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Oza the Water guy
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This is Oza, he is our water guy. He brings us fresh water in a container twice a week. He charges us 25 000 rupiah (15,5 SEK or 1,7 USD), which I have heard from our neighbors is too much, but I never contested the price. I am actually grateful that someone can help us moving water for us, that bottle is heavy.
Oza has this as his full-time business, every day he transports a water container, at a time, on his scooter, and drives it to the residence of various apartment complexes.
So why do we need water guy? In Sweden we are spoiled with mineral water coming out of our cranes and we are even flushing our toilets with it. Here we are recommended not to even brush our teeth with the crane water. In some parts of Jakarta, the situation is even worse, water from the crane is not even available from time to time because of water rationing. Could it get worse?
Yes, millions of Indonesians have no access to clean water whatsoever, because ofthe pollution and the general carelessness of public property. Both companies and citizens dump whatever they want in the rivers. The rivers that used to givewater and fish to remote towns and villages are now toxic, which obviously leads to a bunch of health problems.
Is there any solution to this problem?
OK, is there any sustainable solution to this problem? Of course not! If the water gets clean Oza would lose his business, and that’s how the circle of dirt continues.
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Bogor Botanical Garden
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Even though Indonesia is filled with jungle and wildlife, you don’t see much of it being in Jakarta. The city hardly has any green areas, except for the one by the national monument. If you want to see green area or a park, you have to travel one hour out of Jakarta to get to Bogor.
The entrance of the park was guarded by heavily armed military men, I didn’t dare to take a picture of them. But while wondering why there were armed guards, I noticed Mark being held up in a photo shoot. Again.
When we were eventually let free of the crowds wanting to have a picture with Mark, we got in to the Botanical garden.
It was mostly trees everywhere no flowers, which you expect to see in a botanical garden.
It had a wonderful polluted river going right through the garden.
(there is actually a guy fishing further back in the picture.)
We went to the Obama café, which was called that way because the Indonesian president had a coffee there with Obama. This is also when it got clear for us that Bogor botanical garden is actually a part of the presidential palace, which explained the military men with machine guns.
I had a pineapple for lunch.
It looks better than it tasted, but at least I didn’t get sick.
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What is the fuss about Bali?
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Most people from the west spend a fortune to get to this Indonesian paradise Island, and I can see why. For us it was a matter of an one hour flight.
It is a tropical Island where you can drink coconut water straight from a coconut.
You can dive under the ocean and see fishes and corral reeves. (sorry no underwater pictures but it was super cool)
(The guys in the picture kept us safe, while one of us dived and the other took care of Mark)
You can go to the jungle and walk among the monkeys. Unfortunatly I didn’t have the camera ready when one monkey started to inspect Marks diaper bag.
You can see Hindu temples that looks like something taken from an Indiana Jones movie. 
And you can see a bunch of other things that we couldn’t see because of Mark. Like hidden canyons where you have to climb, swim and hike with waterfalls. Thanks Mark!
But after living in Indonesia for a while, we also had another perspective. First thing that hit us leaving the airport was all the taxi scammers, all of them also providing services as tour guides. This way they get around the laws of taximeter in the taxis. Some areas like Ubud, the taxi scammers are run by a local mafia cartel where they have kicked out the country’s biggest taxi company and all app driven taxis too. And by kicked out, I mean with violence, sabotage on cars and threats. So you can expect a cartel price for a taxi, 4 times higher than normal, and feeling unsafe throughout the trip.
In general, Indonesians are very pleasant people to deal with, they are warm hearted and very honest, but some of the people we met in Bali are far away from that. This is saddening that the only place where they have tourist income is a center for scammers.
Fortunately, we went to Bali in the low season, for us this meant that every hotel we went to gave us a room upgrade, the last hotel gave us a villa with a garden on the roof terrace, which was very good for a food poisoned Roozbeh.
For those who wondered, yes Mark was famous in Bali as well. He has also learned to wave, which is attracting more unwanted attention than ever.
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The highlight of our trip to Indonesia, leaving it for Bangkok
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But unfortunately, only for a weekend. So, why is Bangkok so much better than Jakarta?
Well most importantly these two fine people:
Panate famous for his long accurate shots in basketball, and now days working on saving the planet with important environmental work. He lives here in Thailand.
And Hazel one of my old mentor kids which never stopped partying after university and now is a professional party planner in Singapore. She just happened to be visiting Bangkok at the same time as we were there.
After living in Jakarta for over a month, you don’t realize what you have truly been missing until you see it. For example in Bangkok, they have side walks.
We were amazed! In Jakarta if there is a proper side walk, there will be scooters riding on it, or little food joints occupying it.
Another thing was that I stopped coughing. because of much less smog in the air, I feel that Panate had something to do with that.
And lastly, they have really good food, that doesn’t necessarily need to burn your mouth, or be super sweet, so you won’t be crying while eating or be confused if the chicken is a main course or a dessert.
Overall Thailand is much more developed and properly organized and very liberal in many ways. The only thing they ask you to respect is not to have a Buddha statue as decoration in your home. And when you visit a temple you need to cover your legs, which gives us the fabulous picture of Olya in a lime green long sarong.
If I would give Jakarta any slack, is that the Taxi drivers here are much nicer. In Thailand they try to trick tourist either by refusing to turn on the taxi meter or drive around the city in circles. Here in Jakarta we never had any problems with taxi drivers, once the taxi driver didn’t even want money for a trip because he didn’t have change.
And if you wondered, yes Mark was famous in Thailand as well.
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Car free Sundays
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Ever since we came to Jakarta, people have recommended us to go to the city center for the car free Sunday. But because the car free Sunday only lasts between 6 am to 11 am, you have to wake up early for this wonderful experience. None of us are keen on waking up early on a Sunday morning, even Mark likes to sleep in.
The taxi driver dropped us of at a very busy parking lot that belonged to the city monument. The temperature was around 34 degrees, and we really didn’t want to leave the taxi. As soon as we got settled with the stroller and started to walk a bit, we experienced the mighty force of Marks fame here, people were flocking around us, taking pictures with Mark, and one elderly woman even took the liberty to kiss him. So we solved this problem by walking faster, which made us even hotter, sweatier and thirstier. Within 10 minutes of leaving the taxi, I felt my temperament was finding itself to new low levels I hadn’t experienced before.
We eventually found the monument, and yes it was beautiful, it was a white tall tower pointing right up in to the sky, with a golden statue of a fire on top of it. It was magnificent, it was just like wow!
The white tall tower pointing right up in to the sky, with a golden statue of a fire on top of it, was surrounded by a park, which was also new for us.
They had built little paths made of rocks pointing in the wrong direction. Because you know, if it is painful to walk on, it is probably good for you. Some people even slept on them.
Here are the park rules
The first rule in the upper left is crossed out, so we will never know what was forbidden when the sign was put up, and then suddenly okay again. But I was disappointed at the rule of not breaking park benches, that’s my favorite thing. I support the rule of not giving flowers to anyone, I never understood that anyway, killing a plant and giving it to someone, so barbaric. I am still trying to figure out the bottom right rule, is it no dancing by a tree?
So far because of the heat, I had forgotten about the car free Sunday, we hadn’t seen a car since the parking lot. But I keept hearing Olya saying, this is not the car free Sunday area, this is just a white tall tower pointing right up in to the sky, with a golden statue of a fire on top of it and a park. This place is supposed to be car free. Eventually I snapped out of the distress of the heat and got ourselves out of the area and let google maps direct us to the Grand Indonesian Mall, because the taxi driver had mentioned the mall earlier on our way there.
After a lot more walking we found a 1 km strip of five lane highway without any cars. This was it! Along the empty highway there were all the street food vendors with the delicious unhygienic food we see everywhere and always try to avoid. Other vendors were more fancy selling Louis Vuitton bags and Rolex watches. Mark had fallen asleep, so we put his hat on his face to cover him from the light. One vendor attacks us trying to lift the hat to look at Mark. At this point I am hot, dehydrated and the last thing I want is Mark waking up and crying, so I snapped at the vendor.
After a kilometer of the walk on the highway we found Grand Indonesia Mall. I haven’t been so happy in my life finding a place with air conditioner. We found a restaurant that served Nutella Martinis, so after a couple of those I was back to normal.
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Boy or girl? And Rooz’s kinder eggs
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So as most of you know, I am on a parental leave taking care of our baby Mark. This experience has not been anything but fun. Spending time with Mark, I see him grow, I see him learn new things and get to know him better. Now this is very exotic over here, because the baby is expected to be taken care of by their moms, and if you are privileged, a maid will be following around. Some even ask me, where is the mother? The reaction to the answer that she is working can be interesting sometimes. Most people would just say okay, but some get sad for Mark, because every baby should always have a mom present. It was just a few years ago parental leave for dads was granted for government workers, and you don’t see many dads alone with their babies here. So far, I have seen one.
Mark has one pink outfit which he wears sometimes. And how this outfit came into his wardrobe has never been reflected on, I mean I have worn a lot of pink shirts through out my life, and really didn’t care if Mark was wearing pink clothes. However this causes some panic in people here when people get confused and ask us if it is a boy or a girl, and when we tell them the answer, sometimes they get offended. Pink is for girls!
Now I know that gender studies are my wife’s expertise, but I couldn’t help noticing the gender specific diapers here.
Or the boy or girl Kinder eggs.
Which are not even eggs! Shame on you Ferrero, for false marketing, these are not real eggs!
This last one offended me!
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KindyRoo
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Across the street there is a private playground/school indoors, with a bunch of toys and group activities for babies. It is called KindyRoo and the concept come originally from an Australian person. The place is marketed as a place to get your child to develop faster and make him or her more successful in life. No pressure Mark! But we were there only for the toys and social contact, and luckily all activities are in English.
To attend the classes that are one hour long, twice a week, we had to pay one Indonesian monthly salary to get Mark enrolled for the time of our stay here in Jakarta. Because of the price, we found ourselves surrounded by rich Indonesian housewife’s and their maids.
Mark fitted in perfectly, being the only Bule baby there, he immediately got all the attention. The teachers took Mark away from me and were playing with him only, other moms let go of their own babies and were playing with Mark. And some took pictures of Mark together with their own babies.
After a while I realized Mark was the only baby that was attended to by a teacher during the whole class, and I was a bit worried the other housewives getting jealous. He is even leading the class during the group activity, replacing the Bule doll. But so far, we have had no problems, and everybody is friendly.
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