So... Indonesia. A wonderful trip! The main thing I have taken away from my visit there was that Indonesians are very friendly and kind people. Some places that you travel in SE Asia can be extremely abrasive, leading to exhaustion and vows to avoid travel in future and all the hassles that go along with it (which, inevitably, I forget a few weeks later when another interesting trip looms near). However, my experience in Indonesia was very pleasant and I am already hoping to go back to Indonesia in the not too distant future!
I flew to Jakarta on Sunday morning with some of my classmates from Indonesian law. We were to meet our professor and other classmates on Monday morning for two days crammed full of visits to many Indonesian legal institutions. Sunday was a pretty uneventful day. We arrived and found our hotel on Jalan Jaksa- the tourist ghetto of Jakarta, if you can call it that. I don't actually think many tourists- or backpackers at least- travel to Jakarta so there is nothing remotely comparable to Bangkok's Khao San Road. I hold no love for Khao San Road, so nothing sad about that. Our first stop was to a restaurant across the street from our hotel to get some food. Not the best restaurant- in fact, we ate grilled gold fish (yes, as in the pet fish, though the larger version), and I do not recommend it. Very strong flavour. yick. In fact, we were actually wondering if they just fished it out of the tank right next to our table.... we next sadly failed in our efforts to visit a nearby flea market, as it was closed, and instead ended up at a nearby grocery store. The sight of all the delicious, fresh, and cheap fruit (it's so expensive in Singapore) was too much for us and we succumbed to a durian fruit and spent the evening munching on the (disgustingly) pungent fruit by the pool at our friend's hotel. For those of you who don't know what durian is, it is a famous fruit in SE Asia that wreaks of moldy socks or really old french cheese, but actually tastes pretty good. In fact, durian smells so bad that it is banned in many public places throughout the region. You can get a $500 fine for taking a durian on public transportation in Singapore! Ugh, I was on the train once when someone had a durian and it was soooo awful- the smell gets trapped in and there is no escape!
The next day we visited the University of Indonesia, the Indonesian parliament (well, their equivalent of a "parliament"), and a top Indonesian law firm.
Here I am at the parliament building with friends:
A group of law students from the university drove us and escorted us everywhere we went. These students were soooo incredibly hospitable- without them we would have been lost! Jakarta is a HUGE and chaotic city. Traffic is horrendous, but the layout of the city and lack of adequate public transport means that everyone drives. As a tourist, I think it would be quite a difficult city to get around. Basically, you would have to take taxis everywhere and sometimes the traffic jams would turn a 20 min drive into a 2 hour hell. The students then took us out for a local specialty dinner- called "padang". It consists of many tiny dishes that are spread over a table and meant to be eaten with rice. You choose what you want to eat, and then the restaurant charges according to what you ate at the end. There were a lot of chicken dishes, some veg, and an especially good beef dish. They even had chicken hearts and cow brains. I tried the hearts but not the brains. Here's a pic from dinner:
The next day included more visits around town, to the parliament again, the district court and the constitutional court, and an organization called "hukum online" which is trying to publish Indonesian laws online. This is a monumental task because many laws are not even published in Indonesia, and the government pursues a policy of decentralization, which means that the regional governments are primarily responsible for instituting regulations to implement and interpret the national laws. There are more than 30 regions in the country, some very far from the capital, Jakarta. So it is really hard to even get ahold of all these laws, let alone publish them online!
The next day most of the class parted ways, heading to various places around SE Asia for the duration of the break. I stuck around in Jakarta for the day because I wanted to visit the American Embassy and see if they had any good information that might be relevant to my thesis. I was able to meet briefly with the Regional Security Officer and got some good contacts whom I can email for additional information. So while I probably didn't need to stay around an entire extra day for a 30 min meeting, it still ended up being worthwhile. Luckily a couple of other students were hanging around as well. So we all met up for lunch, and then as it started pouring rain, we went to the movies.
Flew to Bali that evening. We took a taxi to an inland town called Ubud, where we spent the first couple of days. Ubud was a great town- very artsy and cute. Full of galleries, shops, great restaurants and spas. I was very happy to spend my birthday there! Basically, I pampered myself on my birthday with an indulgent visit to a spa and a great dinner at a restaurant recommended by a friend (Casa Luna- soooo good. I wish I could find a restaurant like that in Singapore!). That night we met up with some other exchange students from NUS who were also staying in Ubud, and they insisted that I drink lots and lots of Arak (the local alcohol) and then join them for a late night swim at their hotel pool. It turned out to be a very memorable birthday!
After Ubud, we all travelled to small town on the east coast called Candidasa. Here is a picture that typifies the relaxing beach paradise that was my time in Candidasa (tough life):
And here is the lagoon next to our hotel in Candidasa:
We were really lucky to get to attend a local Hindu festival. The whole town turned out for the festivities and all of the young men and women in town participated, dressing in beautifully elaborate costumes and bringing gifts to the Hindu temple.
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