INDONESIA – GREATER JAKARTA

FOR SEVEN decades, Tokyo was considered the world’s most populous city. That was 15 years too long, according to data released last month by the UN. Until recently, the organization’s statisticians accepted national governments’ definitions of where their cities began and ended; their latest report accepts the reality of urban sprawl. By their new measures, Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, jumps to the top of the board with 42m people, about as many as Canada. Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, with 37m, has also pulled ahead of Tokyo, with 33m. Delhi and Shanghai, with around 30m people each, fill out the top five.

The UN’s latest figures highlight tremendous urbanisation. These days 45% of humanity lives in cities (with at least 50,000 people); another 36% inhabit towns (with at least 5,000). The data also show that much of the growth is happening in middle-income Asia. Only one of the world’s ten biggest cities lies outside that continent. And only seven of the world’s 33 “megacities” (boasting over 10m people) are in rich countries. By 2050 Jakarta and Dhaka will between them add another 25m people, nearly as many as live in Australia.

These migrations should help make people better off. “Dhaka changed my life and secured my kids’ education,” says Clinton Chakma, who found a job as a waiter after migrating from a farm in 2022. Yet there is also a huge risk: that as Asia’s cities expand, squalor, pollution and gridlock increasingly undercut the economic boost they provide. “People move to cities to be part of the labour market,” says Alain Bertaud of New York University. But if the labour market does not work, “you build a poverty trap”.

Jakarta, Dhaka and Delhi already rank among the world’s worst cities to live in, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, our sister company. Jakarta ranks 132nd out of 173 cities; Delhi is 145th. Dhaka comes third from last, with only Damascus and Libya’s Tripoli behind. If Asian countries are to break out of the middle-income trap, they must solve the problems that plague their cities. The best way of doing that is not through piecemeal projects, but by taking a hard look at the dysfunctional ways urban areas are governed.

Jakarta—nobody’s idea of a lovely city—is as good a place as any to see all this on the ground. After years of expansion it now encompasses the neighbouring cities of Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi (see map). Yet there is far too little co-ordination among these neighbouring authorities. A settlement as populous as some countries is governed as coherently as a clowder of cats.

The cost of this fragmented governance is perhaps best seen in Jakarta’s notorious traffic. It is the world’s 12th-most congested place (Dhaka ranks third and Delhi seventh). Unable to afford housing near their workplaces, many Jakartans live in far-flung suburbs. A vastly inadequate public transport system encourages them to travel by two-wheelers or in cars, which jams up the roads and causes air pollution. All this cuts productivity. The government of Jakarta reckons traffic jams cost its economy $6bn each year

In 2019, Jakarta got its first metro line. But it stops abruptly at the city’s official administrative boundary, short of commuter neighbourhoods. There is an urgent need for coordination within the agglomeration, says Adhika Ajie, the head of research and innovation at Jakarta’s city government. “Otherwise it’s useless.” Good luck with that. “Throughout my time, there was very little conversation with other mayors of surrounding cities,” says a former official in the city administration.

It was a long two days to finally arrive at my hotel in Jakarta. I said goodbye to Anna at 6 am on Dec 9, walked to the metro station in Wenzhou, and took the metro to Wenzhoudan train station, then 2 1/2 hours to Ningbo by high-speed train and a flight on China Southern from NIngbo to Guanzhou at 9 pm to 11:30. I found a good place to sleep on the departure floor but the police woke me up twice to tell me that I couldn’t lay on the floor and could only “rest” on the chairs. I finally persuaded him to leave me alone, and he acquiesced.

Day 1 Wed Dec 10
Flight China Southern. Guanzhou to Jakarta. @08:10-12:30. The CS clerk demanded that I needed an exit flight from Indonesia as a requirement of the VOA. I got a fake ticket on Onward Tickets.com for US$14. That turned out especially good as Indonesia doesn’t require an exit flight. This is the second time this has happened to me. The other time was a Buenos Aires to Curacau flight when I actually bought a ticket I did’t want to St Martin.

Visa on Arrival. US$34. Sent by email. Cumbersome Visitor’s form.
SIM. As my Fonus data is almost used up, I got an Indonesian SIM 10GB for one month for 350,000R.
Train from the airport to my hotel. It was good until I had to get the metro, one of the most confusing metros of my life. First, I was told to get on the wrong platform. I changed directions, but the metro only seemed to go for one stop, then turned back for the next two stops. I asked directions several times and got conflicting info. I took at least 2 hours and 6 different metros to finally arrive at Kamayman stop and a 350 m walk to the hotel. It is a full-service hotel but has a capsule dorm on the 9th floor.
I went out for dinner with a Canadian/Mexican IT guy.
ON Aryana Kamaymoran Jakarta. The 9th floor is a capsule floor. Breakfast included.

INDONESIA – GREATER JAKARTA 

Day 2 Thur Dec 11
JAKARTA
Gedung AA Maramis. A renovated 17th-century government building, it has planked floors, but all the rooms are empty.
Antara Gallery of Photojournalism. Documentary photos of people, government, agriculture and the military. Free
National Archives Building of the Republic of Indonesia. In NM architectural delights, this 2-story colonial building houses the history of Indonesia/Belgian relations. The 1830 war weakened the Netherlands, leading to Belgian independence in 1830. Belgium subsequently played an active role in Indonesian independence. 
Stasiun Jakarta Kota. The main train station in downtown Jakarta. It has domes and fast food restaurants, including an A&W.
Museum Bank Indonesia. Don’t miss this excellent museum. Housed in a lovely 2-story colonial building, it covers the history of the country with good exhibits on early exploration, spices (which are rarely mentioned) – black pepper, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon. After independence, there were major monetary catastrophes, including inflation at one time of over 600%. Lots of lovely old wood- panelled rooms and money. 5,000R, free reduced.
The Land Below the Wind: Spice Trade Route on XIII-XVIII AD. Tentative WHS
The best review of this is the Bank of Indonesia Museum.
Wayang Museum. All about puppets. Performances are accompanied by a gamelan orchestra. The dramatic stories depict mythologies, such as episodes from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, as well as local adaptations of cultural legends. Traditionally, a wayang is played out in a ritualized midnight-to-dawn show by a dalang, an artist and spiritual leader; people watch the show from both sides of the screen. 50,000R
Jakarta History Museum. A reasonable history of the city with a lot of furniture and millions of school groups. 50,000R
Museum of Fine Art and Ceramics. This was disappointing. In a 1870 colonial building on the main square, there was no fine arts but a display with photos of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, and a lot of ceramics, only in Indonesian. The highlights were the carved totems in the hallway and the wonderful wrought iron staircase. 50,000R
Pasar Ikan Grosir Muara Angke. A busy seafood market near the water in North Jakarta.
ON Aryana Kamaymoran Jakarta for the second night.

Day 3 Fri Dec 12
A second walkabout day in Jakarta. This ended up being a big mistake. My goal was to see several sites in south Jakarta, but I didn’t realize how bad the traffic was and how big Jakarta is. I have been using Gojek moto taxis to get around, the only way to get anywhere in Jakarta. It took 1 1/2 hours to get here, and then there was a major tropical downpour.
Monumen Pancasila Sakti. This monument glorifies “martyrs”, the army generals who were murdered on 1 October 1965 in the alleged 30th September Movement communist coup. The monument stands on a black-marble-paved square with a tall light-grey slab with a big bronze Garuda bird with the national symbol on it towering over a group of seven life-size figures standing in a semi-circle on a raised platform.
In Javanese “Sakti” means as much as ‘sacred’, and “Pancasila” means ‘five principles’, namely those that form the heart of the official state philosophy of Indonesia. This is enshrined in the constitution and represented in the national emblem in the form of a Garuda bird holding a shield with the corresponding five symbols. Here they are 1. belief in one and only one God (symbol: star), 2. just, civilized humanity (symbol: chain), 3. unity of the state of Indonesia (symbol: tree), 4. representative democracy, or “guided” democracy (symbol: buffalo), and 5. social justice (symbol: rice and cotton). It declares atheism or any non-monotheistic belief system unconstitutional and thus illegal (even though there are many ethnic groups in Indonesia where older animist beliefs still dominate, but these are, reluctantly, tolerated). Indonesian nationalists like Suharto meant that it was anti-communist. It is also the site of the Lubang Buaya, or crocodile pit or hole, the (waterless) well into which the murdered victims were dumped by their assassins.
The adjacent museum chronicles a long string of communist coups and plots, culminating in the 30th September one, showcasing how manipulative and truth-warped a museum and memorial site can be. The monument itself stands on a black-marble-paved square and features a tall light-grey slab with a big bronze Garuda bird with the national symbol on it, towering over a group of seven life-size figures standing in a semi-circle on a raised platform. Beside it is a large bronze relief depicting scenes, the dumping of the bodies in the well, street fighting scenes, army and police operations, the show trials following the arrest of the plotters, and an aloof Suharto being looked up to by devout disciples.
Next to the well site is an ensemble of dummies under a roof – called the “torturing veranda”. It shows tied-up victims with blood streaming from their heads and arms, fierce-looking torturers swinging sabres and rifles and a group of onlooking communist rebels (marked as such by red scarves) holding rifles with bayonets or raising their fists in the air. The message is clear: the communists are evil and the victims are martyrs. If you are expecting a genuine history lesson, don’t go. But if you can handle the extreme weirdness, it’s priceless. 3000R
Listrik Dan Energi Baru Museum. The building is inspired by the structure of an atom, featuring a central building symbolizing the nucleus surrounded by three orbiting electrons, the Electricity Pavilion at the center, surrounded by the New Energy Pavilion, the Fossil Energy Pavilion, and the Conventional Energy Pavilion. 50,000R

A torrential tropical downpour stopped today’s travel. I hunkered down and tried to get a taxi. None would come. Eventually, the rain slowed, I called a moto taxi and returned in an hour to near the hotel to have pizza at Pizza Head, so good that I ate here for 2 nights in a row. 

Day 4 Sat Dec 13
Flight. Lion Air. Jakarta to Pangkalpingang @10:15-11:30.

GO TO BANGKA AND BELITUNG ISLANDS