Jakarta
Fleck
Mon 9 May 2011 11:02
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Saturday, May 7th
Marina Batavia, Jakarta
6:07.15S 106:48.84E
Not too impressed, after the peace of last night,
to get down here to the smells and bustle of a busy waterfront.
Marina waypoints particularly unhelpful, but as a result, I inadvertently
entered and toured the fishing port area; a stinky noisy place, and a lot of
apparently good natured banter from the various crews, who clearly recognised
that I was out of place! It was quite fun. Finally tracked the Marina entrance
down, and just got in with a foot to spare, at low tide. I was the only visitor,
and there were some three dozen local boats, nearly all high powered
sportsfishing cruisers. The pontoons were rather run down, but by contrast the
shoreside facilities were excellent: the place functions as a club for wealthy
locals to socialize and network, with the 'draw' of the marina as a backdrop.
Jakarta is huge, and relatively speaking I was outside the North Circular Road,
trying to glimpse the centre. In the end it was only possible to do this by
taxi, the ride 'in' was firstly through very poor areas, shanty housing,
pockmarked roads, and endless queues of cars, often four abreast, all nudging to
fill each vacent place up ahead. We had seen this before in Bali; and finally
I'm a convert! Althought there is a lot of horn work, everyone actually stays
very cool, and I am impressed how little 'down time' there is at major
junctions. I wonder if we got rid of all our traffic control systems, and
learned to drive with these techniques, whether we would not all get to work
much quicker! Instead of traffic police or traffic lights, vigilantees take
money from vehicles trying to join a stream of traffic, and if you pay enough
these boys leap into the main stream and halt it: it seems to work very well,
and I saw no one killed. Anyway nothing much in the City Centre: a couple of big
East German type Statues, and modern malls and office blocks rising at random
from the surrounding unkempt and rather poor shops and streets. The old Town:
Kota, behind the fishing port, was more scenic. This was the original Dutch
developement, houses by the canals have some character, but many are falling
down, despite preservation orders. There is a History Museum here, you can stand
on the spot where the Dutch hanged all the petty thieves: but we've done
colonialism several times before!
Provisioning was easy, there was a big French chain
supermarket downtown. More difficult was getting my clearance papers. The
customs office in the old port was a container, painted blue, standing on
concrete blocks in a huge puddle of water from last nights rain. One of the
Marina Staff took me there on his motorcycle (what crash helmet?). Inside there
were four boys sitting on the floor playing cards. Sit down please, said the one
with a little English. So I sat on the floor as well, and when the hand of cards
was over they spread my documents out, passed them around, and tried to
make sense of them: I was trying to keep track of them, especially my passport!
They said that I would have to pay a bond of several thousand pounds (this is an
old trick, that we had all been warned about), then they said that they needed
to inspect the boat: so we re-assembled on Fleck, and they started to open all
the cupboards, but in a very half hearted way. So then the leader said, 'Well,
do you have drugs or firearms?' 'No', says I. 'Well thats good then' says he,
but do you have any powders? I offered him a bottle of Horlicks and a tin of
dried milk. He sniffed the Horlicks, and stirred the powdered milk with his
index finger (right index finger, good Muslim!). And that was that, except
because I hadn't paid my bond, there weren't going to give me the customs
certificate that I needed to clear the boat. Quarantene next: a straightforward
bribe of ten pounds for a certificate saying that I was free from transmissible
diseases! Then Immigration: set off for the Main Shipping Port at about
three pm in bright sunshine, in the back of my bluebird taxi. Was promised that
the fare would by about six pounds including a wait at the Office. Everything
then took place in a torrential downpour, virtually all the streets became
waterlogged, but this is a near daily occurrence at ths time of the year. The
immigration office, when we finally found it, was closed; but the caretaker took
me on his motorbike to the passenger terminal office. I was drenched
through, clutching his bike with one hand, and my documents, fortunately in a
plastic wallet, with the other. We seemed to travel miles. There were six
cardplayers in the new offices, and I must say that they were extremely
pleasant, offered me a bottle of water, and passed my ducuments around. None of
them knew where Cocos Keeling was (my destination). I drew a map, and they
didn't seem to recognise even Indonesia. This is a problem that I have
encountered before, they can manage apps on their mobile phones, but they have
never needed maps. Anyway, after I had promised to visit all their
home islands on my trip through Indonesia, I got my passport stamp and
immigration certificate, and miraculously my original taxi driver turned up
smiling, and took me home. Well, smile he might, his taxi had clocked up the
equivalent of thirty quid!
When you have got yout first three bits of paper
you have to go the the Harbourmaster to exchange them for the
vital bit: the Port ClearanceForm. Without this, you can't enter any other
Country. We will skip the 'finding the Harbourmasters office saga', I'm sitting
on an uptuned plastic milk bottle container, before a panel of seven harbour
officials. Where is Cocos Keeling? I had a brainwave: Australia, I said. Ah,
they said, that will do nicely! No one seemed to mind that the customs form was
missing, and after paying the reasonable harbour dues (but you never get a
receipt!), I was done!
Next up the Sunda Strait, and then out onto the
South Indian Ocean, where it looks like being a difficult trip until we get down
to Cocos Keeling, where there are already good tradewinds for Mauritius. One
step at a time.
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