Jakarta: The good, bad and ugly

I am an American expatriate teaching in Surabaya. On May 28, I had to visit the Attorney General's Office in Jakarta about a problem I had. While in Jakarta, I had a chance to see and experience the worst and best the capital currently has to offer expats. I will begin with the bad, go to worse and worst and end with the good because it was so surprising.

Upon arriving at Gambir station, my fiancee and I were surrounded by taxi drivers offering to take us to the Supreme Court with prices from Rp 10,000 to Rp 15,000 but we thought the taxi booth would be safest. How sad it was to have our first impression of Jakarta be a taxi driver first take us south on Jl. Medan Merdeka Timur, then in a circle, pretend to ask directions and end up with a metered fare of Rp 7,000 at the court, which turns out to be within walking distance of Gambir station.

After a sadly disappointing meeting, we took a bajaj to Mangga Dua with a kind man who laughed at our experience with the taxi and said we had to be careful with Jakartans but that he was from East Java. But I guess he had been in Jakarta too long because he charged us Rp 10,000, after first asking Rp 15,000, whereas when we returned to Gambir, another bajaj driver only asked for Rp 4,000.

But the worst experience of Jakarta "hospitality" was the bakso (meatball) seller near the National Monument. My fiancee, a Surabaya native, first asked him if we could have bakso for Rp 1,500 each which he agreed to but when we finished he demanded Rp 8,000. I really felt that being bule (white) in Jakarta means people can lie, cheat and steal.

However, I am not really writing this to complain about the bad but to tell about the amazingly good experience we had. When we went to purchase tickets back to Surabaya, we discovered to our horror that an envelope containing Rp 500,000 was missing and that we did not have enough money to return home. I could only imagine that the money, in a plain unmarked envelope, had fallen out at the Supreme Court. My fiancee was in utter despair, saying it was hopeless to even try looking for it.

However, I went back to the Supreme Court and saw a Pak Agung Putra and asked him if anyone had found an envelope. Amazingly, he replied, dengan uang? (with money). I praised God for such an honest man. He said another guest had actually found the envelope and given it to him. Since it was unmarked, he did not really know whose it was but he thought it might have belonged to me.

I just wanted to write that while there may be many small men in Jakarta who are ready to lie, cheat and steal, there is at least one great man named Agung Putra who should be praised for his actions to a guest to his city.