Every voyager needs sustenance during the journey.
Here are some favourites of mine that I've published on Jamie Oliver's site:
http://www.jamieoliver.com/foodwise/search.php?search=&author=maserati4200&category=&sort=&x=50&y=20
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Don't Panic - Part 3
Read Part 1 & 2 first.
Matthew and I sat outside the cafe in silence for quite some time, gathering our thoughts. I was wondering whether this trip could get any worse.
Nah – of course not! We’d survived the maiden flight of a couple of untrained kids who had been entrusted with a plane which had the 3rd worst safety record in aviation history. We'd avoided the potential of being shot down by terrorists over the approaches to Bandung and we had come through a dangerous encounter with psychopathic nutters from the Indonesian mafia. What else could go wrong?
After we had regained our composure we wandered into the cafe and asked the waiter to call us a taxi. The old jokey response of; “You’re a taxi” wasn’t forthcoming but the chap obliged by making a phone call to the local cab company.
Ten minutes later the cab arrived and we were relieved to see that it was the same cab and driver that we’d had on the journey from the airport. Sanity prevailed once more.
We arrived back at Bandung airport and strolled into the terminal building. A couple of soldiers were milling about smoking and 4 or 5 of the people who were on the inbound flight with us were also waiting, as were the two lads who had piloted the plane on the outward journey.
I could see the Fokker waiting for us on the tarmac. It occurred to me that that the two trainee flyers had had the opportunity to rack up a few more hours of experience since the morning by way flying back and forth between Jakarta and Bandung in the meantime. So, the chances of an air disaster on the next trip had probably diminished by about 0.0005%. I felt quietly encouraged by this thought.
It was a bright and sunny afternoon with not a cloud in the sky and, without a doubt, perfect flying conditions.
We boarded the plane with about 8 other passengers. The two novices clambered into the cockpit and we were ready to go. This time around there was no danger of being vaporised by a thermo-nuclear explosion and the cockpit door was firmly closed. In just over an hour’s time we’ll be back at the Borobudur supping cocktails or splashing about in the pool. Bliss!
The take off was smooth and controlled – no dramas. The boys up front had clearly got to grips with the take off aspect of commercial air travel. Moreover, the journey to back to Jakarta was going so well that I was beginning to think that I’d been a bit harsh on the lads in my earlier mental critique of their aviation skills.
We’d been flying for about 40 minutes in beautiful blue skies. Then a few clouds began to build. The big fluffy white stuff gradually started to morph into big not-so-fluffy grey stuff and the flight became a bit bumpy from mild turbulence. The grey clouds suddenly became darker and darker and the slight bumpiness became lumpy-bumpiness.
Then the dark clouds became BLACK clouds. It was only about 5pm but it was as black as night outside. The black clouds were firing forks of lightening at the plane and heavy rain was bouncing off the wings and windows. We could hear thunder above the noise of the plane’s engines. We were in the centre of a major, angry, tropical storm – an electric storm that was taking its anger out on us. The Fokker was being tossed about in the sky left, right, up and down. The effect of this extreme turbulence was indescribable. I could hardly breathe from the fear. I was seriously petrified and so was everyone else on board. I have never been so frightened before or since.
Then the captain made an announcement over the PA system. It was in Indonesian first and then broken English. The Indonesian part started with something like; “Barang, barang a porn, porn” – Indon/Malay for “Ladies and gentlemen”. After our captain had finished this part of the announcement, the stewardess immediately started crying, went into the crash position and prayed. I looked around at the other passengers and they too had their heads between their knees and were jabbering away to Allah.
The broken-English part of the skipper’s announcement was basically:
“We’re flying through the middle of the mother-fucker of all storms and it’s impossible to land at Jakarta, In fact, it’s impossible to land anywhere and we’ll have to flying around in circles inside this sucker until we either die or are able to attempt a landing. Best wishes, your dedicated Captain”. He then added the killer; “Please don’t panic”.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when someone says; “Please don’t panic” in a scenario in which panic is a perfectly justified option, the urge to panic is a strong one and it’s normally preceded by the loosening of the bowels and screaming at the top of one’s voice.
We flew around in circles inside the storm for 35 minutes. It was shear hell. I can’t really describe the darkness, the lightening, the thunder and crazy turbulence.
Anyone who has experienced a tropical storm, hurricane or typhoon from the ground will have an idea of the power that these things can unleash. To be several thousand feet up in the air and right in the middle of it is another matter altogether. I was seriously crapping myself and I wasn’t the only one.
Ultimately, we survived, of course. The black clouds reverted to grey. The turbulence abated to a level which was just about tolerable and the plane made its approach into Jakarta. After a bumpy, bouncing descent through the rain clouds for about 15 minutes we made it to the runway and safety. The relief of everyone onboard was palpable. We were too shocked to cheer or applaud the crew.
As we taxied to our station I looked out the window. The rain was incredible – big heavy rain, stair-rod straight and as thick as macaroni.
The plane stopped about 400 yards from the terminal building and we waited for the bus/truck to arrive to transport back to the shed. This was another forlorn hope. The door of the fuselage flew open, steps were placed alongside and we were instructed to disembark.
It was pointless running the 400 yards or so in order to stay dry. You might as well have stood under a power shower with the power turned up to Number 11, or jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed for all the good it would do. Accept the inevitable – you’re gonna get soaking wet. After the events of the last 10 hours I couldn’t give a shit.
Matthew and I sauntered across the tarmac to the shed, through the throng of clove smoking locals and across the terminal to the door that led to the taxi rank.
By the time we reached the exit door the rain had stopped and, in that weird way that the tropics work, the rain had stopped the sky was blue and the sun was beating down once more.
We stood in line waiting for a cab, our clothes dripping wet. Within 2 minutes our clothes were emitting clouds of steam. People were looking at us, incredulous. After another couple of minutes in the intense heat of the sun our clothes were bone dry and our hair was a mad mess of curly, frizzy, fuzz. And we were knackered beyond belief.
I can’t remember anything about the cab journey from the airport back to the hotel, nor can I remember much about the rest of the evening. I do recall, however, going straight to the hotel bar and ordering a large, extra dry, martini (chilled, stirred and with a twist), followed by another. What followed is a complete blur.
I’m not sure what the moral of this story is, but panic was an option.
The End!
Matthew and I sat outside the cafe in silence for quite some time, gathering our thoughts. I was wondering whether this trip could get any worse.
Nah – of course not! We’d survived the maiden flight of a couple of untrained kids who had been entrusted with a plane which had the 3rd worst safety record in aviation history. We'd avoided the potential of being shot down by terrorists over the approaches to Bandung and we had come through a dangerous encounter with psychopathic nutters from the Indonesian mafia. What else could go wrong?
After we had regained our composure we wandered into the cafe and asked the waiter to call us a taxi. The old jokey response of; “You’re a taxi” wasn’t forthcoming but the chap obliged by making a phone call to the local cab company.
Ten minutes later the cab arrived and we were relieved to see that it was the same cab and driver that we’d had on the journey from the airport. Sanity prevailed once more.
We arrived back at Bandung airport and strolled into the terminal building. A couple of soldiers were milling about smoking and 4 or 5 of the people who were on the inbound flight with us were also waiting, as were the two lads who had piloted the plane on the outward journey.
I could see the Fokker waiting for us on the tarmac. It occurred to me that that the two trainee flyers had had the opportunity to rack up a few more hours of experience since the morning by way flying back and forth between Jakarta and Bandung in the meantime. So, the chances of an air disaster on the next trip had probably diminished by about 0.0005%. I felt quietly encouraged by this thought.
It was a bright and sunny afternoon with not a cloud in the sky and, without a doubt, perfect flying conditions.
We boarded the plane with about 8 other passengers. The two novices clambered into the cockpit and we were ready to go. This time around there was no danger of being vaporised by a thermo-nuclear explosion and the cockpit door was firmly closed. In just over an hour’s time we’ll be back at the Borobudur supping cocktails or splashing about in the pool. Bliss!
The take off was smooth and controlled – no dramas. The boys up front had clearly got to grips with the take off aspect of commercial air travel. Moreover, the journey to back to Jakarta was going so well that I was beginning to think that I’d been a bit harsh on the lads in my earlier mental critique of their aviation skills.
We’d been flying for about 40 minutes in beautiful blue skies. Then a few clouds began to build. The big fluffy white stuff gradually started to morph into big not-so-fluffy grey stuff and the flight became a bit bumpy from mild turbulence. The grey clouds suddenly became darker and darker and the slight bumpiness became lumpy-bumpiness.
Then the dark clouds became BLACK clouds. It was only about 5pm but it was as black as night outside. The black clouds were firing forks of lightening at the plane and heavy rain was bouncing off the wings and windows. We could hear thunder above the noise of the plane’s engines. We were in the centre of a major, angry, tropical storm – an electric storm that was taking its anger out on us. The Fokker was being tossed about in the sky left, right, up and down. The effect of this extreme turbulence was indescribable. I could hardly breathe from the fear. I was seriously petrified and so was everyone else on board. I have never been so frightened before or since.
Then the captain made an announcement over the PA system. It was in Indonesian first and then broken English. The Indonesian part started with something like; “Barang, barang a porn, porn” – Indon/Malay for “Ladies and gentlemen”. After our captain had finished this part of the announcement, the stewardess immediately started crying, went into the crash position and prayed. I looked around at the other passengers and they too had their heads between their knees and were jabbering away to Allah.
The broken-English part of the skipper’s announcement was basically:
“We’re flying through the middle of the mother-fucker of all storms and it’s impossible to land at Jakarta, In fact, it’s impossible to land anywhere and we’ll have to flying around in circles inside this sucker until we either die or are able to attempt a landing. Best wishes, your dedicated Captain”. He then added the killer; “Please don’t panic”.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when someone says; “Please don’t panic” in a scenario in which panic is a perfectly justified option, the urge to panic is a strong one and it’s normally preceded by the loosening of the bowels and screaming at the top of one’s voice.
We flew around in circles inside the storm for 35 minutes. It was shear hell. I can’t really describe the darkness, the lightening, the thunder and crazy turbulence.
Anyone who has experienced a tropical storm, hurricane or typhoon from the ground will have an idea of the power that these things can unleash. To be several thousand feet up in the air and right in the middle of it is another matter altogether. I was seriously crapping myself and I wasn’t the only one.
Ultimately, we survived, of course. The black clouds reverted to grey. The turbulence abated to a level which was just about tolerable and the plane made its approach into Jakarta. After a bumpy, bouncing descent through the rain clouds for about 15 minutes we made it to the runway and safety. The relief of everyone onboard was palpable. We were too shocked to cheer or applaud the crew.
As we taxied to our station I looked out the window. The rain was incredible – big heavy rain, stair-rod straight and as thick as macaroni.
The plane stopped about 400 yards from the terminal building and we waited for the bus/truck to arrive to transport back to the shed. This was another forlorn hope. The door of the fuselage flew open, steps were placed alongside and we were instructed to disembark.
It was pointless running the 400 yards or so in order to stay dry. You might as well have stood under a power shower with the power turned up to Number 11, or jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed for all the good it would do. Accept the inevitable – you’re gonna get soaking wet. After the events of the last 10 hours I couldn’t give a shit.
Matthew and I sauntered across the tarmac to the shed, through the throng of clove smoking locals and across the terminal to the door that led to the taxi rank.
By the time we reached the exit door the rain had stopped and, in that weird way that the tropics work, the rain had stopped the sky was blue and the sun was beating down once more.
We stood in line waiting for a cab, our clothes dripping wet. Within 2 minutes our clothes were emitting clouds of steam. People were looking at us, incredulous. After another couple of minutes in the intense heat of the sun our clothes were bone dry and our hair was a mad mess of curly, frizzy, fuzz. And we were knackered beyond belief.
I can’t remember anything about the cab journey from the airport back to the hotel, nor can I remember much about the rest of the evening. I do recall, however, going straight to the hotel bar and ordering a large, extra dry, martini (chilled, stirred and with a twist), followed by another. What followed is a complete blur.
I’m not sure what the moral of this story is, but panic was an option.
The End!
Don't Panic - Part 2
Read Part 1 first.
The driver’s door of the 4x4 flew open and out stepped the biggest bloke I have ever set eyes on. He must have been 6’ 9” in his socks and about 5’ wide. He looked like a cross between The Incredibile Hulk and Merv Hughes, the former Australian fast bowler. Hughes was a big lad with a big moustache, but this particular Hulk made old Merv look puny by comparison and, as for the moustache – well, a flock of sparrows could have set up home in it.
The Hulk had jet black hair and matching moustache. He was dressed in dark grey military fatigues and wore the biggest, blackest, shiniest boots imaginable. He also wore a couple of “accessories” the purpose of which was not to enhance his sartorial elegance. A pair of what looked Magnum 44s was strapped in holsters to each of his massive thighs.
It was clear to me that the Hulk was a member of the local constabulary and come to the cafe for his morning break. Nope - it was the wrong theory. He had come for us.
As he advanced towards Matthew and me the Hulk began grinning the biggest, widest, insane-looking grin, revealing the biggest, whitest set of teeth. His grinning visage reminded me of Jack Nicholson in the Shining. We were about to meet a 6’ 9”, fully tooled-up, psychopath.
He arrived at our table and thrust a huge hand out towards us, still grinning that insane grin. Matthew and I both stood up and we each shook his hand in turn. Well, it was less of a hand-shake and more of a hand-crush, really. I was in so much pain that I wasn’t concentrating on what he said as he spoke to introduce himself. In fact, he didn’t speak. He boomed. The decibel level of his voice was directly proportionate to the 3 tons per square inch of pressure that his huge mitt was exerting on my poor right hand. I tried to speak and say “How do you do” but could manage only a strangled yelp through gritted teeth.
After he had finished reducing our hands and fingers to mush, he stood there grinning and staring at us and eventually said – or rather, he shouted – “We go see Mr. Boy!”
Boy Tamzil was the owner of the company that we had come to see, so at last we knew what the Hulk had come for and that Main Man had sent him.
The Hulk turned and waved us towards the truck. We got in, Matthew in the front and me in the back. I was impressed. It was brand spanking new, with nice leather interior, all the gadgets, aircon, the lot. I had a good old look around the interior, taking it all in and then made the mistake of glancing over the back of the seat into the rear. In the back were about half-a-dozen machine guns, several high velocity rifles and a load of boxes with the word “ammunition” printed prominently on the top. I was having a problem figuring how all that stuff related to an organisation that dealt with computers and software. I decided not to try and work it out any further.
The Hulk fired up the truck, put it in gear and buried the throttle into the carpet. We shot off down the road like a bat out of hell.
The fact that he couldn’t drive didn’t matter too much because the streets were still empty, save for a couple stray dogs that were comatose in the heat at the side of the road. However, after a few minutes, another vehicle approached us on the other side of the road.
As we got closer the Hulk yanked the steering wheel to the right and we veered across the road into the path of the oncoming car. “What the fuck...” I muttered. Just before we were about to smash headlong into the approaching innocent and responsible road user he yanked the wheel back to the left and swerved on to the other side of the road. He then started laughing loudly and uncontrollably. The image of Jack Nicholson’s face flashed across my mind.
The Hulk repeated this entertaining manoeuvre again when the next car approached and again, a third time. It must have been a tactic aimed at softening Matthew and me up before our negotiations with Mr Boy. It worked a treat.
Having defied death by transport on this trip once again we arrived at Mr Boy’s place. Or, rather we roared to a halt in a cloud of dust as the Hulk stood on the brakes. The contents of the back of the truck crashed into the rear of my seat and I fully expected a 21 gun salute to go off in recognition of our safe arrival.
Being British, Matthew and I kept our composure like real men and thanked the Hulk very much for taking the time to deliver us safely to our destination. We fully expected him crush our hands again and bid a fond farewell before we entered Mr Boy’s establishment. However, it soon became apparent that the Hulk was a party to the meeting and he leapt out of the truck and beckoned us towards Mr. Boy’s place.
Mr Boy’s place was in fact a bungalow – a bungalow in a suburban street of bungalows in a Bandung suburb. It was akin to a bungalow in Northbourne, Bournemouth, only it was 3,000 feet in the hills above the West Java jungle.
There was a wrought iron gate at the front of the house, in the middle of a green privet hedge. A stone pathway led through the small front lawn to the front door.
Attached to the gate was a sign, in Indonesian. You didn’t need to be fluent in Indonesian to get the message. On either side of the wording were two images; one was the head of an Alsatian dog and the other was a machine gun.
Clearly, trespassers would either be eaten or shot, or perhaps both. In any event, it was clear that the local judiciary wouldn’t have to be troubled by tedious and time consuming prosecution proceedings.
None of this bothered the Hulk. He strode through the gate, up to the entrance and banged his huge fist against the wooden door. A dog barked. My buttocks clenched.
The door was opened by a short, slim chap wearing what looked like an ankle length pencil skirt. He was also wearing a fez-like cap on his head and black socks and black shiny shoes on his feet. His complexion was sallow and his face expressionless – dead pan.
The Hulk walked straight past the gate keeper and led us through a hallway to another door. He knocked gently and respectfully on the door with the knuckle of his right forefinger. This was the first thing that he had done that could remotely be described as subtle or discreet.
He waiting a couple of seconds and then opened the door gently and slowly entered the room ahead of us. It was obvious that Mr Boy was not to be messed with and that the Hulk held him in deep respect. It also occurred to me that if the Hulk was so much in awe of Mr Boy, Mr Boy must be a huge fucking bloke.
Mr Boy was tiny. He looked like the guy who had opened the front door, only tinier. He wore the same type of headgear, a white shirt, and I imagined he wore the same type of skirt, socks and shoes. I couldn’t be sure of this because Mr. Boy was sitting behind a large desk and didn’t stand up to greet us. I also couldn’t judge his age. He looked like he could be aged anything from 16 to 60 – a bit like the Fokker pilots. He had a thin moustache so he must have passed puberty at least. He also smoked and was smoking one of those hideous clove cigarettes.
The Hulk introduced us and we shook hands with the sedentary Mr Boy. Mr. Boy didn’t speak. His handshake was a limp wristed affair. Maybe the Hulk had broken every bone in his hand when they first met – dunno.
Matthew and I sat down in chairs which were lined up against the wall to the right of Mr Boy’s desk and the Hulk sat opposite us against the other wall. No one said anything. Mr Boy and the Hulk just stared at us, the Hulk was grinning and Mr Boy was expressionless.
Matthew decided to break the ice. “Thank you very much for sparing the time to see us” he said, or something along those lines. This was greeted by silence, more staring and grinning. Eventually the Hulk boomed, “Mr Boy welcomes you to Bandung”. Now, given that Mr. Boy hadn’t said a word since we had entered this office, I was slightly confused as to how this message of welcome had been conveyed to the Hulk. Maybe the pair of them were telepathic.
“Mr. Boy says; ‘Would you like some coffee?’” boomed the Hulk. Again, Mr. Boy hadn’t uttered a word. Nevertheless, not wishing to offend our hosts, we gratefully accepted the offer of a cup of coffee. Personally, by this stage, I could have done with something a damn sight stronger.
As if by magic, and within a second of us accepting Mr. Boy’s kind offer of refreshment, the gate keeper entered the room carrying a tray of cups and saucers - more telepathy? “These guys must be aliens” I thought to myself. The tray also contained a plate some rather weird looking luminous green objects. “Definitely aliens” a voice in my head said.
Mr. Boy’s servant served the coffee and placed the plate of green objects on Mr. Boy’s desk.
Now, Indonesian coffee has the appearance and texture of hot bitumen. It is also incredibly strong and requires a shed load of sugar in order to make it palatable. The end result of this syrupy goo is that you don’t drink it or sip it. You can’t even pour it into your mouth. You have to suck it out of the cup or spread it over your tongue with a knife, like Marmite on toast.
After a couple of sucks I gave up and turned my attention to the green objects on Mr Boy’s desk.
Mr. Boy noticed my interest in the green stuff and immediately picked up the plate and thrust it in my direction. He still didn’t say a word and had the same blank expression on his face. However, he was clearly thinking “If you think the coffee’s weird, wait until you taste one of these babies”.
I looked across to the Hulk and was nodding his head like mad and grinning even more insanely than usual. I had no choice. I picked up one of the green things and inspected it. It was a cake! The rate of the Hulk’s head-nodding increased as he silently encouraged me to take a bite out of the alien cake. “Oh well, here goes. It was weird alright. The outer green surface was like marzipan only 10 times sweeter. The interior was yellow in colour and tasted and smelt like shit. I found out later that it was a sponge cake made out of durian covered in the Indonesian equivalent of marzipan. It was disgusting.
Durian is a tropical fruit that has no right to exist. It tastes and smells like the contents of a sewer and has the colour and texture of sloppy custard. It is a truly foul substance.
Anyway, I managed to swallow a gob full of shit and marzipan and then smiled at the Hulk. He stopped nodding immediately and his mad grin vanished from his big ugly mug. “Gotcha!” a voice in my head said.
We then attempted to get down to the nitty-gritty and talk business. This was not easy. In fact, the rest of the meeting was just as weird as what had gone before. Mr. Boy didn’t say a word, even in his native tongue. He simply stared at Matthew and me throughout.
The “conversation” went along these lines:
We would say something or ask a question to the Hulk. He would wait a few seconds and then respond with “Mr. Boy....”
The Hulk would then say something or ask a question. We would respond. The Hulk would then wait a few seconds and come back with “Mr. Boy...”
And so it went on. As I said earlier, we were dealing with telepathic aliens from Planet Weird.
After about half an hour of this madness Matthew and I had had enough and were ready to be beamed up and back to the normal world, or at the very least to the cocktail bar of the Borobudur Hotel – two or three extra dry martinis would just about restore my sanity.
We thanked Mr. Boy, by way of the Hulk, for his time and explained that we had to make our way back to Jakarta. Mr. Boy simply stared at us, smoking the clove stick. We shook hands with Mr. Boy. The Hulk then leapt to his feet, led us out of the house to the truck and we headed off back to the cafe were we first met the big man. It was a drama free journey for once.
We arrived back at the cafe in the traditional manner – the slamming on of the brakes, the cloud of dust etc. The Hulk then boomed; “I buy you drink and we talk price”. We had a bit of time available before the flight back to Jarkarta, so we said “OK”. Another mistake.
Matthew and I couldn’t take anymore of the local coffee and cakes, so we went for coke and a bowl of peanuts.
The drinks and nuts arrived and we then presented the Hulk with a copy of our price list. He didn’t even bother looking at it. “Gimme your best price” he hissed through that mad grin.
We explained that the prices were printed on the piece of paper that was on the table adjacent to his left hand. “Gimme your best price” he hissed once more.
We patiently explained that the prices were very competitive and included valuable additional services such as warranty, support and other such marvellous benefits for each of our distributors.
At this point the Hulk became very aggressive. He stopped grinning and started frowning. “I want best price” he boomed. He kept repeating this over and over – with each repetition his voice became louder.
Suddenly, a voice inside my head said “Right, I have enough of all this fucking crap. I’ve had enough fucking stress, shit and aggro today to last a fucking lifetime”. I then launched a verbal attack at him. I can’t remember exactly what I said but it was along the lines of; “If you don’t like what’s on offer you can shove it up your arse and fuck off”.
As I was delivering my pearls of wisdom to our large friend, Matthew started to kick me in the shins under the table. He was looking at me with a pleading expression on his face that said; “Shut the fuck up. He’s the one with the fucking guns not us!” I must have got the message pretty quickly and I immediately stopped ranting, in mid-rant.
Strangely, the Hulk didn’t reach for the Magnums and blow our brains out. Instead he became very calm, reasonable and almost serene. He began speaking in a normal voice and had a normal expression on his huge face. Maybe he thought that anyone who was prepared to mix it with the biggest armed and dangerous psycho in Indonesia must be confident of a successful outcome and decided that it was best not to push it too much.
It was all over in a flash. He thanked us for coming to visit Mr. Boy, got up from the table and drove off in to the distance. He didn’t even shake hands, which was a bonus as far as I was concerned.
To be continued...
The driver’s door of the 4x4 flew open and out stepped the biggest bloke I have ever set eyes on. He must have been 6’ 9” in his socks and about 5’ wide. He looked like a cross between The Incredibile Hulk and Merv Hughes, the former Australian fast bowler. Hughes was a big lad with a big moustache, but this particular Hulk made old Merv look puny by comparison and, as for the moustache – well, a flock of sparrows could have set up home in it.
The Hulk had jet black hair and matching moustache. He was dressed in dark grey military fatigues and wore the biggest, blackest, shiniest boots imaginable. He also wore a couple of “accessories” the purpose of which was not to enhance his sartorial elegance. A pair of what looked Magnum 44s was strapped in holsters to each of his massive thighs.
It was clear to me that the Hulk was a member of the local constabulary and come to the cafe for his morning break. Nope - it was the wrong theory. He had come for us.
As he advanced towards Matthew and me the Hulk began grinning the biggest, widest, insane-looking grin, revealing the biggest, whitest set of teeth. His grinning visage reminded me of Jack Nicholson in the Shining. We were about to meet a 6’ 9”, fully tooled-up, psychopath.
He arrived at our table and thrust a huge hand out towards us, still grinning that insane grin. Matthew and I both stood up and we each shook his hand in turn. Well, it was less of a hand-shake and more of a hand-crush, really. I was in so much pain that I wasn’t concentrating on what he said as he spoke to introduce himself. In fact, he didn’t speak. He boomed. The decibel level of his voice was directly proportionate to the 3 tons per square inch of pressure that his huge mitt was exerting on my poor right hand. I tried to speak and say “How do you do” but could manage only a strangled yelp through gritted teeth.
After he had finished reducing our hands and fingers to mush, he stood there grinning and staring at us and eventually said – or rather, he shouted – “We go see Mr. Boy!”
Boy Tamzil was the owner of the company that we had come to see, so at last we knew what the Hulk had come for and that Main Man had sent him.
The Hulk turned and waved us towards the truck. We got in, Matthew in the front and me in the back. I was impressed. It was brand spanking new, with nice leather interior, all the gadgets, aircon, the lot. I had a good old look around the interior, taking it all in and then made the mistake of glancing over the back of the seat into the rear. In the back were about half-a-dozen machine guns, several high velocity rifles and a load of boxes with the word “ammunition” printed prominently on the top. I was having a problem figuring how all that stuff related to an organisation that dealt with computers and software. I decided not to try and work it out any further.
The Hulk fired up the truck, put it in gear and buried the throttle into the carpet. We shot off down the road like a bat out of hell.
The fact that he couldn’t drive didn’t matter too much because the streets were still empty, save for a couple stray dogs that were comatose in the heat at the side of the road. However, after a few minutes, another vehicle approached us on the other side of the road.
As we got closer the Hulk yanked the steering wheel to the right and we veered across the road into the path of the oncoming car. “What the fuck...” I muttered. Just before we were about to smash headlong into the approaching innocent and responsible road user he yanked the wheel back to the left and swerved on to the other side of the road. He then started laughing loudly and uncontrollably. The image of Jack Nicholson’s face flashed across my mind.
The Hulk repeated this entertaining manoeuvre again when the next car approached and again, a third time. It must have been a tactic aimed at softening Matthew and me up before our negotiations with Mr Boy. It worked a treat.
Having defied death by transport on this trip once again we arrived at Mr Boy’s place. Or, rather we roared to a halt in a cloud of dust as the Hulk stood on the brakes. The contents of the back of the truck crashed into the rear of my seat and I fully expected a 21 gun salute to go off in recognition of our safe arrival.
Being British, Matthew and I kept our composure like real men and thanked the Hulk very much for taking the time to deliver us safely to our destination. We fully expected him crush our hands again and bid a fond farewell before we entered Mr Boy’s establishment. However, it soon became apparent that the Hulk was a party to the meeting and he leapt out of the truck and beckoned us towards Mr. Boy’s place.
Mr Boy’s place was in fact a bungalow – a bungalow in a suburban street of bungalows in a Bandung suburb. It was akin to a bungalow in Northbourne, Bournemouth, only it was 3,000 feet in the hills above the West Java jungle.
There was a wrought iron gate at the front of the house, in the middle of a green privet hedge. A stone pathway led through the small front lawn to the front door.
Attached to the gate was a sign, in Indonesian. You didn’t need to be fluent in Indonesian to get the message. On either side of the wording were two images; one was the head of an Alsatian dog and the other was a machine gun.
Clearly, trespassers would either be eaten or shot, or perhaps both. In any event, it was clear that the local judiciary wouldn’t have to be troubled by tedious and time consuming prosecution proceedings.
None of this bothered the Hulk. He strode through the gate, up to the entrance and banged his huge fist against the wooden door. A dog barked. My buttocks clenched.
The door was opened by a short, slim chap wearing what looked like an ankle length pencil skirt. He was also wearing a fez-like cap on his head and black socks and black shiny shoes on his feet. His complexion was sallow and his face expressionless – dead pan.
The Hulk walked straight past the gate keeper and led us through a hallway to another door. He knocked gently and respectfully on the door with the knuckle of his right forefinger. This was the first thing that he had done that could remotely be described as subtle or discreet.
He waiting a couple of seconds and then opened the door gently and slowly entered the room ahead of us. It was obvious that Mr Boy was not to be messed with and that the Hulk held him in deep respect. It also occurred to me that if the Hulk was so much in awe of Mr Boy, Mr Boy must be a huge fucking bloke.
Mr Boy was tiny. He looked like the guy who had opened the front door, only tinier. He wore the same type of headgear, a white shirt, and I imagined he wore the same type of skirt, socks and shoes. I couldn’t be sure of this because Mr. Boy was sitting behind a large desk and didn’t stand up to greet us. I also couldn’t judge his age. He looked like he could be aged anything from 16 to 60 – a bit like the Fokker pilots. He had a thin moustache so he must have passed puberty at least. He also smoked and was smoking one of those hideous clove cigarettes.
The Hulk introduced us and we shook hands with the sedentary Mr Boy. Mr. Boy didn’t speak. His handshake was a limp wristed affair. Maybe the Hulk had broken every bone in his hand when they first met – dunno.
Matthew and I sat down in chairs which were lined up against the wall to the right of Mr Boy’s desk and the Hulk sat opposite us against the other wall. No one said anything. Mr Boy and the Hulk just stared at us, the Hulk was grinning and Mr Boy was expressionless.
Matthew decided to break the ice. “Thank you very much for sparing the time to see us” he said, or something along those lines. This was greeted by silence, more staring and grinning. Eventually the Hulk boomed, “Mr Boy welcomes you to Bandung”. Now, given that Mr. Boy hadn’t said a word since we had entered this office, I was slightly confused as to how this message of welcome had been conveyed to the Hulk. Maybe the pair of them were telepathic.
“Mr. Boy says; ‘Would you like some coffee?’” boomed the Hulk. Again, Mr. Boy hadn’t uttered a word. Nevertheless, not wishing to offend our hosts, we gratefully accepted the offer of a cup of coffee. Personally, by this stage, I could have done with something a damn sight stronger.
As if by magic, and within a second of us accepting Mr. Boy’s kind offer of refreshment, the gate keeper entered the room carrying a tray of cups and saucers - more telepathy? “These guys must be aliens” I thought to myself. The tray also contained a plate some rather weird looking luminous green objects. “Definitely aliens” a voice in my head said.
Mr. Boy’s servant served the coffee and placed the plate of green objects on Mr. Boy’s desk.
Now, Indonesian coffee has the appearance and texture of hot bitumen. It is also incredibly strong and requires a shed load of sugar in order to make it palatable. The end result of this syrupy goo is that you don’t drink it or sip it. You can’t even pour it into your mouth. You have to suck it out of the cup or spread it over your tongue with a knife, like Marmite on toast.
After a couple of sucks I gave up and turned my attention to the green objects on Mr Boy’s desk.
Mr. Boy noticed my interest in the green stuff and immediately picked up the plate and thrust it in my direction. He still didn’t say a word and had the same blank expression on his face. However, he was clearly thinking “If you think the coffee’s weird, wait until you taste one of these babies”.
I looked across to the Hulk and was nodding his head like mad and grinning even more insanely than usual. I had no choice. I picked up one of the green things and inspected it. It was a cake! The rate of the Hulk’s head-nodding increased as he silently encouraged me to take a bite out of the alien cake. “Oh well, here goes. It was weird alright. The outer green surface was like marzipan only 10 times sweeter. The interior was yellow in colour and tasted and smelt like shit. I found out later that it was a sponge cake made out of durian covered in the Indonesian equivalent of marzipan. It was disgusting.
Durian is a tropical fruit that has no right to exist. It tastes and smells like the contents of a sewer and has the colour and texture of sloppy custard. It is a truly foul substance.
Anyway, I managed to swallow a gob full of shit and marzipan and then smiled at the Hulk. He stopped nodding immediately and his mad grin vanished from his big ugly mug. “Gotcha!” a voice in my head said.
We then attempted to get down to the nitty-gritty and talk business. This was not easy. In fact, the rest of the meeting was just as weird as what had gone before. Mr. Boy didn’t say a word, even in his native tongue. He simply stared at Matthew and me throughout.
The “conversation” went along these lines:
We would say something or ask a question to the Hulk. He would wait a few seconds and then respond with “Mr. Boy....”
The Hulk would then say something or ask a question. We would respond. The Hulk would then wait a few seconds and come back with “Mr. Boy...”
And so it went on. As I said earlier, we were dealing with telepathic aliens from Planet Weird.
After about half an hour of this madness Matthew and I had had enough and were ready to be beamed up and back to the normal world, or at the very least to the cocktail bar of the Borobudur Hotel – two or three extra dry martinis would just about restore my sanity.
We thanked Mr. Boy, by way of the Hulk, for his time and explained that we had to make our way back to Jakarta. Mr. Boy simply stared at us, smoking the clove stick. We shook hands with Mr. Boy. The Hulk then leapt to his feet, led us out of the house to the truck and we headed off back to the cafe were we first met the big man. It was a drama free journey for once.
We arrived back at the cafe in the traditional manner – the slamming on of the brakes, the cloud of dust etc. The Hulk then boomed; “I buy you drink and we talk price”. We had a bit of time available before the flight back to Jarkarta, so we said “OK”. Another mistake.
Matthew and I couldn’t take anymore of the local coffee and cakes, so we went for coke and a bowl of peanuts.
The drinks and nuts arrived and we then presented the Hulk with a copy of our price list. He didn’t even bother looking at it. “Gimme your best price” he hissed through that mad grin.
We explained that the prices were printed on the piece of paper that was on the table adjacent to his left hand. “Gimme your best price” he hissed once more.
We patiently explained that the prices were very competitive and included valuable additional services such as warranty, support and other such marvellous benefits for each of our distributors.
At this point the Hulk became very aggressive. He stopped grinning and started frowning. “I want best price” he boomed. He kept repeating this over and over – with each repetition his voice became louder.
Suddenly, a voice inside my head said “Right, I have enough of all this fucking crap. I’ve had enough fucking stress, shit and aggro today to last a fucking lifetime”. I then launched a verbal attack at him. I can’t remember exactly what I said but it was along the lines of; “If you don’t like what’s on offer you can shove it up your arse and fuck off”.
As I was delivering my pearls of wisdom to our large friend, Matthew started to kick me in the shins under the table. He was looking at me with a pleading expression on his face that said; “Shut the fuck up. He’s the one with the fucking guns not us!” I must have got the message pretty quickly and I immediately stopped ranting, in mid-rant.
Strangely, the Hulk didn’t reach for the Magnums and blow our brains out. Instead he became very calm, reasonable and almost serene. He began speaking in a normal voice and had a normal expression on his huge face. Maybe he thought that anyone who was prepared to mix it with the biggest armed and dangerous psycho in Indonesia must be confident of a successful outcome and decided that it was best not to push it too much.
It was all over in a flash. He thanked us for coming to visit Mr. Boy, got up from the table and drove off in to the distance. He didn’t even shake hands, which was a bonus as far as I was concerned.
To be continued...
Friday, 3 July 2009
Don't Panic - Part 1
For 3 years my wife and I lived and worked in the Far East. We were initially based in Hong Kong and then, after 2 years, moved to Singapore. From the downright ridiculous to the downright dull, but that’s another story.
I was seconded by a UK company to work for the Swire Pacific Group, owners of Cathay Pacific Airways and other major South East Asian trading companies. A colleague (Matthew) and I were responsible for setting up and developing a Swire Pacific venture that was to distribute computer hardware and software products throughout the South East Asian regions – Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Brunei, and Sri Lanka. It was great fun.
We gradually worked through the list of territories and appointed agents who were to represent our products in each country. After a couple of months, next up was Indonesia. This was a country, at that time, with a population numbering over 155 million and covering a vast area of the globe.
Matthew and I scheduled a number of meetings with interested parties over a period of 4 days. All but one of the meetings was based in the capital Jakarta. Initially, the trip wasn’t too onerous. We stayed at the Borobudur Hotel in downtown Jakarta – a massive modern international hotel, with all the facilities and toys you would expect from a top establishment.
The general daily routine for us was to have a couple of meetings in the morning, back to the hotel for a bit of lunch, then laze around the Olympic size swimming where we were able to ogle the Cathay Pacific stewardesses as they relaxed during their stopovers whilst en route to other destinations. Later in the afternoon we might have a game of tennis, a drink at the poolside bar or gentle stroll through the hotel grounds. Cocktails and dinner in the evening rounded the day off. It was tough work but someone had to do it.
Our last meeting was scheduled with a company in the city of Bandung, which was about 1 hour from Jakarta by an internal flight out of the capital’s domestic airport. The plan was to arrive at the client’s office by about 10am, do the business, and be back in Jakarta by mid-afternoon.
Bandung was then a city of about 2 million people and was the main university city of Indonesia. It is situated to the south east of Jakarta up in the hills and surrounded by the jungle of West Java.
Matthew and I, suited and booted, took a cab from the hotel to the airport in time for the 8:30 flight. Jakarta is a mad place and the traffic is madder still – madder than a completely mad thing.
The cab was a bashed up old black and yellow number – a four door Nissan saloon. Well, it used to be a black and yellow, 4 door Nissan saloon. It was in fact a black and yellow Nissan saloon, with 2 rear doors and no front doors. The driver’s and front passenger’s doors had either fallen off, been stolen or surgically removed by someone who thought that it would enhance the appearance of the vehicle. The modifications could possibly have been an attempt to compensate for the lack of in-vehicle air-conditioning.
The cab driver was also slightly disconcerting. Apart from having seriously big hair which was too big for the vehicle, he looked a bit like Shrek without the green pallor, without the innocent charm but with big attitude. He spoke only in grunts and wore only shorts. His bare feet were huge and how he managed to work the pedals of the cab was a complete mystery. The steering wheel of the cab didn’t seem to have much of a relationship with the front wheels of the car and this rather unpredictable arrangement resulted in random lurches from one side of the road to the other, all the way to the airport.
After a mad journey, through a mad city in a mad cab, driven by a mad cabbie we were looking forward to a less than mad trip to Bandung and back. This was a forlorn hope, which probably qualified for the “Forlorn Hope of the Year Award”.
We arrived at the airport and gratefully bailed out of Shrek’s four-door/two-door Nissan.
The terminal building served both departures and arrivals and was basically a vast shed with no air-conditioning. It was crammed full of Indonesians, probably a couple of thousand people, all of whom were men and all of whom were all smoking Indonesian cigarettes.
Now, Indonesian ciggies are not normal cigarettes. Indonesia is/was the world’s biggest exporter of cloves. They have so many cloves that they can’t export them all, so they decided to stuff the leftovers into their cigarettes, presumably in an attempt to enhance the flavour in some way.
The net result of this adaptation of the humble fag is a foul, sickly sweet odour and the most hideous blue-grey coloured smog imaginable. So, you can probably imagine the result of a couple of thousand Indonesians, smoking cigs spiked with cloves in an enclosed space with no aircon; visibility was down to 10 yards, it was hot, humid and fetid.
We checked in and waited for the call for departure. By this stage I had the most horrendous headache, and I felt hyper-active. I was inhaling the smoke from 2,000 cigarettes and my head was about to explode. I was a living, wheezing, talking, walking, carbon footprint – by proxy.
Finally relief was at hand. Our flight was called and we made our way through the massed band of smokers to the air-side door of the terminal and on to a “bus”. It was in fact a canvas-covered military truck, with wooden benches along each side of the flat bed. A milk crate served as the steps up into the back of the vehicle. I as you might imagine, at this stage I was beginning to ponder what sort of aircraft was going be our mode of transport to Bandung.
The truck bounced us across the tarmac for about a quarter of a mile and we disembarked. There was about 8 passengers on the trip, Matthew, me and the rest were local chaps.
I was relieved to see that the plane looked like normal plane. It had wings, a fuselage, a tail fin and engines. In fact, the engines were jet engines – what a bonus! It was part of the Indonesian Garuda national airline and I found out later that it was a Fokker F28. I also found out later that the Fokker F28 had the third worst safety record in aviation history. Thank God I was ignorant of that little gem of information at the time.
We climbed the steps to aircraft and settled into our seats. The F28 could accommodate 50 people, so the 8 or so that was on our flight had plenty of room to spread out. However, Matthew and I decided to take up the seat in the front row right next to the entrance/exit door and right behind the cockpit door. This was a serious mistake.
As we waited for the flight and cabin crew to arrive, the plane was in the final stages of being refuelled by a couple of blokes operating a fuel tanker. I took note of the “Highly Inflammable” warning on the side of the tanker.
A few minutes later an Indonesian military jeep roared up to the plane in a cloud of dust and parked next to the fuel tanker. The driver of the jeep was an army type. In the back, were two chaps who were dressed like pilots and a very attractive girl dressed in traditional Indonesian garb – clearly our stewardess for the trip.
The stewardess climbed the steps first. The pilots didn’t immediately follow her, so I looked out the window and saw them having a natter with the fuel tanker operatives. I did a double-take. Said flight crew both had fags on, puffing smoke and flicking glowing ash on the floor, right next to the “Highly Inflammable” vehicle, which contained several thousand gallons of the “Highly Inflammable” stuff, which in turn was parked right next an aircraft which also contained a substantial amount of similarly combustible material and which also contained me and 7 other poor souls. If the lot had gone up, a big chunk of Jakarta would have gone with us.
The group on the ground seemed blissfully unaware of the impending doom but, after a few more minutes of what appeared to be blokey banter, the flight crew climbed the steps.
As they entered the aircraft, they were still puffing away on the cigs. However, at this stage I became less concerned about the potential fire hazard. I was suddenly more concerned about the fact that they looked no more than 13 years old! A couple of pre-pubescent teenagers were about to fly this Fokker and us to our fokking grave! I don’t have an objection to young chaps learning to fly, but I’d prefer not to be on board whilst they go through the motions.
Matthew and I looked at each other and it was clear that we were both thinking the same thing – let’s fake a heart attack and get taken off this Fokker! However, being stalwarts (or stupid) we remained calm (ish) and gave the two kids the benefit of the doubt. This was another mistake.
The fuel tanker departed the scene and the fly boys clambered into the cockpit – still smoking cloves.
As the lads prepared for take-off the cockpit door remained open. I thought; “This is cool!” We were seated just a few feet from the pilots and I had a great view of all the instruments, lights, buttons, switches and all that stuff – brilliant!
We started taxiing to the runway. The cockpit door was still open, and the lads were still puffing away. We got to the end of the runway ready for take-off. The cockpit door was still open, and the lads were still puffing away. All of a sudden the kid on the left slammed the throttle into the full-on position and we were off – hurtling down the tarmac, the plane was bouncing up and down like crazy. The cockpit door was still open – it was swinging on its hinges by this stage - and the lads were still puffing away.
Then, both the boys yanked their joy sticks backward in tandem and the nose of the Fokker lifted and, yes, the cockpit door was still swinging open, and the lads were still puffing away. However, pandemonium then broke out in the cockpit. The flight crew seemed unable to control the Fokker, it was slewing from side to side and up and down, lights were flashing, bells, bongs and whistles were going off in the cockpit, the chaps were using every limb in a seemingly desperate attempt to control the Fokker. I remember thinking, I wish they’d shut the fokking cockpit door.
The mayhem continued for what seemed ages, but eventually the boys got it all under control. We levelled off above the clouds and it all became quite normal. Well, normal apart from the fact that every passenger had crapped themselves, the stewardess was still in the crash position, praying, the cockpit was occupied by a couple of kids and the plane was full of smoke. Apart from that everything was spot on. Nothing much to complain about really.
The stewardess eventually realised that she wasn’t about to die, she stopped praying and then got to work, turned on the smile and the charm, served the coffee (more about Indonesian coffee later) and everybody’s heart rate returned to something approximating danger level.
The rest of the flight was uneventful, no one died from cardiac arrest, the skies were clear and blue and I had a great view through the cockpit window of – well, a blue sky. The trainee pilots were chattering and giggling away like old mates – probably having a bit of a laugh about the near death experience we had all endured earlier.
We then started to descend into Bandung – with the cockpit door still open. We were flying over dense jungle at this stage and as we got closer to Bandung the jungle began to thin out. I realised pretty soon that the reason the jungle had thinned out a bit was that the approach to Bandung airport (correction; airfield) – was littered with crashed aircraft.
Numerous old DC8s, DC9s and a few Fokkers had bought it over Bandung. As we got lower, I could make out the reason why these planes had met their end. There were holes in them. Big holes. Big bullet holes. The planes had been shot down by big guns which had fired big bullets!
I looked right and left, both sides of our approach to the airfield. It was the same story on each side. I counted about 20 downed aircraft before I gave up and averted my gaze forward through the cockpit window. This was another mistake.
As looked forward through the cockpit, I could see the perfectly straight runway – a strip of grey dissecting the green of the airfield and surrounding vegetation. A split second later I was staring at the side of a mountain. The plane had slewed to the right and was heading at what appeared to be 40 degrees to the landing strip.
Within moments the plane had slewed to the left and we appeared to be heading directly into the jungle. The plane then straightened and the runway was visible again for a brief moment. The boys up front were fighting the controls once more and it reminded me of Shrek’s Nissan lurching from side to side – only I didn’t feel that lucky this time.
This “entertainment” continued for too long in my opinion.
However, as the plane got lower the drama subsided and we finally plopped on to the tarmac, bounced back up again about 4 times and then gradually came to a halt. The kids taxied the Fokker up to the terminal (shed) and shut the old bird down. The collective relief of all on board was tangible.
The terminal/shed was empty save for about 5 soldiers wielding machine guns (maybe they used the incoming planes as target practice). There were no other people about other than the contents of the Fokker and a few airport workers reading newspapers and smoking cloves.
Matthew and I strolled through the shed and made our way to the taxi rank. Unfortunately, the taxi rank was devoid of taxis. In fact, not only was the taxi rank devoid of life, it appeared that the surrounding area had been evacuated – not a soul in sight. We waited for a while, and then wandered back into the shed, shouted “Taxi?” at someone who looked like an airport worker and then wandered back outside.
A couple of minutes later a brand spanking new Toyota taxi drew up. It was white, with a red interior, had all its doors in place and.... aircon! Bliss!
The driver wore proper clothes and shoes and could also drive! What a bonus! No drama!
I had a feeling bordering on serenity as we glided through the outskirts of Bandung. However, this feeling didn’t last for long.
We’d arranged to meet our contact at a cafe/restaurant and he would then take us to the client’s offices.
The drive into Bandung was unremarkable except for the fact that the place was deserted. Not a soul on the streets, not a car on the roads, other than our pristine Toyota. Not even a stray dog or cat. The other thing that struck me was that the place looked just like my home town. Not just my home town, but my home town street! We were driving through suburban streets which were lined with bungalows from 1950s Britain, albeit with verdant tropical plants and trees in amongst the rendered houses. Bournemouth should be twinned with Bandung! How bizarre!
We arrived at the cafe. It was on the corner of a fork of two suburban roads, Bournemouth-style bungalows and Bandung-style palm trees to east, west, south and north. The cafe was open but no one appeared to be awake, alive or at home. Matthew and I sat at one of the tables outside and waited for our contact to arrive. The atmosphere was weird. No people. No traffic. No bird song. No wind. No sound. Nothing. The only thing this scene lacked was tumbleweed rolling down the road and someone whistling the tune from a Spaghetti Western.
This all changed after about 15 minutes.
A distant rumble began to build to a roaring crescendo. A cloud of dust arrived at the roadside cafe. As the dust cloud settled it revealed the biggest, in your face, macho, Billy Big Bollocks of a 4x4 vee-hickle you could imagine. It was vast. Dark metallic grey, chroming plated everything, blacked out windows, and all the attitude of a rampant bull elephant. Even with the engine turned off it ticked, hissed, wheezed and smouldered like a ticking, hissing, wheezing and smouldering thing.
To be continued...
I was seconded by a UK company to work for the Swire Pacific Group, owners of Cathay Pacific Airways and other major South East Asian trading companies. A colleague (Matthew) and I were responsible for setting up and developing a Swire Pacific venture that was to distribute computer hardware and software products throughout the South East Asian regions – Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Brunei, and Sri Lanka. It was great fun.
We gradually worked through the list of territories and appointed agents who were to represent our products in each country. After a couple of months, next up was Indonesia. This was a country, at that time, with a population numbering over 155 million and covering a vast area of the globe.
Matthew and I scheduled a number of meetings with interested parties over a period of 4 days. All but one of the meetings was based in the capital Jakarta. Initially, the trip wasn’t too onerous. We stayed at the Borobudur Hotel in downtown Jakarta – a massive modern international hotel, with all the facilities and toys you would expect from a top establishment.
The general daily routine for us was to have a couple of meetings in the morning, back to the hotel for a bit of lunch, then laze around the Olympic size swimming where we were able to ogle the Cathay Pacific stewardesses as they relaxed during their stopovers whilst en route to other destinations. Later in the afternoon we might have a game of tennis, a drink at the poolside bar or gentle stroll through the hotel grounds. Cocktails and dinner in the evening rounded the day off. It was tough work but someone had to do it.
Our last meeting was scheduled with a company in the city of Bandung, which was about 1 hour from Jakarta by an internal flight out of the capital’s domestic airport. The plan was to arrive at the client’s office by about 10am, do the business, and be back in Jakarta by mid-afternoon.
Bandung was then a city of about 2 million people and was the main university city of Indonesia. It is situated to the south east of Jakarta up in the hills and surrounded by the jungle of West Java.
Matthew and I, suited and booted, took a cab from the hotel to the airport in time for the 8:30 flight. Jakarta is a mad place and the traffic is madder still – madder than a completely mad thing.
The cab was a bashed up old black and yellow number – a four door Nissan saloon. Well, it used to be a black and yellow, 4 door Nissan saloon. It was in fact a black and yellow Nissan saloon, with 2 rear doors and no front doors. The driver’s and front passenger’s doors had either fallen off, been stolen or surgically removed by someone who thought that it would enhance the appearance of the vehicle. The modifications could possibly have been an attempt to compensate for the lack of in-vehicle air-conditioning.
The cab driver was also slightly disconcerting. Apart from having seriously big hair which was too big for the vehicle, he looked a bit like Shrek without the green pallor, without the innocent charm but with big attitude. He spoke only in grunts and wore only shorts. His bare feet were huge and how he managed to work the pedals of the cab was a complete mystery. The steering wheel of the cab didn’t seem to have much of a relationship with the front wheels of the car and this rather unpredictable arrangement resulted in random lurches from one side of the road to the other, all the way to the airport.
After a mad journey, through a mad city in a mad cab, driven by a mad cabbie we were looking forward to a less than mad trip to Bandung and back. This was a forlorn hope, which probably qualified for the “Forlorn Hope of the Year Award”.
We arrived at the airport and gratefully bailed out of Shrek’s four-door/two-door Nissan.
The terminal building served both departures and arrivals and was basically a vast shed with no air-conditioning. It was crammed full of Indonesians, probably a couple of thousand people, all of whom were men and all of whom were all smoking Indonesian cigarettes.
Now, Indonesian ciggies are not normal cigarettes. Indonesia is/was the world’s biggest exporter of cloves. They have so many cloves that they can’t export them all, so they decided to stuff the leftovers into their cigarettes, presumably in an attempt to enhance the flavour in some way.
The net result of this adaptation of the humble fag is a foul, sickly sweet odour and the most hideous blue-grey coloured smog imaginable. So, you can probably imagine the result of a couple of thousand Indonesians, smoking cigs spiked with cloves in an enclosed space with no aircon; visibility was down to 10 yards, it was hot, humid and fetid.
We checked in and waited for the call for departure. By this stage I had the most horrendous headache, and I felt hyper-active. I was inhaling the smoke from 2,000 cigarettes and my head was about to explode. I was a living, wheezing, talking, walking, carbon footprint – by proxy.
Finally relief was at hand. Our flight was called and we made our way through the massed band of smokers to the air-side door of the terminal and on to a “bus”. It was in fact a canvas-covered military truck, with wooden benches along each side of the flat bed. A milk crate served as the steps up into the back of the vehicle. I as you might imagine, at this stage I was beginning to ponder what sort of aircraft was going be our mode of transport to Bandung.
The truck bounced us across the tarmac for about a quarter of a mile and we disembarked. There was about 8 passengers on the trip, Matthew, me and the rest were local chaps.
I was relieved to see that the plane looked like normal plane. It had wings, a fuselage, a tail fin and engines. In fact, the engines were jet engines – what a bonus! It was part of the Indonesian Garuda national airline and I found out later that it was a Fokker F28. I also found out later that the Fokker F28 had the third worst safety record in aviation history. Thank God I was ignorant of that little gem of information at the time.
We climbed the steps to aircraft and settled into our seats. The F28 could accommodate 50 people, so the 8 or so that was on our flight had plenty of room to spread out. However, Matthew and I decided to take up the seat in the front row right next to the entrance/exit door and right behind the cockpit door. This was a serious mistake.
As we waited for the flight and cabin crew to arrive, the plane was in the final stages of being refuelled by a couple of blokes operating a fuel tanker. I took note of the “Highly Inflammable” warning on the side of the tanker.
A few minutes later an Indonesian military jeep roared up to the plane in a cloud of dust and parked next to the fuel tanker. The driver of the jeep was an army type. In the back, were two chaps who were dressed like pilots and a very attractive girl dressed in traditional Indonesian garb – clearly our stewardess for the trip.
The stewardess climbed the steps first. The pilots didn’t immediately follow her, so I looked out the window and saw them having a natter with the fuel tanker operatives. I did a double-take. Said flight crew both had fags on, puffing smoke and flicking glowing ash on the floor, right next to the “Highly Inflammable” vehicle, which contained several thousand gallons of the “Highly Inflammable” stuff, which in turn was parked right next an aircraft which also contained a substantial amount of similarly combustible material and which also contained me and 7 other poor souls. If the lot had gone up, a big chunk of Jakarta would have gone with us.
The group on the ground seemed blissfully unaware of the impending doom but, after a few more minutes of what appeared to be blokey banter, the flight crew climbed the steps.
As they entered the aircraft, they were still puffing away on the cigs. However, at this stage I became less concerned about the potential fire hazard. I was suddenly more concerned about the fact that they looked no more than 13 years old! A couple of pre-pubescent teenagers were about to fly this Fokker and us to our fokking grave! I don’t have an objection to young chaps learning to fly, but I’d prefer not to be on board whilst they go through the motions.
Matthew and I looked at each other and it was clear that we were both thinking the same thing – let’s fake a heart attack and get taken off this Fokker! However, being stalwarts (or stupid) we remained calm (ish) and gave the two kids the benefit of the doubt. This was another mistake.
The fuel tanker departed the scene and the fly boys clambered into the cockpit – still smoking cloves.
As the lads prepared for take-off the cockpit door remained open. I thought; “This is cool!” We were seated just a few feet from the pilots and I had a great view of all the instruments, lights, buttons, switches and all that stuff – brilliant!
We started taxiing to the runway. The cockpit door was still open, and the lads were still puffing away. We got to the end of the runway ready for take-off. The cockpit door was still open, and the lads were still puffing away. All of a sudden the kid on the left slammed the throttle into the full-on position and we were off – hurtling down the tarmac, the plane was bouncing up and down like crazy. The cockpit door was still open – it was swinging on its hinges by this stage - and the lads were still puffing away.
Then, both the boys yanked their joy sticks backward in tandem and the nose of the Fokker lifted and, yes, the cockpit door was still swinging open, and the lads were still puffing away. However, pandemonium then broke out in the cockpit. The flight crew seemed unable to control the Fokker, it was slewing from side to side and up and down, lights were flashing, bells, bongs and whistles were going off in the cockpit, the chaps were using every limb in a seemingly desperate attempt to control the Fokker. I remember thinking, I wish they’d shut the fokking cockpit door.
The mayhem continued for what seemed ages, but eventually the boys got it all under control. We levelled off above the clouds and it all became quite normal. Well, normal apart from the fact that every passenger had crapped themselves, the stewardess was still in the crash position, praying, the cockpit was occupied by a couple of kids and the plane was full of smoke. Apart from that everything was spot on. Nothing much to complain about really.
The stewardess eventually realised that she wasn’t about to die, she stopped praying and then got to work, turned on the smile and the charm, served the coffee (more about Indonesian coffee later) and everybody’s heart rate returned to something approximating danger level.
The rest of the flight was uneventful, no one died from cardiac arrest, the skies were clear and blue and I had a great view through the cockpit window of – well, a blue sky. The trainee pilots were chattering and giggling away like old mates – probably having a bit of a laugh about the near death experience we had all endured earlier.
We then started to descend into Bandung – with the cockpit door still open. We were flying over dense jungle at this stage and as we got closer to Bandung the jungle began to thin out. I realised pretty soon that the reason the jungle had thinned out a bit was that the approach to Bandung airport (correction; airfield) – was littered with crashed aircraft.
Numerous old DC8s, DC9s and a few Fokkers had bought it over Bandung. As we got lower, I could make out the reason why these planes had met their end. There were holes in them. Big holes. Big bullet holes. The planes had been shot down by big guns which had fired big bullets!
I looked right and left, both sides of our approach to the airfield. It was the same story on each side. I counted about 20 downed aircraft before I gave up and averted my gaze forward through the cockpit window. This was another mistake.
As looked forward through the cockpit, I could see the perfectly straight runway – a strip of grey dissecting the green of the airfield and surrounding vegetation. A split second later I was staring at the side of a mountain. The plane had slewed to the right and was heading at what appeared to be 40 degrees to the landing strip.
Within moments the plane had slewed to the left and we appeared to be heading directly into the jungle. The plane then straightened and the runway was visible again for a brief moment. The boys up front were fighting the controls once more and it reminded me of Shrek’s Nissan lurching from side to side – only I didn’t feel that lucky this time.
This “entertainment” continued for too long in my opinion.
However, as the plane got lower the drama subsided and we finally plopped on to the tarmac, bounced back up again about 4 times and then gradually came to a halt. The kids taxied the Fokker up to the terminal (shed) and shut the old bird down. The collective relief of all on board was tangible.
The terminal/shed was empty save for about 5 soldiers wielding machine guns (maybe they used the incoming planes as target practice). There were no other people about other than the contents of the Fokker and a few airport workers reading newspapers and smoking cloves.
Matthew and I strolled through the shed and made our way to the taxi rank. Unfortunately, the taxi rank was devoid of taxis. In fact, not only was the taxi rank devoid of life, it appeared that the surrounding area had been evacuated – not a soul in sight. We waited for a while, and then wandered back into the shed, shouted “Taxi?” at someone who looked like an airport worker and then wandered back outside.
A couple of minutes later a brand spanking new Toyota taxi drew up. It was white, with a red interior, had all its doors in place and.... aircon! Bliss!
The driver wore proper clothes and shoes and could also drive! What a bonus! No drama!
I had a feeling bordering on serenity as we glided through the outskirts of Bandung. However, this feeling didn’t last for long.
We’d arranged to meet our contact at a cafe/restaurant and he would then take us to the client’s offices.
The drive into Bandung was unremarkable except for the fact that the place was deserted. Not a soul on the streets, not a car on the roads, other than our pristine Toyota. Not even a stray dog or cat. The other thing that struck me was that the place looked just like my home town. Not just my home town, but my home town street! We were driving through suburban streets which were lined with bungalows from 1950s Britain, albeit with verdant tropical plants and trees in amongst the rendered houses. Bournemouth should be twinned with Bandung! How bizarre!
We arrived at the cafe. It was on the corner of a fork of two suburban roads, Bournemouth-style bungalows and Bandung-style palm trees to east, west, south and north. The cafe was open but no one appeared to be awake, alive or at home. Matthew and I sat at one of the tables outside and waited for our contact to arrive. The atmosphere was weird. No people. No traffic. No bird song. No wind. No sound. Nothing. The only thing this scene lacked was tumbleweed rolling down the road and someone whistling the tune from a Spaghetti Western.
This all changed after about 15 minutes.
A distant rumble began to build to a roaring crescendo. A cloud of dust arrived at the roadside cafe. As the dust cloud settled it revealed the biggest, in your face, macho, Billy Big Bollocks of a 4x4 vee-hickle you could imagine. It was vast. Dark metallic grey, chroming plated everything, blacked out windows, and all the attitude of a rampant bull elephant. Even with the engine turned off it ticked, hissed, wheezed and smouldered like a ticking, hissing, wheezing and smouldering thing.
To be continued...
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Early Doors
I know you'll be sceptical about this. I'm sceptical about it myself and I'm writing this stuff!
This is a very vivid memory of a brief moment in time. I was a baby, in a pram, no more than a few months old.
My parents lived about a mile from my grandmother, in a town on the south coast of England. My mother had pushed me in the pram from our home to visit my grandmother.
It was on the way back home that the memory kicks in. I experienced something akin to an out of body experience. This is how I remember it...
The pram was a big shiny black number with thin silver detailing on the sides. It had a white cross-bar handle attached to the frame of the pram by chromium arms. It had big wheels with chrome spokes and thin white tyres with a black stripe around the tyre walls. I was dressed in white baby clothes and wore a white knitted cap. The covers and pillows in the pram were also white.
It was a very hot, sunny day - not a cloud above. I remember looking up at the bright blue sky. The black hood of the pram was up, providing shade and protection. The shade and the black hood contrasted the bright blueness of the sky.
My mother stopped to talk to a friend. We were about 100 yards from my grandmother's house on the left hand-side of Barnes Road heading east, just before a dip and the right turning to Hendford Road. I remember the pale greyness of the tarmac that was the pavement and road. The ground was shimmering in the heat.
As my mother and her friend talked I became aware that I was looking back at them, and also at me, from above the end of the pram!
The real me was wide awake in the pram, my mother was on the left of the pram and her friend was on the other side. They were both looking at me (the version of me in the pram) and talking and smiling at me – I was looking from side to side at them as they talked.
The other me floated above them for a few minutes and then the image faded away.
I mentioned all this to my mother when I was much older and she remembered it clearly, but she wouldn't say why it was also such a vivid memory for her.
Was I dreaming?
Was it a real experience?
When do we acquire this level of consciousness about such early events in our lives?
This is a very vivid memory of a brief moment in time. I was a baby, in a pram, no more than a few months old.
My parents lived about a mile from my grandmother, in a town on the south coast of England. My mother had pushed me in the pram from our home to visit my grandmother.
It was on the way back home that the memory kicks in. I experienced something akin to an out of body experience. This is how I remember it...
The pram was a big shiny black number with thin silver detailing on the sides. It had a white cross-bar handle attached to the frame of the pram by chromium arms. It had big wheels with chrome spokes and thin white tyres with a black stripe around the tyre walls. I was dressed in white baby clothes and wore a white knitted cap. The covers and pillows in the pram were also white.
It was a very hot, sunny day - not a cloud above. I remember looking up at the bright blue sky. The black hood of the pram was up, providing shade and protection. The shade and the black hood contrasted the bright blueness of the sky.
My mother stopped to talk to a friend. We were about 100 yards from my grandmother's house on the left hand-side of Barnes Road heading east, just before a dip and the right turning to Hendford Road. I remember the pale greyness of the tarmac that was the pavement and road. The ground was shimmering in the heat.
As my mother and her friend talked I became aware that I was looking back at them, and also at me, from above the end of the pram!
The real me was wide awake in the pram, my mother was on the left of the pram and her friend was on the other side. They were both looking at me (the version of me in the pram) and talking and smiling at me – I was looking from side to side at them as they talked.
The other me floated above them for a few minutes and then the image faded away.
I mentioned all this to my mother when I was much older and she remembered it clearly, but she wouldn't say why it was also such a vivid memory for her.
Was I dreaming?
Was it a real experience?
When do we acquire this level of consciousness about such early events in our lives?
Sunday, 28 June 2009
The Departure Lounge
We are all voyagers.
Life brings many things - pleasures, trials, tribulations, mistakes, success, failure. Life brings us the heights of happiness and the depths of despair. We all encounter these imposters in variable measure throughout our lives. I guess the trick is to recognise them for what they are and try to achieve balance and equilibrium from it all.
This blog is an attempt to present some observations, experiences, opinions, knowledge and anecdotes from an ordinary person, living a life on an extraordinary planet in an immense galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars - a galaxy which itself is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies floating in the incomprehensible vastness of the cosmos.
When we consider the numbers, the scale, the distances, the time and the sheer complexity of the universe, we are justified in feeling slightly insignificant. However, as Carl Sagan wrote, " We are all made of star stuff". When I read that it made my spine tingle. It made me feel very special and made me realise how incredible life on our planet is and how awe-inspiring the universe is.
I'm not a creationist. I'm not even agnostic. I'm an atheist with respect for religious beliefs. I'm a Richard Dawkins, without the attitude, and aggressive anti-religious rhetoric (and without the intellect, I should add!).
Despite my atheism, I still wonder. I wonder how, why and when did time, space, the universe and the formation of the building blocks of life begin.
We can argue against creationism until the cows come home, citing Darwin's seminal work. But what of the Big Bang. The Singularity. The moment when time and space and the universe began. What was there before? Who or What created the Singularity?
If there was the Nothing, Who or What was responsible for creating the Nothing?
How can we start with Nothing and end up with Something? Not just any old Something, but the vast cosmos and our planet Earth or, as Carl Sagan described it; "the Pale Blue Dot".
In any event, our personal lives, all life on Earth and the universe appear to me to be controlled by the mysterious laws of entropy. Low entropy giving order, high entropy giving disorder or chaos!
From all the "star stuff" and entropy, we humans evolved into beings who possess many remarkable attributes and just as many less than remarkable things. We are capable of good, bad and the downright ugly. These are too numerous to mention in this post but I'll touch on all of these things as my voyage through the blogasphere progresses.
Life brings many things - pleasures, trials, tribulations, mistakes, success, failure. Life brings us the heights of happiness and the depths of despair. We all encounter these imposters in variable measure throughout our lives. I guess the trick is to recognise them for what they are and try to achieve balance and equilibrium from it all.
This blog is an attempt to present some observations, experiences, opinions, knowledge and anecdotes from an ordinary person, living a life on an extraordinary planet in an immense galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars - a galaxy which itself is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies floating in the incomprehensible vastness of the cosmos.
When we consider the numbers, the scale, the distances, the time and the sheer complexity of the universe, we are justified in feeling slightly insignificant. However, as Carl Sagan wrote, " We are all made of star stuff". When I read that it made my spine tingle. It made me feel very special and made me realise how incredible life on our planet is and how awe-inspiring the universe is.
I'm not a creationist. I'm not even agnostic. I'm an atheist with respect for religious beliefs. I'm a Richard Dawkins, without the attitude, and aggressive anti-religious rhetoric (and without the intellect, I should add!).
Despite my atheism, I still wonder. I wonder how, why and when did time, space, the universe and the formation of the building blocks of life begin.
We can argue against creationism until the cows come home, citing Darwin's seminal work. But what of the Big Bang. The Singularity. The moment when time and space and the universe began. What was there before? Who or What created the Singularity?
If there was the Nothing, Who or What was responsible for creating the Nothing?
How can we start with Nothing and end up with Something? Not just any old Something, but the vast cosmos and our planet Earth or, as Carl Sagan described it; "the Pale Blue Dot".
In any event, our personal lives, all life on Earth and the universe appear to me to be controlled by the mysterious laws of entropy. Low entropy giving order, high entropy giving disorder or chaos!
From all the "star stuff" and entropy, we humans evolved into beings who possess many remarkable attributes and just as many less than remarkable things. We are capable of good, bad and the downright ugly. These are too numerous to mention in this post but I'll touch on all of these things as my voyage through the blogasphere progresses.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
