Article 19
Jakarta
Up early and back to bed after the basics…nothing but nothing opens in Jakarta before 10am! So where do we have to go, nowhere. We did upload all the camera memories and decide as to what we wanted to save.
Arrival in Jakarta was smooth, bought our temporary Visas ‘On-entry’ and legally entered the country. Pick-up promised had not been verified so we ended up hiring a basic taxi! Big fee into town but so be it, we paid as we were delivered to the front doors of our hotel! The Ibis Arcadia.
Our time in Jakarta is broken up into basic things to do…Catch up with friends; organise a farewell dinner with these friends; get some loose stones mounted by my favourite jeweller; get some tailor made clothes for me…simpler than trying to find MY size anywhere and in Jakarta, a LOT cheaper.
It is now Tuesday 02 Oct. We have just checked our investments and they are doing better than we anticipated. We have lodged the stones (Black-Jade pieces) with our jeweller and the new necklace will be ready next Monday…just before we leave to come home. I have visited my Tailor and ordered the required new clothes and some shirts and I have a fitting tomorrow with collection of the finished articles on Friday. We have done all the shops over (within walking distance of the hotel) and contacted most of our friends and, the dinner is organised for this coming Sat. night. There is not much left for us to do here.
We had one stroke of luck…Patricia’s camera batteries (special, re-chargeable, and not available in Malaysia or Turkey for that matter) went kaput…could not be charged. We did not know if it was the batteries (two separate batteries) the camera or the charger. A friendly electrician in Sabang shopping street managed to test the charger and declared it OK. We visited the Ambassador Computer/Photo shopping mall in Jakarta south and after asking in a dozen shops, found two shops in succession both of which had one of the required batteries…now Patricia is restored for photograph taking when we are on the last leg of the trip! Oh Well.
Finally caught up with a very old friend from Jakarta, John...I have known him a long time and I will try not to paint him too blackly…but he is now working for the Captain and was off on another assignment and it just so happened he delayed his departure for one day. This gave us the chance to meet and say goodbye…I doubt that I will be in Indonesia, well Jakarta, in the foreseeable future. Best of wishes John and to the Captain too if I don’t see him before we depart next Monday.
So this will most likely be the last Journal Entry until I revert to my Brisbane Updates probably next weekend! (13th October)
Cheers and best wishes to everyone and thanks for reading the Journal.
Best Regards, Lynne and Patricia, 02 Oct. 2007, Jakarta: Indonesia
