muslim or Christian before, now you do. Unlike the US where religion is more private, here everybody knows where you stand. Good thing is everybody is quite polite and respectful of each other so the division doesn’t really result in any tension.

So that being said, the first night of Ramadan is quite a big deal so all the mosques turn up their speakers and play a combination of Koran reading in Arabic and preaching in Indonesian. The readings were very loud on the first night so I went outside and started recording. Thought it was worthy of sharing. Check it out…

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Worksite Visit

One of the more appealing reasons for moving to Indonesia was the opportunity to work on a project out “in the field”. It’s one thing to live in Jakarta, stay in a nice apartment, and report to a comfortable office everyday. It’s a completely different experience to live in a small Indonesian town, stay in a borderline 3-star hotel, and report to a worksite that is continuously moving through the Indonesia countryside at a rate of 300 meters per day. By working in the field I expect to see parts of Indonesia, most expats (or Indonesians for that matter) never get to see. What a great way to see a different side of Indonesia and to fully make the most out of my time here. Well I got to take my first trip to the field a few weeks ago as we had meetings with a few other pipeline companies in the area that we will be interacting with as we build our pipeline.

We started off by flying to Surabaya, the second largest city in Indonesia, about 250 miles south of Jakarta. I was a little hesitant to fly the local airline – Garuda Airlines. I had pictured in my mind a rusty turbo prop with a slight lean to one side and a cargo of chickens and goats as my travelling companion. Fortunately this image was far from the truth. While I’m sure those airlines exist, Garuda is more than sufficient – clean, comfortable, good service, they even showed a Canadian version of “Candid Camera” the whole way to Surabaya.

After arriving, we made our way to the Shangri-La Surabaya for the night. The most memorable part of our stay there was the African-American gentleman dressed in full Ghana regalia, parading through the hotel bar blowing his vuvuzela (one of those annoying horns) to celebrate Ghana’s win in the World Cup. Didn’t expect to see this in Surabaya, Indonesia. Well, the next morning we got up and made the 2 ½ hour journey via car to our future pipeline’s right-of-way (ROW). The work team usually takes a helicopter to the worksite, but since we were planning to do a lot of driving up and down the ROW, we needed the car. It had been a while since I had driven so far, for so long, on a little two-lane road. Think Dallas to Waco without the conveniences of a shoulder or a pass lane. Not the most pleasant trip.

We finally got to our meeting spot which was the end of our pipeline, near the coastline where our line will tie into the offshore line. From there we drove along various village roads, some paved, some not, for 70 km (~40 miles) stopping every now and then to look at locations where we will cross other pipelines. We ran into villagers along the way, and they all stopped to watch as our caravan of little SUV’s made it’s way down their roads. Apparently we were the big show in town. All the villagers we came across were very friendly and offered plenty of smiles and waves (see picture). We almost got stuck a few times on some of the muddy roads, and at one point we got out and walked so as to lighten the load on the truck. I asked if we could get a 4 wheel drive next time, but my Indonesian counterpart’s response was something to the effect of “oh, we’ll be fine, we never use 4 wheel drive.” That’s Indonesia for you.

That night we spent the night in Cepu, which is near our production field. As I mentioned before, we stayed in the borderline 3 star Mega Bintang Hotel. Probably the best $60/night hotel I’ve ever stayed in.

http://www.megabintanghotel.com/

Overall it was neat to get outside of Jakarta for a little while and see some of the countryside. Enjoy the pictures. Talk to you all later and have a Happy 4th of July!

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Buying a Car in Indonesia


Of all the things ExxonMobil provides for us while we are here (housing, cost of living allowance, club memberships, etc…) there is one thing that they don’t. A car. Expats moving to Indonesia are on their own when it comes to providing their families a means of transportation. This is something I knew early on and honestly it was something I was not looking forward to. I mean, buying a car in the US is a big headache, how am I supposed to do it in a foreign country whose language I don’t speak? I kept putting the purchase off, relying on the loaner car EM has provided during our first month here. Then on May 27th I found out that a new 10% car tax goes into effect on June 1st in Indonesia. So I decided that if I had to buy a car I might as well try to do it in the next 4 days.

As I alluded to in a previous email, to buy anything here in Jakarta you need “a guy”. Well, my housing consultant, Ivan, told me to let him know whenever I was ready to buy a car because he has “a guy” at a local Honda dealership, and he would be happy to introduce me to him and help translate during the negotiations. So on the 27th, Sheuwen, Ivan, and I headed over to Honda Megah Motor and checked out the Hondas in stock. We quickly were drawn to the Honda Freed because they offer a good combination of space (seats 7), convenience (auto sliding doors), and price (within our budget). That’s good and all, but personally I hate buying cars at first glance, I usually do a lot of research, price out several models, evaluate competitors, and spend at least an hour negotiating. But here I was in a foreign country, unable to communicate well, looking at a car I liked and knowing I better make a decision soon, oh and by the way, I had about the equivalent of $50 in my new Indonesian bank account. So after about 15 mins of looking at the car in the showroom Sheuwen and I agreed to buy it, assuming we could get a down payment (about $10k) to the dealer by end of business on the 31st in order to avoid the extra tax.

This is 2010, so how hard can it be to wire $10k from my bank account in the US to my account in Indonesia. Turns out it is nearly impossible unless you have an identical twin in the US. Apparently Bank of America wants you to come to a branch in person so that they can verify authenticity. Can’t come in person, then let us send you a “Safe Pass” in the mail, to a US address only, by the way. Oh and after talking to my bank here, they informed me that wires take 3-4 business days to get processed so the chances of me getting my money by the end of the month looked pretty dim. So the weekend came and went, and then on Monday the 31st I was explaining my dilema to a coworker that I had about 10 hours to get $10k to avoid paying the extra tax. My coworker proceeded to tell me about a secret Bank of America here in Indonesia. It’s not like your typical BofA in the US. No ATM, no sign out front, no friendly customer service agent waiting to greet you. In fact, it’s on the 23rd floor of a random office building in downtown. Apparently only those that need to know about it know about it. Great, I can go there and have them wire my money to my Indonesian bank account. Not so fast, 3-4 days processing. Great, another dead end. But wait, apparently there is another option. I call it the Mafia Option. Cash. That’s right, get $10k in cash from the non-descript BofA, but it in a brown paper bag, walk to your car, have your driver take you to car dealer’s bank, walk into that bank throw the money on the counter and tell them you want to put $10k into the car dealer’s bank account. Done deal. So that’s what I did. Quite an experience walking around with $10k in cash in a paper bag. Now I know what it feels like to be a drug dealer.

So that’s what it’s like here. You have to be creative, patient, and willing to do things you normally wouldn’t do. And I’ve learned the importance of asking for help. There aren’t many problems that we will have that others haven’t already had.

So with that, I hope all is well in the States. We miss you all and hope you all are doing well. Stay in touch and hope to talk to you all again soon!


Sunday, May 23, 2010

Going to the Local Mall in Jakarta

So on Thursday we finally got our long-term stay visas. Basically this means that we can now go house hunting on our own terms and without an escort. So on Friday we took advantage of this freedom and went out to visit an apartment called Pakubuwono (www.pakubuwono-residence.com). It's one of the nicer high rise apartment complexes in town and a large portion of ExxonMobil expats choose to live there. We did a tour, saw 5 or 6 units, then headed home. On our way home we ask our agent (who is riding in the car with us) where Sheuwen can get her Blackberry "unlocked" (since phones in the US are designed to only work in the US, you have to "unlock" them to get them to work in another country). Our agent, who is a young guy about our age, mentioned that there are not many people in Jakarta that know how to unlock cell phones, but that he has "a guy" that can do it.

He asked if we wanted to go then. We had a few minutes to spare before we had to be back home (Sheuwen's mom was watching Kate), so we said sure, why not? He then told our driver to go to the Ambassador, which turned out to be our first taste of a "local mall". Want a knockoff Coach bag? Go to Ambassador. Want to see Iron Man 2 on DVD? Go to Ambassador. Want to buy the latest Blueberry telephone? (yes, they are called "Blueberry") Go to Ambassador. On the 4th level of the mall was the cell phone section. There must have been 50+ little cell phone boutiques selling used and knockoff cell phones, all crowded and packed together like the Macy's cosmetics section times two. Our guide leads us to one of the many vendors and they start talking in Bahasa, presumably negotiation the cost to unlock Sheuwen's phone. The deal is $12.50 to unlock the phone and it should take about an hour. Okay, sounds good, so we decide to walk around the rest of the Mall.

First thing I noticed was the smell of cigarette smoke in the air. Clearly the indoor smoking ban hasn't made it across the Pacific. I wasn't too interested in shopping as I'm not in the market for perfume, pirated DVD's, or faux jewelry, but we walked around anyway. It only took me about 20 minutes for me to see another white person....not bad! After a few minutes we actually came to a pretty decent food court. They had an array of Indonesian fast food places, including a KFC, and an A&W. We slurpped down a few root beers when our agent got a call that the phone was ready.

We headed back to the cell phone section tested the phone and everything seemed to work just, until Sheuwen asked about the data plan, you know emails, internet, chat, all the things you buy a Blackberry for. The guy behind the counter was like, oh, you wanted a data plan? That will be another half-hour. We debate whether to forget about it and go home, but we decide to forego any chance for this year's "parents of the year" award and stay to get the data plan set up. We decide not to walk around this time, rather we decide to stay at the counter in hopes that it might motivate him to work quicker. It didn't work. 30 mins quickly turned to 45 mins, which turned to 60 mins. Finally, he finished, tested the phone, and we went on our way. Moral of the story? To get something done in Indonesia, it helps to have "a guy", and give yourself twice the amount of time you would expect it to take. There are no Targets, Home Depots, or CVSs.

That's it for this week...enjoy the picture of Kate going for her first swim! Notice the lushness and beauty of the Shangri-La Hotel.

For more pics, go to www.adamandsheuwen.shutterfly.com

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Thoughts on first few days

Right now if I could describe our time here in one word, it would be "restriction". Due to the type of visas we have, we are not allowed to leave our hotel without a driver and escort, and it has to be scheduled a day in advance. So getting around has been difficult. Basically our life here has been limited to eating, sleeping, and watching TV. Fortunately the hotel is nice, has good food, and good service, so all in all we're doing well. We should be getting another visa soon that will allow us to explore the city with a little more freedom. But even that will be difficult because from what I've seen Jakarta isn't very "pedestrian friendly". Quite a lot of cars and motorcycles in the streets, and not many sidewalks. Maybe if we get out of the downtown area it will be different...we'll see.

We did get to got out on Saturday afternoon for a couple hours to a nearby shopping mall/grocery store. We didn't buy anything, but I was impressed with the food selection in the grocery store...they had pretty much everything we have in the States. And all very clean. I think this was the "western" grocery store. The shopping mall was also impressive, very high-end and modern...and big. Lots of stores you will see in the US, with a nice import tax thrown in.

The flight over here wasn't too bad. We got to sit in business class with full lay-back seats. So we'd lay Kate down in the seat and she would sleep pretty well, although not for as long as we would like. The last leg from Hong Kong to Jakarta was quite difficult however as she was extremely tired, but wouldn't quite go down. I think we may have been "that couple" on that leg. You know the one with the fussy kid that the parents can't seem to appease. Yep, that was us for the last two hours!

Now jet-lag has hit us right in the face. It's midnight here and I just woke up from a six hour nap. Maybe I'll watch some soccer or BBC. Should be a fun night!

Hopefully next week we can start doing some home searching and get out and see the city a little more. Fortunately I have a lot of really nice and helpful coworkers who have given me some good tips/advice on where to live. So that has been helpful. Actually, my coworkers have given me some good advice in more areas than just housing. For example, we have a nice lady in the office who's full time job is to serve the employees coffee and tea. Yep, she walks around the office all day giving people coffee and tea at their leisure. I could not turn down such a convenient cup of coffee, especially considering the aforementioned jet lag issues. I had a sip and...mmm quite good coffee. Much better than the cup I had to make for myself in our Houston office. Quite a nice treat I thought...I could get used to this. Then my buddy in the next cubical (yes we have cubicals!) cautioned me that the coffee may not be as great a treat as I thought. He went on to tell me about the time he saw the lady "double dip" the stirring spoon. Then he mentioned that he has observed how everybody in the office tends to get sick at the same time. Funny how a little bit of truth can ruin a perfectly good cup of coffee. I had a few more sips and called it good.

Anyway, just wanted to give ya'll a few of my thoughts after the first couple days. Will hopefully write more later, but hopefully it won't be at midnight.

(Picture is view from our hotel room)