Jakarta - first impressions

Hello from Jakarta! Dad is on a roadshow in Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh with his computer association and let me tag along. You can see through the morning grumpiness how Mom's excited too.

We left Tamsui at 0600 and finally got into our hotel in Jakarta at 1600. The pace of life here is definitely much slower than Taipei. We were in line at immigration for an hour. Sat in traffic for an hour to the hotel. Sat in traffic for another hour to where we had dinner. And another hour of traffic back. OK, I exaggerated a little bit about traffic, but the roads have been congested since we arrived in the afternoon and even after we finished dinner at 2100. Waiting seems to be a common theme everywhere we have been.

The attache said that 200,000 cars and 7,000,000 motorcycles are expected to be sold this year in Indonesia, and that with a population of 240 million, Indonesia is the fourth largest populated country in the world. Lots of people and vehicles, but not enough roads and other infrastructure.

Words I keep hearing from the attache and the lady from the trade office: dangerous, unsafe, corrupt government, poor infrastructure, poor sanitation, low efficiency.

What a positive first impression... There has to be something nice about Jakarta and Indonesians besides money that can be made from them... My mission in the next four days is to find something positive or interesting to write about.

Hope to learn and see more tomorrow.

Oh! Dad bought mangosteens and salaks for everyone after dinner.

I've had mangosteens before and like them very much, but salak was a first. It tasted like a combination of starfruit and natto. It's a different kind of stink than durian. Quite interesting!