So Memere wanted to see the Dutch colonial heritag of Jakarta, the part of the city called Batavia. Batavia was named after the original people of northern Jakarta, the Betawi. The Dutch kept that name for the city. Hmmmmm.. the thing is, the buildings are old--like 400 years old--and the Indonesians are not exactly proud of their colonial history. It shows. Only in the last few years have they started to renovate some of the buildings.. and the buildings have weathered 400 years of tropical climate, and the process of redoing is expensive and slow. Nevertheless, Saturday morning we were off bright and early heading to the north of Jakarta to explore. Without traffic it still took more than an hour in the car... but we're used to that now :)
We started with Chicken Market Bridge, which is the last remaining drawbridge in the city. It burned down not too long ago, but was rebuilt to the original specs. It was the 'London Bridge' for a long time, and then something else, and then Chicken Market (the market, thankfully is no longer there), and now it's named after a Dutch princess but no one uses that name. Pleasant as it was, the bridge itself was over canal. That canal--like all others in Jakarta--needed to be dredged, badly. So even though it was early morning and not yet crazy hot.. it was mega stinky. So stinky that Mem almost lost her breakfast. So... we whizzed by all of the old buildings close by.. and headed towards the square where buildings had been renovated and where we were far from the lovely brown waters of the canal. Phew.
We started with the Puppet Museum, which was lovely and had been supported by a number embassies in the last years, including ours. They had all kinds of puppets and it was nicely put together, and it helped to have an awesome guide named Bram to talk us through everything. There are basically two kinds of Indonesian puppets: wayang golek (the ones that are like dolls), and wayang kulit (the flat ones made of leather that they use to do the shadow performances at night). Both are made with an incredible amount of care and detail. The leather ones--even though they only make shadows--are elaborately painted and have amazing workmanship. Only buffalo skin will do. We saw a lot of both kinds.. and some really big ones. See Eben bowing and taking his hat off for the life-sized Hanuman puppet.
We saw life-sized puppets for weddings and puppets used to recount the colonial story (so, white people puppets dressed in colonial garb). We saw puppets made of straw, we saw the ones they use for a kids program like Sesame Street, and we even saw some from other countries.. including a unicorn from the US (whose mane was apparently tasty for Indo bugs; I must remember to call the Muppets and see if we can get something else in there under 'Puppets from the United States'). We even saw a Jaffa puppet!
The museum (and the other buildings surrounding the square) were old Dutch administrative buildings, so there were tombs in them of the former governers. Like this one:
Bram said that they have since exhumed the bodies and brought them back to the old country.
The other buildings we saw were in various states of disrepair, including one that had a tree that was at least 50 years old growing through it..
And then we went to lunch.. at Cafe Batavia. Wow.. I needed my long dress and bustle or something. They do jazz on weekend nights too, so Zeric is psyched. And the food was good :)
The square itself was pleasant and geared to tourists. It was interesting to think about the kinds of things that happened there. How it was the center of colonial life, and how many decisions were made in those buildings. And now.. quite a contrast having the delapidated buildings in the backdrop and a tent in the square where you can get some good ol' KFC.
After sandwiches, beer, lime juice drinks, spring rolls.. we then went to the Jakarta museum. Another old admin building.. and this one had jails in the basement. Looong discussion with the kids about those. I think they were trying to decide how bad they could be without getting tossed in. We saw military stuff and old furniture and the pre-historic cave man stuff and statues and... all kinds of things, kinda labeled and no real order, but interesting. A chill stroll through the collection before heading to the car, and home for a nap. And that was Batavia.
As you know, we just survived two weeks of school vacation. For the second and post-Gili week, we took in Geckie and Sophia again. We like hanging out with them. They are very pretty, easy and we usually take them not long enough to have to clean their cage, except this time (thanks, Zeric).
A day later, we figured it out with a plastic container, and she loved it. Zeric calls it her four-poster bed because I need to make the roof a bit higher and used skewers. Very comfy. She wasn't as close to laying this egg as we thought (which was a relief and a bummer all at once), and she liked sleeping on the roof rather than inside.. but now she has a nesting place when she needs it. We are first on the list for adoption of the new little one. Fingers crossed!!
