Jogja breeze

Jogja breeze 10th October 2008

After nearly two months of wrestling with the ideas and non ideas of business possibilities in Malaysia. I took a break.

Jogja. Indonesia. On the map you would probably have to look for Jogjakarta, Java, Indonesia. I had booked an economical Air Asia return flight from Kuala Lumpur to Jogja departing on Wed 8th October 2008. I’d two objectives in mind. To discover a little more of Indonesia and test the property investment water. However I wouldn’t seriously attend to the second unless I found the first exciting and invigorating. How long does it take to understand how one feels about a region or location? The feelings unfold as one discovers more about surroundings and the people. I have mixed feelings about the surroundings. The centre of Jogja are pretty typical of most Asian city centres. Busy, hot and someone at every turn wanting to take some dosh from you for something or other. I fell on my feet with an internet hotel booking at a ’boutique’ hotel well out of the city centre to the north in a region that is called Palagan. It’s got a wicked bed and aircon that have promoted such glorious slumber that I am now reluctant to move on. The operation boasts a mix of Balinese styling and Javanese hospitality which were the only things that I really knew about it when I was making the internet booking. Both promote that smug, comfortable feeling and the fact that most of the furniture, apart from the bed, is creaking and wincing after less than a year of use just serves to remind me that looks aren’t everything (ladies take note)! I’ve walked the hastily and sometimes rather too economically metalled roads around this little suburb of Jogja during the heat of the past two days and met happy souls everywhere. I’ve discovered a restaurant that tempts one easily into a 160, 000 rupiah dinner that can be very seafood oriented or backed off a little from the seafood with a options of chicken or duck. I hit the ten pound mark, yes my UK friends 160, 000 rupiah sounds like a fortune doesn’t it…well I think it is for the locals!!, with a 1st class mix of Ikan Bakar (bbq fish) and Crispy Duck plus a little of my favorite veggy – kangkong in belachan. Mmmm, I agree, an odd combination but I am not an avid seafood consumer and I started the order with the Crispy Duck but felt that I had to at least tickle the seafood thing, especially as the joyous little place deemed to call itself Restaurant Jimbaran, one of the more famous Bali regions for taking good quality seafood. That was on my first evening here. An evening of torrential rain, lightning and a lengthy power outage to the whole of the suburb. The friendly Javanese thing displayed itself like a proud national flag that night. It was no issue to borrow a brolly at the Jimbaran establishment. In the black night and the torrential rain I wandered away from the restaurant in what I thought was the approximate direction of my ’boutique’ accomodation. I do have to admit that I felt a lot of eyes on me as I departed the restaurant. Eyes full of surprise and wonder tempered with that ‘yep, he’s odd, well he is European’ sort of acceptance. I got it roughly right. About thirty yards down the only turn that I needed to make from the restaurant exit road there was a budding warung operation surviving under a few timber poles, canvas and candlelight. I stopped and vocalised my accomodation’s name at a human looking outline behind the candle. I saw his arm go round in the direction I was heading and I responded with a Melayu thankyou which brought a grunt of acknowledgement. Another five minutes of trudging down the road brought nothing but a sound of running behind me. I’d aquiesced to a probable mugging and had already started to curse myself for being such a mug. I turned round as the footfalls were upon me to discover that it was the warung outline himself this time waving his arm in the opposite direction. Bless him! I’d walked past my boutique 4 minutes back and he’d run all the way down the road in the rain to haul me back. I held the umbrella over him as we started back and I offered more thanks. The umbrella thing seemed so pointless on reflection as he was already drenched and now I was getting drenched too.
I do like the people and although the city does nothing much for me yet I like this suburb thing with it’s friendly villagy feel and the farmlike activities that thrive behind the economically metalled routes and the sometimes not so twee roadside abodes.