The Jiwa Sabar III
Said farewell to P + J in the morning, + headed around the corner to a bakery they recommended to buy some breakfast… except that it wasn’t open. The area there is a big centre for the expat population, + one can see why, being as pleasant + well-ordered a suburb as one could find in any city anywhere. In fact, all of the area that we saw coming down on the bus yesterday seemed to be the scene of feverish development, with multi-storey office blocks going up on plots of land every hundred yards or so. Office blocks, true, + not housing developments, but at least the ones we saw were attractive in design. And presumably they are a sign that money is coming in to the country. And if you believe Maggie + Ronnie + their economic gurus, that money should filter down to all the people in society. Tho’ if you saw Mexico you might have some doubts.
We were in too much of a hurry to wait around for the bakery, having a fair bit to accomplish today. Caught the bus back to town – they have an efficient bus service in Jakarta, even if they do use the most amazing old buses. No frills travel it certainly is. The engines are shot, by the sound of them, + the whole bus stripped down to basics; even the battery is on full view, wedged under the dashboard. The only modernisation has been to bolt new, fiercely hard, moulded fibre glass seats onto the original supports (set too close together for Western legs, of course.) Otherwise, the bus is as it was made, whenever that was. Or rather less, since one can see the road underneath, speeding by, thro’ holes in the floor. There is a conductor at each door, one front, one back, + they communicate with the driver by shouting, + by rapping fiercely on the bodywork with a coin. But as I say, the system is god, + it’s cheap.
We got off a little early so as to be able to walk straight across to the Immigration Office. It was a much further walk than we’d anticipated actually – the only consolation was that, approaching it from a different angle, we discovered a definite treat – a shop which was Kentucky Fried Chicken on the bottom, Swensen’s ice cream on the top. It was close to the office, too, so we vowed to return to it as soon as we received our letter + have our breakfast. The letter part was remarkably easy, simply a case of picking it up, but once again we were thwarted in our breakfast plans, when we discovered what we had entirely missed before, that the restaurants were shut until 10. Rather than waste any time, Val decided to go to the other office, get our passports stamped, + then return to have breakfast at our ease, having completed our bureaucratic requirements. So she trotted off, clutching the precious letter, while I sat myself down on a wall + read. Luckily, there had been quite a good book lying around the losmen, a thriller called “Gorky Park”, so I had purloined that rather than keep the appalling romance we had previously obtained in exchange for Silas Marner. It was good too, + I soon became quite involved in it, so much so that it was quite a shock when I discovered it was gone 11, + still no sign of Val.
I decided to begin my breakfast, + if she didn’t appear while I was eating it, I would have to go looking for her. If she wanted, she could come + eat something later. So, a little guiltily I’ll confess, I had a fine meal, chicken, gravy + mash downstairs, (much tastier than my only other sampling of Col Sanders fare) followed by ice cream upstairs. But still no Val, so off I went to look for her.
Clearly, she should have been at the immigration office, but she wasn’t at the Tourist Visa section, + tho’ I attempted to make some enquiries, my excessively limited Indonesian + their only marginally better English were not sufficient to convey what I wanted. It was possible, of course, that she was in another part of the building, but I reckoned I’d get myself into trouble roaming around looking for her. At something of a loss then, I decided to return to the losmen. It was our clearest point of reference, + besides, I was still carrying one of the packs, + wanted to drop that off before roaming around Jakarta any more. Back there, I once again got out my book, + sat down to read, thinking I should leave it a little while before setting out again. Cathy + her boyfriend turned up (2 more heading the same way, so that gave me someone to stow the pack with, as well as someone to leave a message with, in case I should miss Val + she should return, + I was off again.
This time it was a piece of cake. To my immense relief, Val was sitting meekly in the Tourist Visa section, + this 4 hours on from when she arrived there. I can’t really describe her experience, but briefly she had simply run head first into the spider’s web that is Indonesian bureaucracy. She had seen 7 separate officials in 7 different offices (making her a sort of surreal Snow White, I suppose) + on each she had been asked to “please sit down + wait” for periods ranging from 20 mins to just over an hour. She had also, at one stage, had to take some documents away to be photocopied, at her own expense (fortunately one of the things Indonesia has an over-abundance of is photocopy shops.) And had also been told to return tomorrow, but she had swept that request aside. And she had tried to keep things moving as much as possible by frequent promptings + requests for information as to how long it would be. But it was remarkable to watch them, she told me. One man at a desk would gradually accumulate a huge pile of passports as they were handed to him one by one. Occasionally he would leaf thro’ them in a desultory sort of way, + when the pile was vast enough, he would carry them across to a colleague, + dump them on him. This man had been doing nothing for the past hour, but now he had to stir himself + work his way through the pile, doing something fairly insigni9ficant to each one. Then, when he too had completed the entire pile, on it would go to the next man. And so on.
By frequent prompting, Val was occasionally able to have our passports pulled out for special treatment, if being put on top of the pile warrants that description. We now, when showing our passports to officials here, try to hand it across to them open at the right page – otherwise they almost invariably leaf thro’ every single page, entry stamps into Costa Rice and all. By chance, my arrival at the office seemed to provoke some action. Within 10 minutes, our stamped passports were returned to us, our visas extended until Jan 16th, making 2 months in the country in all. And it wasn’t entirely painless from a monetary viewpoint either – we had to pay Rp10,000 as stamp duty, but on balance we thought it was worth it.
Then returned to the losmen, collected our bags from their respective keepers, + headed out. We did stop first to buy Val some food from the excellent Japanese bakery (which she was kind enough to share with me), but then caught the bus to Kota, + walked round to the Makassar wharf, this time not getting lost. Harry and the rest of the boys were still loading, tho’ they looked to be reaching the end, but we were invited aboard, + lugged our bags up to the accommodation section.
All Makassar schooners are built along the same lines. They’re made entirely of wood, have a very broad beam + shallow draught, with a big wide deck sloping up steeply to a high prow, with a heavy bowsprit pointing both forward + up at the stars. There is a single mast, planted well forward of centre, with a gaff rig. On the stern section is a high super-structure, housing, on its higher level, from bow to stern, wheelhouse, cabins + sheltered area for eating, resting etc. Underneath this is the engine room + more cabins, while at the very stern, overhanging the ocean, are the galley + bathroom , side by side. The toilet is a hole cut into the floor of the bathroom – no need for intricate pumps + sluices. The schooners are very much working ships, ferrying vital foodstuffs + supplies (as well as the occasional television + stereo) to Sumatra + Kalimantan, + returning with lumber.
We were immediately made to feel very welcome, much more at home than we had been aboard the “Tridaya”, + the crew here seem considerably more amiable, as well as being much more respectful of our privacy, something we appreciate a lot. They dug out a brand new cassette player from somewhere (the cargo?) so I in turn brought out some cassettes, which seemed to be appreciated. We were fed (rice + fish, of course) + later I played Harry at chess. He was very good, + beat me the first time, tho’ I got my revenge in the second game. Then, since it was quite late, our bags were brought into the wheelhouse, we laid out our bedding, + slept.
Not a post which reflects all that well on me, since, not for the first time, I seem to have taken it easy while Val did the waiting. And it was yet another example of the dreadful bureaucracy here, largely, it would seem, as a sort of job creation scheme. But then to the Jiwa Sabar, and every time we turn up again, it is that much more likely that it will happen.
