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 4^th of July!