Sujith: Indonesian Diary

It’s been close to a month since I blogged. I have been travelling around quite a bit, though that is no excuse, as it is part and parcel of a Sales job. The most fascinating job of sales and the most difficult part is sitting across the table and trying to convince your customer to buy your product. So there is a sympathetic corner for every sales guy I come across.

My job took me to the Republic of Indonesia. This is one country which is in the news for all the wrong reasons – Floods, earth-quakes, mud volcano and forest fires…With the fourth largest population the roads, buses, malls etc are crowded like India. As with every crowd, rules are broken on the roads, as with every poor country, corruption is rampant in every walk of life. But the new president is undoing or trying to change the scenario and is fighting corruption as much as he can. The ouster of Suharto and emerging of this new government made for some fascinating reading.

This part of the world has another similar fascination – high rises! They are all over the place. They are making the tallest/lightest twin storey apartment complex, which is supposedly one of the 50 best apartments in the world! I went for an expo and tell you what some of the best home furnishings can be sourced from this region. They do amazing work with wood, fabrics and fibres. Amazing stuff, highly recommended for home furnishing products.

The craziest thing to watch out for in Indonesia is the bus lane. They have this running on the middle of the road and at some parts they are at a raised platform, like the footpath, but at the wrong side. So you have bus-stops at the middle of the road which are connected by overhead walkways and the doors for this buses are on the right side!!! This idea has been borrowed from Bolivia/Colombia (one of these South American countries).

I took a nice train ride to a place called Bandung, which is supposedly the textile centre in Indonesia and I came to know this when I was leavingL Most of the popular brands that you wear in some parts of the world gets made here.

If you are a non-vegeterian, this is the country for you and the food is very similar in terms of your chicken curry, fish curry etc. They add turmeric and other spices in abundance and so the taste is also quite similar. In the restaurants, they keep all their dishes on your table and you can pick and choose whatever you want to eat. Once you are done, they will come and clear and charge you according to what you ate (touched). Eating with hand is not a crime. Talking about food, I had a really nice dinner at MU Café, yes Manchester United Café. I went in at 7PM and they showed me the way out as due to the Ramadan period, all the tables were booked. So went in at 9.30 and peacefully enjoyed the ambience. Got some stuff for some of the ManU-fan friends of mine.