Jakarta

West Java 

May 13, 2005

"Ahoy, there!"

North of Kuta ("Old Batavia" as the Dutch called it), my guidebooks recommended Sunda Kelapa, the old port where dozens of large, wooden, colorful, tall-masted/motorized schooners are moored.

Bogor

West Java

May 14, 2005

Salamat Malam,

Years ago, in Boston, my colleague Paul used a favorite expression when I made an error in judgment. With a smile, and a slightly affected tone, he would pronounce, "Well...That... Was... Stuuuuupid."

Bandung West Java

Indonesia

May 18, 2005

Loyal Family
Esteemed Friends
Ladies and Gentlemen,

In 1955, for one week in April, Indonesia hosted the Asian-African Conference in Bandung. It was the "first intercontinental gathering of coloured peoples in the history of mankind."

Bandung

West Java

May 16, 2005

All Aboard!

Just like my boyhood subway rides, ever emerging from the 149th Street tunnel to the elevated IRT tracks of the Woodlawn Jerome line over River Avenue, at the 161st Station astride Yankee Stadium in The Bronx, the train ride from Jakarta to Bandung was also exciting.

Bandung 

West Java

May 17, 2005

Salamat Malam,

At 7:00pm, the North Sea Bar was dead.  Except for Evert, a smiling Dutchman, 54, enjoying his tall green Heineken.

Evert has a business in Holland and lives with his twenty-seven year old girlfriend in Bandung. Soon to be married. (Where have I heard that one before?)

We chatted for an hour; I ordered some chicken fried rice. He asked me if I would like to meet his girlfriend's girlfriend.  Era arrived quickly. And quickly we decided that we were compatible.

We decided that the next day we would hire a taxi for a drive to Tangkuban Prahu - The "Overturned Volcano" crater 30km north of Bandung.