Jakarta - The Big Durian
The true city that never sleeps - Jakarta is at its heart, a city that is an assault on the senses. Known as the 'The Big Durian' a fruit found in South East Asia renowned for its pungent smell, it’s the smell one has to endure in order to get to the smooth, creamy, custardy fruit, hidden below the thick, spiny skin. Jakarta is the ultimate city of dualities.
For many expats living here, Jakarta is the city they love to hate. The relentless traffic and it’s constant din, both day and night, the pollution, the stench of the canals that line the streets of almost every quarter of the city, the flooding in the monsoon season.
Jakarta is an animal, a beast. And you have one of two options, either let it consume you willingly, or go down kicking and screaming.
I allowed for the former.
From my balcony in North Jakarta, the vista spreads to the South and opens to Bogor and the dormant volcanoes of the Pangrango National Park. The twin peaked Gunung Gede and further on Gunung Salak. This is a city of give and take. One must persist with it's pollution and trade it for the awe inspiring sunsets.
Walking it’s streets and alleyways late at night, you're met with Jakarta's 'Ondel-Ondel', the male and female, globe-headed mascots of Jakarta, accompanied by their supporters playing whining music. For a fee you can take a selfie. It’s fish market, ‘Pasar Ikan’ at Ancol Harbor and one of two major animal markets, ‘Pasar
Burung’ – The bird market are two of my favorite locations for getting to know the real Jakarta. It’s in the places where poverty lies, these places, and on its outskirts, the rural settlement and garbage heap of Cilincing in the north, near my home, where you find the city’s heart. But these places you find scattered throughout the city, concentrations of poverty amongst towering skyscrapers of wealth and prosperity.
People scraping a meager living to support families that will invariably grow up to do the same. And yet, when walking through these places of poverty, one is always greeted by a friendly face that’s ready for the promise is a selfie with a foreigner. It’s here where you find the creamy custard of The Durian, amongst the filth.
The people content with their lot in in life. They smile, knowing that to frown will only make them age faster; the men women and children that go through the same motions daily.
And it’s not only the people you fall in love with. Jakarta is a great teacher of patience. You fall in love with your daily struggles, you either let go of the angst caused from sitting in a traffic jam for four hours because the city has come to a standstill, or stress about not making your meeting.
Here there is no measurement of distance, only time. When asking a local how far it would be from one part of the city to another, they invariably answer in time. And even time is not a given. Here we work on ‘Jam karet’ – the rubber clock. Appointments are usually delayed by half an hour, or three, and so, you simply reschedule or wait…
Walking through it’s grobak (food vendors who sell their wares from wheeled carts) lined streets, you’re met with squatting men, picking lice and flees from each other’s hair, massaging tired shoulders.
The unique aroma of ‘kretek’ cigarettes, a tobacco mixed with ground cloves smoked by locals is one of the many smells that will stay with me forever, having smoked it myself, its sweet aroma and semi-tongue numbing after effect, the sound of the clove crackling as you drag in it’s grey cloud of sweet promise I could all but forget.
I have heard Jakarta described as ‘shit’ and ‘god awful’and to 'get out while you still can', but in the end, it is what you make it. If you allow it to consume you, you become awe filled. And how could you not? When you see the city for what it is, learn about the locals you meet, where they come from, and why they’re here, most likely moved their villages for the promise of more money.
You see another side of the city, one that still offers hope and promise of a better future, though the city itself sinks.
Many will say my ideas of Jakarta are romanticized, deluded even. But this is what I have come to know Jakarta to be, it is my Jakarta; the smooth, custard core protected by a harsh outer crust.