CHAPTER 20 Djakarta
In the early stages of my tour, as a fledgling member of the "jet-set", each take-off and each touch-down had been an event for which I had mentally composed myself.
Until the pilot indicated, by retracting the undercarriage, that he at least, considered us airborne, I would not start reading. Similarly, at the end of the flight, when the cabin-indicators instructed passengers to fasten seat-belts, and as the hostess announced the local time, the temperature on the ground, and so on, then I would close my book and turn my mind to solemn matters; the hopelessness of our position if one of the engines, glowing redly in the night, were to fall off; the tragedy of my young life cut short; my widow and my fatherless children. However, it soon occurred to me that since I could do nothing, it was pointless thinking about a possible crash; that my young life was purely subjective, and that in view of the amount of life-insurance cover provided by a generous company, I was showing a mean, selfish spirit by clinging so tenaciously to life.
Familiarity had hardened me to the extent that, deeply absorbed in a book, I was frequently unaware of the take-off, but I noticed a tendency to ensure that I had finished any alcoholic drink, and that the evidence had been removed, before we reached the critical point of descent.
On thinking about this, it seemed that although regarding myself as a devout agnostic since the early age of eight (when the failure of prayer was revealed to me by the continued presence of one of my teachers) - nevertheless it was obvious that part of my mind believed in a Creator, and had no wish to appear before him, slurring words and giving other indications of Partial-drunkenness. First impressions are important!
My standards were finally eroded by the nonchalance of long-service international men. Some regarded the 'plane as an extension of their offices and were deep in paper-work as soon as they took their seats. A few reminded me of Jerome K. Jerome's friend (a hearty eater) who chose the all-in rate for a week's cruise. Rough weather upset his stomach and calculations. At the end of a week during which he had lived a "simple and blameless existence on thin Captain's biscuits and soda-water", he watched the ship departing and said:
"There she goes with two pounds' worth of food that belongs to me and that I haven't had."
So it is with the First-Class passenger on an International Airline. Apart from extra space, and a few frivolities such as bedsocks, the only economic gain is free drink. Some passengers were clearly determined to emerge on the credit side of the bargain by drinking more than the (substantial) difference between First, and Tourist Class fare.
With these dedicated men alongside me, my modest drinking habits would surely pass without comment in the event that the whole 'planeload of us made an untimely appearance before the Almighty.
There was no one to meet me at Kemajoran Airport, Djakarta. Although I had cabled arrival details to the local agent, the cable was not delivered until later. Normally, the local agent is happy to extend this courtesy and normally I was happy to accept, though to be met by a deputation of men with several years accumulation of problems and grievances, at midnight (their time) - three in the morning (your time), after a seven hour flight, is not relaxing.
But the man with local knowledge can often sort out minor problems and speed the visitor through the entry formalities. His familiarity with local currency regulations can also help. In Burma, for example, I had changed too many Traveller's Cheques into kyats, and later discovered that I could neither reconvert the surplus into another currency, nor take it out of the country. On my final full day, after paying the hotel bill and allowing sufficient cash for taxi, airport dues, breakfast and tips, I used the balance of Burmese currency to buy Cassell's French Dictionary (weight 21 pounds) from the Strand Hotel's bookstall, and a box of cheroots.
Even so, at the Airport next, morning, I still had the equivalent of ten shillings in kyats and to avoid the crime of taking it out of the country, presented it to a lavatory attendant - the only Burman I could see around, apart from Customs and Airline officials. It occurred to me later, that this might have been open to misinterpretation, but at six in the morning I am not clear-headed, particularly when I have not slept. The formalities of departure can extend backwards through a dreary night. When I left Djakarta the timetable was:
6.00 a.m. Take-off. (This has to be treated seriously despite an inner-certainty that you will be lucky to be away by 7.00).
4.30 a.m. Check-in time. (The normal one-hour for international flights was here extended to one-and-a-half hours).
4.00 a.m. (Allow half-a-hour for taxi journey from hotel to airport).
3.30 a.m. (Allow half-an-hour for bill-paying at the hotel, for assembling luggage and for securing a taxi).
2.30 a.m. (Allow one hour to drink tea and reconstitute my personality).
Accordingly, I retired to bed at 11.00p.m. the previous night and lay wakeful through the usual hotel barrage of door slamming, eventually lapsing into a coma about 12.30, from which I was awakened at 1.00 a.m. by my telephone.
The Reception Desk wanted to know whether I intended leaving by the airport 'bus because if so, I had better hurry. I did not have the spirit left to be rude to them even though they knew, and I knew they knew that I was not using the airport 'bus - because they handled the taxi reservation for me. By 2.00 a.m. I was dressed, packed and ready for a flight which eventually departed at half-past seven.
The local agent caught up with me later in the day in my room at the Hotel Indonesia. He hoped that I would be free to dine with his boss but regretted that he himself would not be present since it was now the month of Ramadan, when Moslems fast each day from sunrise to sunset. His boss, he explained, though also a Mohammedan, had an ulcer and was excused fasting, on medical grounds.
At dinner that evening I expressed sympathy to my host, while we were tackling a full-scale Chinese meal, following a light snack of frogs' legs, which he had ordered, by way of a compliment to me, under the impression that they were a typically British delicacy. None of this I would have thought suitable for an ulcer sufferer, but perhaps a refusal to admit limitations helps. Courageously too, he refrained from looking like an ulcer-victim. He was plump, gay and carefree, with bright eyes twinkling behind his glasses, and teeth flashing in a perpetual broad grin. Later he referred to himself as a “statistical Moslem - one who helps to make up the numbers" and I privately judged him to be a statistical Moslem with a tactical ulcer.
Djakarta is famous, or notorious for its network of canals, engineered by the Dutch, which now serve every conceivable function for the poor of the city while exposing them to the gaze, indifferent, disgusted, curious or despairing, of the passer-by.
Within sight of these unfortunates, are the prestige building projects which Sukarno hoped would help in the task of creating a nation and a sense of national pride. Most are unfinished and work on them is halted, but Sarinah, Indonesia's first Department-Store, was opened prior to the fall of Sukarno, and the young of Djakarta, newly introduced to escalators, spend their days riding them. Inside the store are many Japanese and Russian products such as cameras, radios and fans, all at prices far beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen.
The streets of Djakarta were a maze of pot-holes and puddles - partly due to the rains but aggravated by neglect. Through the streets crawled a congested stream of cars, usually ancient and rarely modern - often broken down but bowling along briskly from the efforts of half-a-dozen Indonesians trotting behind. The ordinary citizen's transport is the tricycle-betjak which Sukarno planned to replace by motorised betjaks on the grounds that the former involved degrading labour for the man pedalling along in the sweltering heat. Sukarno has gone but the betjaks remain, with a few motorised models here and there.
I enjoyed a drive to the mountains through countryside of beauty and charm, past rice-paddies, rubber-estates, tea plantations and on into the mountains, cool and refreshing to the body and spirit after the heat and squalor of Djakarta. We passed through the town of Bogor containing the Presidential Palace where, in his days of power Sukarno "gloried and drank deep". It is a fine, white building set in attractive grounds. Raffles of Singapore was once Lt. Governor of Java, and his wife died at Bogor. A temple in the Palace grounds is dedicated to her and she is also commemorated by a quatrain which Raffles wrote:
"Oh thou whom ne’er my constant heart,
One moment hath forgot;
Though fate severe hath bid us part,
Yet still - forget me not."