From the Tropical to the Mundane

From last post’s tropical to this post’s mundane.

S.A.M decided we needed a bank account.  Most people we’ve run into just use their U.S. accounts and withdraw cash with an ATM or cash checks.  But after putting down some roots it’s become more evident that an Indonesian bank account would be quite helpful.

One is the safety of our staff.  We’ve been paying them in cash and at the end of the month we send them home with small bricks of bills.  If we could transfer the money electronically, it would be a lot more secure.

There are also lots of extra discounts linked to a local bank account.  If you buy a meal at a restaurant you can save 10 or 15% just by using a card from a local bank.  The local Krispy Kreme has good deal going now. 6 donuts for the price of 4.  Just for telling them you’re a customer and showing them your card.

Also, for reasons that are unclear to me, the use of credit cards has not caught on to the same degree as back home.  Many places don’t take credit cards or if they do, they charge upwards of 5% for the privilege.  Plus, often they won’t take credit cards from foreign banks which makes it hard to buy things like airline tickets or hotel rooms.  You can, though, freely transfer money electronically from account to account with no fee and almost instantly. Wire transfers are much more common.

So, I looked around and asked around and got the inside scoop from a colleague who warned me that there would be some frustration.  There are a number of local banks, but I went on recommendations and the fact that I saw branches and ATMs everywhere.  My friend told me the branch that he went to which was also a branch where many expats go, so they have a lot of English speaking staff.

Off I went in pursuit of a rekening. That’s Indonesian for Bank Account.

Step 1.  I ducked out of work early to head to the suggested branch.  I was told getting and account could take a while so I allowed 2 hours.  I arrived at the bank at 3:09 pm to find the doors closed and the last customers filing out.  They close at 3 pm every day.  Huh.  Strange for a bank.  The bank is in a mall though and they’re open on Saturday.  The staff at the door assure me that the bank will open at 9 AM.

Step 2.  I return the next day at 9:45 to find a line of 60 other people who must have been told the bank opened at 9 AM, too.  It opens at 10.  Curiously, there is a neat and tidy queue winding down the mall until 9:55 when stragglers walk up and crowd at the door.  Just like in the streets.  When the doors open, the queue collapses and there is a mild crush toward the counter.

Step 3.  I make my way to the Customer Service Counter which, thankfully, has a smaller line.  I take a number I wait my turn.  Two men roll up with a small trolley and 2 one meter cubes of cash.  They’re guarded by what appears to be a 17 year old in a guard uniform holding an AK-47. They take the cubes o’ cash into the back room.  The armed teen waits outside.

My number is called.  I stepped up and made my request for a bank account.  I showed them my documents and all things seemed to be in order.  Something changes my agents mind, though, and she asks where I work.  I tell her and she says that that is kind of far away from this branch and that they usually only service customers in the immediate area.  I ask her if all the banks are linked with computers.  She assures me they are.  I ask if I can’t then just open an account here.  She tells me I cannot.  I say that I can walk to my work from here, maybe it is close enough?  She shakes her head and offers me the location of another branch closer to where I work that is not open on weekends. I tell her where I live which is actually further away from this bank.  She tells me that, alas, I live on the wrong side of some arbitrary boundary. She gives me the name of several branches, one of which is in another mall close to my house.  She thanks me for coming.

Step 4. Banks in malls are open when malls are open, and if malls are open on Sundays, then so are the banks.  I decide try again at the mall close to my house.  I find that there is no such bank branch there as she claimed, but only an ATM.  Grrrr.

Step 5. I go to another mall nearby.  Have I ever mentioned that there are more than 93 malls in this city. Not strip malls, either.  Full on, multi storied, multi-anchored malls with fountains and marbles and countless escalators. This will be my 3rd mall in 3 days.

Step 6. I walk into the customer service area and I ask to open an account.  The woman looks at my documents and says that yes they can help me.  She stands up and switches spots with a young man.  “We are exactly the same.  I will help you now.”  I think it is because his english is better.  

I have to mention that this man is gorgeous in a completely feminine way.  Definitely a man, but with sparkle.  Glittery rings and tasteful accents on his shirt. It is stunning.

He confirms that they can help me and he pulls out the needed forms and starts filling them out. He asks me some questions.  There is light banter with the other woman who seems to be advising him. Everything seems to be going smoothly.  

He gets up to have the bank manager sign off on the account and he returns with a dejected look.  “I’m sorry, Mr. S.A.M, but my manager says we can’t open an account because you don’t have an Indonesian Tax ID number.”

I ask, “Why do I need one of those? I don’t pay Indonesian Taxes.  I don’t get paid in Indonesian money. My friend just opened an account with this bank and he didn’t need a number.”  

He and the other woman nod their heads and agree with me. Off he goes to confer with the manager.  

He returns.  “I’m sorry, Mr. S.A.M, but we can’t open an account because you don’t have the proper ID.  Maybe you can get a proper ID from your boss.”  The woman next to him quickly disagrees with this and sends him back to the manager to explain the manager’s errors in thinking.

He returns looking more confused.  “I’m very sorry, Mr. S.A.M, but the reason we can’t open your account is because you don’t have a Indonesian Tax number. If you get that number, then we can open an account for you.”

“But, I’m confused.  Why didn’t my friend need a number when he opened his account?  Where would I even get such a number?” And, given the state of bureaucracy, how long would that even take?

Pretty man looked at me sympathetically and said, “....Or, you could come to the branch that I work at during the week and we can open an account for you no problem.”  He gave me the address of his place.  

I told him I was confused. “So, if I want an account from here today, I need a special number, but if I come to your branch tomorrow, I don’t”  He empathized and looked equally confused. “Yeah.  Different branches have different rules, I guess.”  

His partner assured me of the same and we parted ways.

Step 7. I return to the bank branch that he and his coworker staff during the week.  It is close to the nightly cake market.  From 2-7 am people sell small cakes and cookies for consumption the following day. It is also wedged in the heart of one the main red light districts of the city.  I’m beginning to understand why the banker man is so beautiful.  He may have a side job with a short commute. Today he is dressed more bankerly, but there is definite lip and eye liner.  His nails are long, freshly buffed and polished.  He and his fingers are impossibly long and thin.  I’m going to call him Skeezix.

It’s first thing in the morning, and while I wait, women stroll in and deposit the night’s take into the banks of ATMs on the wall.  Must have been a busy night.

Skeezix and his partner Any are happy to see me. Just like before, Any starts helping me and then they switch seats. As promised, they go about opening an account with only a few complications.  They scold me for not signing my name exactly as it appears on my passport. I’m made to sign everything again.  

The manager here has fewer rules and in fact, I don’t know that they were even consulted.

Skeezix pulls out a sheet of numbers and asks me if I want to pick out my own account number.  He answers my blank stare with “Maybe you have  lucky number?”   I take a look and try to find a number that’s sure to attract more money into my account. I wish I were more numerologically literate. Perhaps my luck would change.

I give them my money and they give me a receipt and just like that, I’ve got an account in under a week's time.   All I need to do is return in 1 week and pick up my ATM card and activate it.  

There I Was...

“There I was on the island of Borneo.”

Ever since I was a kid and watched those Saturday morning cartoons, Mr. Peabody and Underdog, and the like, I imagined myself saying those words in some stuffy, high-brow accent with a glass of scotch and a cigar.  Well, okay, I was 7, so maybe not the scotch and the cigar, but definitely the accent.

40-odd years later, I made it...there I was on the island of Borneo. Or, as the Indonesians call it, Kalimantan.  We took a second holiday break to cruise into orangutan territory for 3 days and, boy was it interesting.

We’d been told by several people that the river trip into the National park was a nice relaxing way to see orangutans and other jungle wild life. We headed out after New Years on Trigana Air.  One of two airlines you’ve never heard of that fly to Pangkalan Bun.  If you’re watching all the coverage of the Air Asia loss, you’re watching all the hustle and bustle of PKB itself.  

Our plane was an antiquated 737 with rubber floors and worn out seats.  It makes one wonder why this oxidized aluminum tube stayed aloft, but Air Asia’s newer jet did not.  But, we did get a meal which beats many domestic airlines here and back home.  

We were met at the airport by our guide who took us to the dock about 20 minutes away in a town call Kumai, so named because in the olden days of the port, people would boat in with their wares and yell to the people on the shore, “Kumai” which means “Come here.”

It is a busy port and a pretty low lying town, but when you enter town there are a number of tall grey buildings about 6 or 7 stories tall.  When we exit the car, all we can hear is birds screeching. Our guide told us that the tall grey buildings are full of swallows.  They play recordings of swallow “songs” at full blast to attract the real swallows to build their nests.  They harvest the nests and sell them to the chinese to make soup with them. They get 500-600 dollars for a kilogram of low quality birdsnest.  High quality bird’s nests fetch upwards of $1500 dollars a kilogram. Not a bad take for mud and swallow spittle.  What makes a high quality bird’s nest?  You’d have to ask a swallow or a chinese food fetishist.

We used the Borneo Eco Tours company  which is one of several outfits who run similar trips.  All the trips are about the same in terms of amenities and itinerary.  3 days/ 2 nights.  You and your party get a boat that can sleep up to 10.  Some have A/C in private cabins, some have futons on the deck.  Most all have flush toilets.  

We sprung for the deluxe package, which included mosquito nets and the A/C option and better mattresses.  Now, this was closer to deluxe camping than to a deluxe hotel.  There were showers, but they pull the water right out of the river.  They’ll heat it if you ask. The A/C only works until the generator goes off which is about 10 pm.  It is a great way to get off the grid, though.  No phones. No TV. No internet.  We had the realization too late, that if anything happened in the rest of the world, no one could reach us or knew where we were.  We’ll change that next time we head out.

There was an english speaking guide,  a captain, one crew and a cook who accompanied us. They were all amazingly attentive. The cook was great.  Everything we ate was delicious and they accommodated our dietary needs with no problem.

The first day we headed up the Sekonyer River, so named because a schooner sunk at its mouth

many years ago. We made one stop at an orangutan feeding station.  They’re trying to get these animals back into the wild, so they move the feeding stations further into the jungle and space out the feedings more.

Or, so they say.  I wonder how much money tours like ours bring in and what the interest is to make the orangutans truly wild.  I also wonder as their habitat is being chewed up an an astonishing rate by palm oil plantations and hard wood harvesting,  if this is truly an achievable goal. Nonetheless, we were able to get really close and we did see some orangutans in the wild and off the feeding station, so maybe it’s working.

At night, we moored on the side of the river under a full moon and played cards. We turned in early and rocked to sleep in the quiet. The only disturbance was a squad of boats hauling gravel for gold mining from mine upstream at 2 am. But it was cool to wake up with the birds and the primates.

The second day we caught two more feeding stations, including Camp Leakey, founded by Dr.  Galdikas for Orangutan research.  She, Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall all studied under the same mentor and were each assigned a primate to study.  She got orangutans and has studied them for the longest continuous period of research of any mammal.  

The highlight of the trip was at Camp Leakey when we got caught in an afternoon downpour.  We had just reached the feeding station when the rains came.  Out came the umbrellas and ponchos.  One female was eating and then ambled over toward the benches we were sitting at.  With one swift move she plunged into the crowd of people and snatched an umbrella from tourist to protect herself from the rain.  When a ranger came and got the umbrella back, she grabbed a branch and held it over her head.  It seems that Orangutans hate getting their faces wet.

The orangutans were the highlight, but we also saw proboscis monkeys, gibbons, lemurs, macaques, crocodiles, monitor lizards, wild boars, three-colored squirrels, hornbills, king fishers, and more butterflies than I’ve seen outside of those little museum exhibits. 

I'd often wondered how they get that camera footage on nature shows, but out there in the jungle there is just so much of it. Ants the size of quarters. Colonies of ants number in in the millions creating vast ant-superhighways up and down trees. Pitcher plants.

We saw this wasp that had just stunned a cicada. It proceeded to lay eggs inside the stricken bug and then buried the thing alive, so that when it's eggs hatched they'd have something to eat.

I'm telling you. It was a zoo trip through Disney’s Adventure Land!  An E-ticket ride.  If you’re in the area, you gotta do this trip.

And to think, there I was on the island of Borneo.

New Year's Eve

New Years Eve in Jakarta is a pretty big deal.  It is not an official holiday, but they set up music stages up and down the one main road in the city effectively closing the street.  It is like an amped up  version of car-free day. No one can get anywhere after 2 or 3 so everyone goes home early.  

Everywhere in carts on the street, fireworks and noisemakers are for sale.  Anyone can get fireworks for cheap, cheap, cheap. And good fireworks, too! Some nice roman candles and rockets. You can get an armful for 20 or 30 bucks.  If you’re Indonesian, probably a lot less.  

So, a nice pyrotechnic display is accessible to the average guy.  

Now,  there are a number of larger public displays around town, but you really don’t need to go looking far.

The hour before midnight the sky is lit up across town with tens of thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of private fireworks displays.  The air is filled with whistles, booms and cracks. It must be what a war zone sounds like. I can only imagine what it must have looked like above the trees, looking out across the city. I found a video, that give some idea, but I don’t think this does it justice. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrCqk13kwtE)

We got together with some friends for drinks and launched our own rockets adding to the cacophony.  We couldn’t really see much of the other displays, but we could hear them.  It’s my goal to see them next year.

Happy New Year!

Shit the Help Says

I’m gonna start a new section call “Shit The Help Says.”  It is not meant to offend in any way.  I’m sure they could write a blog about my Indonesian. It’s just funny how the communication goes at the boundary between your native and non-native tongue.

I was in the car with the driver and we passed Monas.  The large park in the center of town with the very tall pinnacle commemorating Indonesian Independence.  There were scores of workers crawling over what looked to be a large, temporary sound stage.  

My driver says, “Oh!, They’re getting ready for the New Year’s party!”  

“What do you do on New Years, Pak?”, I asked.

“Oh, I’m too old.  I just send my kids now.  I used to go.  We’d listen to music, watch fireworks”  He formed his hand into a round shape and motioned it toward his mouth. “We make noise with the hore…”  

“I’m sorry?!” I said. Probably a little too loudly and too quickly..

“You know, a hore” And he made that shape and that motion again. “Toot, toot!”

“Oh, horN.”

“Yes, horn.  We make much noise”

I understood perfectly.

Levelling Up!!

To recap from our last episode, we sent our daughter off to her first Bacchanalia.  A post semester high school party scheduled to start at 11 pm.  Yes, 11 pm.  Far too late for any working parent to go spy or chaperone.

So, we sent her and a friend with our driver and a litany of warnings and do’s and don’ts and faith that she had enough common sense to come home safely.

And, she did!  

She came home safely within curfew.  Remember, this is a liberal drinking age country and she confirmed that alcohol was flowing freely.  We’ve never really hidden alcohol from our kids.  They’ve been offered tastes from a very young age and none of them have liked the taste.  Whatever taste we’ve provided has often been spit back out.

So, we counseled for years about the alcohol hiding in all those fru-fru drinks and how this is often a young person’s downfall.  “This tastes just like Kool-Aid!”

This advice, though, offered no preparation for the Indonesian way of nightlife.  The drink of choice for your typical teen here?  Vodka… shots.

And this, in a single moment, demonstrates the power of peer pressure.  

All the years when she’s been offered sips of beer or wine by her parents have been met with a screwed up face and gagging and sometimes spraying the offending agent back at us.  But, when a classmate offers her a shot of vodka?  Sure, why not?  Everyone else is doing it.

She said it tasted awful, and this is when, maybe, common sense kicked back in and she didn’t drink anymore.  She did get some interesting insights into how alcohol works in some of her friends.  She said this party was a lot like her catholic middle school dances, when everyone was sort of goofy and disinhibited because they didn’t know better.  Dancing and talking in clots and acting silly.  

3 or 4 years on, it is still the same; disinhibited but for different reasons.  Best of all, though, she had fun and would go again. And we will feel a little more comfortable with the idea.

On the other side of the family tree, our son passed his first semester at university and successfully navigated his way solo around the world through missed flights and lost luggage and nearly 24 hours sitting in a metal tube.  It is wonderful to have him back in our lives for a few weeks.

This week it feels good to be a parent. I swear last night I heard a deep, warm, computer-generated gong-tone and a deep voice that said,..

“Level Up! Congratulations! Adolescent knowledge attained.  You gained 50 experience points, 10 wisdom credits and 1000 grey hairs!”

Watershed Parenting Moment

This is a watershed parenting moment.

When we first found out we were coming to Jakarta we were told so many good things.  We were told we would love the place and thus far, we’re pretty happy with where we ended up.

But, we were cautioned about a few things.  The traffic and pollution you've heard about.  The other thing was the school.  The school Z attends is an amazing facility and we've been happy for the most part with her teachers.  We think Z has been pretty happy as well. But we were warned a number of times about things that happen after school.  Namely, the parties.  

It seems that there is a pretty liberal interpretation of a drinking age here in Indonesia.  On the books, the drinking age is 21, but no one knows this.  In particular, the people who sell alcohol.  Apparently, if you look like you've entered puberty you can get alcohol.  Like so many of the rules, they’re overlooked until needed.

There is also a contingent of kids at school who come from significant means. Children of local magnates and executives.

What do well-off people like to do? Entertain. Which leads us to the parties.  Several times a year usually at term breaks, a group of kids rent out a local night club and invites most if not all of the high school.  These are not school sanctioned events The parties start at 11 pm.  They charge admission and I’m told they only allow kids from the school in. They all dress up and talk and dance to loud music,... oh, yeah, and they drink.  Reportedly, a lot.  Or some do anyway. There are reports of kids getting out of hand with their drinking.

The three of us have all been talking about this issue for months.  How to be responsible How to limit oneself. How to be safe. How resist peer pressure.  Maybe we just go out and buy her some drinks? No, thanks, Dad, that would be awkward. We wrestled with whether or not to allow this at all.

There was a party earlier in the year.  Z opted not to go and quietly Mrs. S.A.M and I were pleased, or at least relieved.

Which brings us to the watershed moment.

It’s the end of the school term this week, and tonight there is another party. This time our wee daughter has asked to go with a friend from school. And, so we reviewed all the things we talked about.  We tighten our sphincters and place our faith in our ability as parents, over the years, to instill some common sense and good decision making in her.  

We hope she comes back safely and pray that we haven’t sent her down a path of long term addiction and misery.  It’s going to be a long night.

The Stuff

We received the shipment of the vast majority of our household effects (HHE) this week.  For the uninitiated, when you move overseas you get to take 2 suitcases and a carryon with you.  You get several hundred pounds of stuff that you can ship by air and all the rest comes by boat.  This last part is your HHE.

If you heard faint gleeful exclamations in the night, that was probably Mrs. S.A.M receiving our boxes. Clothes, extra pots, the mixer, bulk quinoa, artwork.  You can probably read more about her pleasure here at AdventuresInWonderland4.Blogspot.com.  

I, on the other hand, am rather ambivalent.

Having started this big adventure 9 months ago, I’ve been living with a small amount of my own stuff for a while, and I gotta say it’s been pretty liberating.

Of course, there are things that I’m glad to have.  I’m really glad to have my camera.  I thought I could suffice with a cell phone, but there are a number of times I wish I could have had more.  I’ll never travel without one again.  

It was a great relief to get our Tempur-pedic mattress.  I hate to sound like a commercial or a grumpy old man,  but I have not had as good a nights sleep as I have the last few nights in months.  

I’ve been dreaming of having my Vitamix.  With so much tropical fruit around and a spouse who makes yogurt, it is the perfect place for a smoothie fan.

I’m  happy to see photos, too.  They’ll make the place feel more like home. Those and a couple other things, golf clubs, tools, a warm coat just in case, that is about all I’m glad to see.  

The other stuff, I wonder about.  There were two large crates towering in two smallish utilty trucks that rolled up and I wondered what was in there that I could possibly need.  

After months of living on minimal stuff and free of knick knacks and all the little bits that one collects and can’t get rid of, it was all back and this week I’ve suddenly felt heavy and weighed down.

Maybe it’s the fact that so many here lack and up rolls two trucks with more clothes and magazines and electronics and bedding and dishes.  Our pembantu, though was almost as excited as my wife.  Especially about the kitchen goods.  “What’s this? What’s it for?”

One of the boxes we received was labelled in large letters. “PARTS BOX”  This is the box that is supposed to have all the nuts and bolts that comes off of everything that you ship.  The bed parts, the dresser hardware, etc.  Our parts box had half the bolts to the bed.  The other were wrapped with the bed itself.  The remainder of the “Parts box” was filled with dog food, peanut butter, and... cranberry sauce.  6 cans of it.  Enough for three years of holidays.  

I had to ask Mrs. SAM if the men who packed our house were native English speakers.  She said they were and asked why?  I pointed to the two small heavy boxes labelled “Boozes”  filled with wine and liquor. I think boozes may be my new favourite non-word.  I’d encourage its use in your everyday lives.

I’m hoping all this feeling of heaviness dissipates when we get to our permanent house and everything gets organized and stowed.  When that happens we’ll have to have a party.  We've certainly got plenty of boozes.