2907 D at the National Monument Monas.
2910 The chariot sculpture near the monument.
2913 The exterior of the National History Museum. The elephant sculpture was a gift from the King of Siam in 1871.
2977 Dutch Colonial Administration on the Taman Fatahillah Square in Jakarta. The small grey dome on the extreme left of the picture is the old well. The bicycles in front are for rent and come with either a man's or woman's color coordinated hat.
2979 D with the largest wayang in the Wayang Museum. Incidentally, all the HAL ship's movie theaters are named the Wayang Theater. At least all that I've been on. I'm not sure about the newest ships.
3000 This lad chooses to swim while his friends wade. That's a street he's swimming in. On this side of the barrier is the street we are on but going in the opposite direction. The water's deeper there, about 3 feet.
Feb 19 – Tanjung Priok-Jakarta, Indonesia. Tanjung Priok is in North Jakarta, Jakarta, Indonesia. It hosts the western part of the city's main harbor, the Port of Tanjung Priok where we're docked.
Before human development, the coastal area of what is now Tanjung Priok was an area of brackish water with swamp and mangrove forest. The area was later developed in late nineteenth century as a new harbor of Batavia to accommodate the increased traffic when the Suez Canal was opened. The construction of the new harbor was started in 1877.
When we pulled up to the pier there were folkloric dancers waiting to perform. Two of the dancers were obviously wearing outfits that doubled their height. The two were very similar except for the fact that one had silver 'hair' standing straight out from his whole head and the other had purple. The color of their faces matched the color of their hair. A band consisting of several types of drums, a gong, a flute and a two stringed violin type instrument that I've seen in China. The body is drum like and they play it in the vertical position. There were also four girls dressed mainly in red and gold that danced and as we were leaving the ship, posed for pictures with the passengers. It's always fun to have local greeters on the pier.
We are leaving the port area and heading into Jakarta. This was at one time a major Dutch settlement. There are many Dutch colonial buildings in various states of repair. Some are still in use, although often not for their original purpose. Some are completely derelict and falling down. My Pennsylvania Dutch (actually they are mostly Germans) grandmother used to say, "If you take good care of the roof, the roof will take good care of the building." It's pretty obvious that the first thing that went on these latter type colonial buildings was the roof. Most don't have one at all.
There was a second large tent set up down the pier. Many of the crew are from Indonesia and a large portion of them are from Jakarta or nearby. HAL has invited them to have their families aboard for a brief visit while we are in the Indonesian ports. They usually invite spouses, kids, parents and even grandparents so the number of visitors is very large. For most of the crew their visitors stay in the crew area of the ship. They see where the crewmember works, eats, exercises, etc. The kids get ice cream and treats so everyone is happy to see where 'Daddy' works.
On our drive into town it was interesting to see how many Indonesian words are transliterated from English or other European languages. For example Taxi is spelled Taksi, actually much closer to the actual pronunciation. American businesses are very evident here. There are all the usual suspects, Burger King, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and even Chili's. I saw a multitude of Starbucks mermaid logos, but never saw the name Starbucks with it. The name would be smaller inside the café but not up as a major sign. Odd.
Our first stop was at the National Monument Monas. It represents the Indonesians struggle to gain their independence and in a greater sense freedom of self-determination. The monument is a 450-foot tall marble obelisk with a sculpted flame atop. The flame is coated with 77 pounds of gold. As we drove away from the Monument Square we passed a long sculpture of a man driving a chariot pulled by at least 16 horses. The driver is accompanied by an archer, who is probably the hero of the episode being represented. I'll have to find out who this is because the sculpture appears to be at least life-sized if not larger. He's dressed in traditional Indonesian clothing so he's probably a king or a famous warrior of the past.
Next stop, the National History Museum. It's actually closed today but they have opened it to accommodate our tours. The limitation was that only the ground floor can be visited. The really interesting and famous exhibits are of the gold artifacts that are on the third floor. The first floor was interesting. The maps of the walls showing the ethnic diversity of Indonesia were interesting. Hundreds of languages have developed on the 500 or so islands that are inhabited. The country is about 90% Muslim, with the remaining 10% made up of Hindus, Christians and Buddhists. Some islands like Bali are majority Hindus. Maybe I'm mistaken but the crew members from Bali are happier more open people. This hypothesis is supported only by my non-scientific, totally random, small population research and should in no way be taken as fact. Although it never fails to amuse and distress me at the number of theories are taken as proven fact by the scientific community, sometimes based on nothing but unproven hypothesis, unverifiable assumptions and little if any actual facts. I was taught years ago that science was based on provable, replicable, experimentation. Not gross assumptions and computer models. Oh well, we'd lose 30% or our sensationalist news if we had to prove something before we held it to be true.
The museum has displays of woven artifacts, cloth and baskets, ancient religious carvings, traditional musical instruments (almost all percussion of one type or another), masks, furniture and puppets. The most interesting to me were the weapons, the infamous kris, a large dagger often with a wavy blade (nearly a sword in the larger versions), and klewang, a machete like sword.
From the museum we continued to a local shopping plaza for a chance to get some suaveness and the ladies some clothing. This center had both a Chili's and a KFC. Heaven only knows what the people in other countries think of the large, smiling face of Colonel Harlan Sanders looking down at them. In the USA we are familiar with the concept of a "Kentucky Colonel" but anywhere else they probably figure he was a military man.
Then it was off to Taman Fatahillah Square & Museum. The square is home to some really well maintained Dutch colonial buildings and 3 museums. In the 1700s this was the center of the colonial administration. In the 1970s Indonesians decided that preservation of this Dutch heritage was worth preserving and the buildings at the square were renovated and have been well maintained ever since. The old administration building that takes up most of the west side of the square is now a museum. The fountain in the center of the square was once the main water source for most of the city.
On the square's east side there's a well preserved and still operating Dutch style coffee house, the Café Batavia. I was going to drop in to see if I could get some Dutch treats to take back to the ship but as I exited the Puppet Museum it began pouring rain. I guess most tourists are under the impression that they are water soluble, because a stampede towards the café and its outside awning was well under way. The awning was filled to capacity so people were now going inside. I didn't want to get involved so no treats for me. I can hear your collective, "Awwwww" all the way from here. When it's warm I have no aversion to rain at all, in fact I enjoy it. Seems to cool me down. I just have to be careful to protect any electronics, like my camera.
On the north side of the square in a building that used to be a church, then a warehouse is now the Wayang Puppet Museum (actually a redundancy because Wayang means puppet). There are many wayang traditions beginning with those made of buffalo leather. These were often decorated with jewels and are very valuable today. They are also carved from wood and painted, later they are actually dressed in clothing instead of paint. Early on the stories they told were from the Ramayana, in other words Hindu. With the coming of Islam stories from Islamic history became subjects for wayang plays. In the 1950s the puppets started depicting people in Indonesian history to match the subject of new plays. In 1959, a missionary and pastor from Surakarta started making wayang of Biblical figures and putting on plays of stories from the Bible. This form is called Wayang Wahyu and is used all over on every Christian holiday. The museum has thousands of puppets of various sizes, ages and styles. Diana bought wayang of Rama and Sinta at Borobudur when we were here last time. Both of hers are in the wooden tradition.
After leaving the square the only thing left to do was head back to the port. Easier said than done. Jakarta's water drainage system is, as our guide said, "Disorganized.". That was his polite way of saying mostly nonexistent. Streets were flooding and cars and motorbikes were stalling out from wet ignition systems. You were ok if you drove slowly, but if you hit the deep water at speed the splash up would drown your engine, and that's all she wrote until you dry it out. The bus had no problems because all the critical parts are far above the water line. Smaller cars and vans were in water up to and partly over their bumpers. Our guide said that this happens every time it rains hard and I believe him. The kids we saw were having a great time splashing and wading in the water. One boy, not to be outdone, was actually swimming down the street. Fortunately because the standing water isn't actually going anywhere there's no danger of being swept away like there is during torrential rain in California and the southwest. I heard later that some of the buses had to turn back and go another, longer route back to the ship. Our driver exercised great patience and, although traffic was slow, as in move one car-length every two or three minutes, we finally made it to the choke point and were on our way.
Our entertainer for the evening was Pingxin Xu. His instrument is the Hammered Dulcimer and he is excellent. We've seen him before and it was a pleasure to see him again.
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