Week in Jakarta!
Hi from INDONESIA!
What a week I had in Jakarta ... where to begin!?! First, I will tell y'all that my flight was crazy in that it took a total of 28 flying hours to get to Jakarta - with one stop from Houston to Seattle (4 hours), then to Taipei, China (19 hours), then onto Jakarta (5 hours). If you add on the 3 hours for layovers, it totals to around a 30 hour commute!
I arrived in Jakarta on Monday and was a bit overwhelmed with the airport. It was not what I was used to by any means! I did find my driver, who apparently was assigned to me all week. Isn't that lovely? You have your own personal driver while you are in Jakarta - to be honest, I can see why now that I have seen how they drive there! There are so many scooters ... TONS of them ... and with both on the road at the same time, it makes for scary transport.
I was staying at the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta, which is the recommended hotel from Accenture security. Strange thing is ... this is the same hotel that was bombed a few years back. The amount of security they have now because of the bombing is unbelievable! Each car is checked by about 5 security guards before you are even allowed to drive up in the designated area on front of the hotel. Even there, there is no parking allowed - just drop off and pick-up ... after being dropped off, you have to walk through a metal detector and your bags are searched. After clearing that part up front, then you walk a good ways to still enter the actual hotel. Apparently, they have 200 security personnel for this hotel alone! So, I felt very safe.
The funniest story that I have while in Jakarta happened pretty much that first day, Monday, when I landed and my driver took me to the hotel. As my family would call it, definitely classifies as a "bonehead"! I had exchanged my money into Rupia, which is the currency in Indonesia. It is a pretty each conversion in that you just have to divide the Rupia by 10,000 to get dollars (i.e. 50,000 Rp = $5). I was obviously exhausted when I got to Jakarta so I hadn't figured out the entire conversion just yet ... not only that, no one had told me that my driver was automatically paid by BP and that he was just to keep a log and get paid at the end of my stay in Jakarta. I had NO IDEA because obviously I asked him how much I needed to pay him once I arrived at the hotel. He didn't answer me the first few times (spoke no English at all) and then held up 6 fingers and kept saying "Yes?" ... so I figured I owed him 600,000 Rp. That was my guess - I had no idea and was so tired that I couldn't compute the conversion. Also, the ride was about 1.5 hours long - so $60 was not a surprise to me. Therefore, I tipped him 100,000 Rp = 700,000 Rp total = roughly $70ish. He was VERY happy and I went on about my way even though I kept asking for a receipt and he couldn't understand me - I was just too tired to care and figured I would get one later. I did found out later that evening when Iwan, my BP contact in Jakarta, called me to let me know that the driver was going to come pick me up at 6ish to get to the office on Tuesday morning, that his fees were covered by BP. SO - basically, I gave my driver a $70 tip!!! Apparently, when the driver was holding up 6 fingers, he was telling me he was going to pick me up the next morning at 6 AM!!! I laughed at myself good and plenty when I figured all that out - it ended up working out, however, because I essentially tipped him for the whole week up front. Also - to give you some idea of how much I tipped him ... the average Indonesia makes $80/month. TOO FUNNY!
The week in Jakarta went extremely well with regards to work; the BEST yet! The SCM group in BP Indonesia is full of the most generous people. They were all very hospitable and I felt like a queen when I was there all week. They went out of their way to help me or get me anything that I needed. The office itself looked like a resort - unbelieveable to work in that type of environment on a daily basis! I was also given a MOST interesting security de-brief at the start of Tuesday morning when I arrived at the office. It was so very fascinating all what Tony, the head of BP security in Indonesia, told me about Jakarta. I am sure he thought I was a total nut because I kept ooohing and awwwing over the things he was telling me! He is an Aussie who has been living in Jakarta for 5 years and knows the Indonesian language fluently; he is x-military (size-wise, you could definitely tell!) and he was my personal contact all week if I ever found myself in a scary situation. He was VERY nice and CLEVER too ... some of you know but others of you don't, I was advised to wear a "wedding band" to discourage men from being too aggressive towards me being that I am an American female who was to be traveling alone in a Muslim country. When I told Tony that I was heading to Bali that weekend, he asked me if my husband or boyfriend was going to be accompanying me and I automatically gave him a strange look. It was funny to me that even if I am 'playing the part' of a non-single female, my reactions and facial expressions when someone mentions "husband" totally give me away! I asked Tony if he said that because of my "wedding band" and he said yes ... so I guess it did work ... but he figured me out by my reaction anyways.
What a week I had in Jakarta ... where to begin!?! First, I will tell y'all that my flight was crazy in that it took a total of 28 flying hours to get to Jakarta - with one stop from Houston to Seattle (4 hours), then to Taipei, China (19 hours), then onto Jakarta (5 hours). If you add on the 3 hours for layovers, it totals to around a 30 hour commute!
I arrived in Jakarta on Monday and was a bit overwhelmed with the airport. It was not what I was used to by any means! I did find my driver, who apparently was assigned to me all week. Isn't that lovely? You have your own personal driver while you are in Jakarta - to be honest, I can see why now that I have seen how they drive there! There are so many scooters ... TONS of them ... and with both on the road at the same time, it makes for scary transport.
I was staying at the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta, which is the recommended hotel from Accenture security. Strange thing is ... this is the same hotel that was bombed a few years back. The amount of security they have now because of the bombing is unbelievable! Each car is checked by about 5 security guards before you are even allowed to drive up in the designated area on front of the hotel. Even there, there is no parking allowed - just drop off and pick-up ... after being dropped off, you have to walk through a metal detector and your bags are searched. After clearing that part up front, then you walk a good ways to still enter the actual hotel. Apparently, they have 200 security personnel for this hotel alone! So, I felt very safe.
The funniest story that I have while in Jakarta happened pretty much that first day, Monday, when I landed and my driver took me to the hotel. As my family would call it, definitely classifies as a "bonehead"! I had exchanged my money into Rupia, which is the currency in Indonesia. It is a pretty each conversion in that you just have to divide the Rupia by 10,000 to get dollars (i.e. 50,000 Rp = $5). I was obviously exhausted when I got to Jakarta so I hadn't figured out the entire conversion just yet ... not only that, no one had told me that my driver was automatically paid by BP and that he was just to keep a log and get paid at the end of my stay in Jakarta. I had NO IDEA because obviously I asked him how much I needed to pay him once I arrived at the hotel. He didn't answer me the first few times (spoke no English at all) and then held up 6 fingers and kept saying "Yes?" ... so I figured I owed him 600,000 Rp. That was my guess - I had no idea and was so tired that I couldn't compute the conversion. Also, the ride was about 1.5 hours long - so $60 was not a surprise to me. Therefore, I tipped him 100,000 Rp = 700,000 Rp total = roughly $70ish. He was VERY happy and I went on about my way even though I kept asking for a receipt and he couldn't understand me - I was just too tired to care and figured I would get one later. I did found out later that evening when Iwan, my BP contact in Jakarta, called me to let me know that the driver was going to come pick me up at 6ish to get to the office on Tuesday morning, that his fees were covered by BP. SO - basically, I gave my driver a $70 tip!!! Apparently, when the driver was holding up 6 fingers, he was telling me he was going to pick me up the next morning at 6 AM!!! I laughed at myself good and plenty when I figured all that out - it ended up working out, however, because I essentially tipped him for the whole week up front. Also - to give you some idea of how much I tipped him ... the average Indonesia makes $80/month. TOO FUNNY!
The week in Jakarta went extremely well with regards to work; the BEST yet! The SCM group in BP Indonesia is full of the most generous people. They were all very hospitable and I felt like a queen when I was there all week. They went out of their way to help me or get me anything that I needed. The office itself looked like a resort - unbelieveable to work in that type of environment on a daily basis! I was also given a MOST interesting security de-brief at the start of Tuesday morning when I arrived at the office. It was so very fascinating all what Tony, the head of BP security in Indonesia, told me about Jakarta. I am sure he thought I was a total nut because I kept ooohing and awwwing over the things he was telling me! He is an Aussie who has been living in Jakarta for 5 years and knows the Indonesian language fluently; he is x-military (size-wise, you could definitely tell!) and he was my personal contact all week if I ever found myself in a scary situation. He was VERY nice and CLEVER too ... some of you know but others of you don't, I was advised to wear a "wedding band" to discourage men from being too aggressive towards me being that I am an American female who was to be traveling alone in a Muslim country. When I told Tony that I was heading to Bali that weekend, he asked me if my husband or boyfriend was going to be accompanying me and I automatically gave him a strange look. It was funny to me that even if I am 'playing the part' of a non-single female, my reactions and facial expressions when someone mentions "husband" totally give me away! I asked Tony if he said that because of my "wedding band" and he said yes ... so I guess it did work ... but he figured me out by my reaction anyways.
I will post a few pictures below and then write a separate piece about the culture and what I learned about Indonesia while on my trip, so you can choose to read that separate from this note. You will see a picture of Angie Lawrence and I below; she is my friend that I worked with in the Junior League Tea Room last fall every other Saturday or so. Her and her husband moved to Jakarta in January, so they took me out to a dinner in town one night! It was sooooo great to see her - we had a blast catching up!!!
Hope everyone is doing well ... stay tuned!
keely :)
posted by Keely @ 3:40 AM
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