Jogjakarta Culinary - Oseng Mercon, Wedang Ronde, Empal

Oseng-oseng mercon name originally from its customers. They named mercon, Javanese word for firecracker, because its extra hot and spicy taste will give burnt and explode sensation in tongue, mouth, and stomach just like firecrackers. This dish containing of stir-fried small sliced-beef and cow's fat served with few spices, brown sugar, and a lot of cayenne pepper. If you dare enough to try, you can find this dish in KH.Ahmad Dahlan Street. 

Wedang Ronde is a hot Javanese dessert containing floating glutinous rice balls stuffed with peanut paste, kolang kaling (palmfruit), pieces of bread and peanuts in a hot and sweet ginger and lemongrass tea. This hot drink can warm the body and it is believed to be useful for our health. You can drink wedang ronde along Malioboro or Northern Town Square at night. 

Empal preferably using cow shank. First the beef is boiled then being cut along the muscle fiber. The cutlet beaten mildly until flattened then boiled in spices such as shallot, garlic, chili pepper, coriander, palm sugar and salt, mixed with bruised lemongrass, galangal, daun salam (Indonesian bay leaf), a little coconut milk and turmeric water. The last step is to fry the cutlet until dark. Empal served with a sprinkling of fried shallots and steamed rice. This delicious dish can be found in Beringharjo market, Ngasem market, and in many restaurants in Jogjakarta.

Jogjakarta Culinary - Yangko, Legomoro, Bakpia Pathuk

This small chewy-sweet cake made of glutinous rice flour has various flavor and color such as durian (yellow), oranges (orange), cantaloupe and pandan leaves (green), strawberry (red), chocolate (brown), and many more. Yangko can be found in all regions of Jogjakarta and of course in Kotagede as its origin.

Legomoro made of a mixture of glutinous rice, coconut milk, and chopped meat. The dough wrapped in banana leaf shaped elongated rectangles, and tied with bamboo rope which contain 3-4 pieces, then steamed. Legomoro can be found in shops or snack market such as Beringharjo. Legomoro derived from the word "lego" (sincere) and "moro" (came) means we should be sincere when it comes to an event. Usually served in special occasions such as ceremonial or celebration event. 

Bakpia made of baked wheat flour dough filled with moung beans and sugar. Pathuk, central bakpia industry area, located behind Malioboro Street. Bakpia Pathuk has many flavor such as mung beans, cheese, chocolate, duraian, and black kumbu. Today you can easily find Bakpia in every conrner of Yogyakarta. 

Jogjakarta Culinary - Bakmi Jawa, Sate, and Kipo

Bakmi Jawa

Bakmi Jawa or Javanese Noodles are served either boiled (javanese language: bakmi godhog) or fried. In order to keep the taste, the cooks only use a small frying pan over anglo (a clay stove with a charcoal fire) to make one or two serving. Shredded ayam kampung (chicken live on kampung/village) and duck eggs are distinctive feature on this cuisine. It is believed that makes Javanese noodles becomes more delicious. Javeanese noodles sold over a wooden cart at night. 

Sate

Sate or Satay may consist of diced or sliced chicken, goat, mutton, beef, fish, other meats, or tofu pierced in bamboo skewers. These are grilled or barbecued over a wood or charcoal fire, then served with a smooth peanut sauce or soy sauce, paired with lontong, ketupat or steamed rice and sprinkled with a slice of fresh chili and shallot. 

Kipo

This sweet-savory taste little cake name came from Javanese term "iki opo ?" or "what is this?" so be called KIPO. Kipo made from glutinous rice flour and coconut milk dough, filled with grated coconut and palm sugar before wrapped in banana leaves into a small shaped then baked. Kipo green color comes from suji leaves color. You can find this little tasty cake in Kotagede. 

Jogjakarta Culinary - Kopi Jos, Lesehan Malioboro, and Gudeg

Kopi Jos is a special black coffee served with floating burnt charcoal chunk. The charcoal sound like "joss" or hissing when put into a cup of coffee, so be called kopi jos. Available at Angkringan north side Tugu Station or along P.Mangkubumi Street.

Lesehan means sitting on the floor on mats then eat, normally using the fingers. Lesehan Malioboro, located along Malioboro Street, normally open at night. The most common food sold at lesehan Malioboro is fried chicken, pecel lele (fried catfish) and gudeg. Your dinner atmosphere will be perfect with accompaniment tracks of street musicians. 

Gudeg, a traditional cuisine from Jogjakarta, made of young unripe jack fruit boiled for several hours with palm sugar and coconut milk. Gudeg is served with white steamed rice, fried chicken, opor ayam, opor telur (boiled egg in coconut milk), telur pindang (egg), tofu and/or tempe, and sambel gorenge krecek a stew made of crisp beef skins. You can find gudeg in almost all areas of Jogjakarta day or night, including malioboro. Wijilan and Barek are the most famous areas as Gudeg center. 

Jogjakarta Culinary - Angkringan

Angkringan, a two-wheeled handcart street vendor, derived from Javanese language Angkring means sit down to relax. Usually opening at dusk, angkringan is a cheap place for hanging out and spending the nign in Jogjakarta. Its main menu is nasi kucing or sego kucing which literally means cat rice) a small portion of rice, just like cat's food portion so be called nasi kucing. with sambal, anchovy fish, milkfish or tempe as toppings, then wrapped in banana leaves or paper. A plenty kinds of traditional snacks will temp you to taste it one by one. Ginger, ginger milk, tea, lemon and coffee are some beverages provided in angkringan. Angkringan can be found along P.Mangkubumi Street and Northern Tugu Station.

Jakarta Story : Jalan Jaksa

Like so many backpackers on Lonely Planetized journeys through Southeast Asia, Jalan Jaksa - a 500-meter stretch of hot dusty pavement in the heart of the city, is not a pretty place.
Decades ago, weary travelers en route from Sumatra to Sulawesi stopped here to kick back over beers and banana jaffles, and plan the next leg of their Great Archipelago Adventure. Some buried their sunburned faces in crusty second-hand books and searched for their inner selves. Jalan Jaksa was a quiet street then, with some shabby budget hostels and little else.

Entar a blaring re-mix of Akon's latest single and the set changes dramatically. Small open-air bars now fill the gaps between hostels and the atmosphere is decidedly more sinister. Nobody seems to notice the second-hand book stalls anymore, and Muslim fundamentalist groups have lately made a habit of conducting 'moral sweeps' along the street, breaking down bar doors and smashing botles of alcohol. With cheap booze and even cheaper women, Jalan Jaksa has firmly established itself as a down-market hub of sinful pleasures.

Nigerian drug-dealers in silk-shirts and gold rings linger in fluorescent-lit drinking dens. A new generation of backpackers and surfer dudes hangs out at bars called Memories and Romance. These days they seem not so much into finding themselves as losing themselves in the sickly delights of watered down cocktails with names like 'Slippery Nipple'. Male travelers are sometimes flanked by heavily perfumed, platform wearing local honeys. The boys' smug young faces suggest they don't realize they'll have to pay these 'friendly ladies' for their services later on, or that some of these friendly ladies aren't ladies at all.

ALongside the travelers, middle-aged hippies look as though they've been here twenty years too long and gone a bit mad in the process. Many are Jaksa veterans from the 70s who apparently forgot to ever go home; they continue living and teaching English in Jakarta, and warm their favorite Jaksa bar stools practically every night of the week. Late opening hours, cheap beer and the casual atmosphere have lured even ordinary young Indonesians to the street in recent years: students, young artists and intellectuals have adopted Jaksa as a favorite venue for meetings into the night.

During the peak traveler season of June through August, the bars and hostels fill with jaded but happily boozed-up kids, prostitute and Top 40 hits. Just as in the 70s, local children gaze in from the perimeter in utter amazement, waiting for another fight to erupt between Swedish or German boy band look-alikes. The children's expressions haven't changed. Only the young, white people on the other side of the perimeter have.

Jakarta Street Justice

What is it that suddenly transforms otherwise friendly neighborhood folk into a violent crowd that mercilessly clobbers an unarmed person to death? Perhaps it's the general absence of law and order during politically unstable times; or a corrupt criminal justice system that's perceived never to hand out justice at all; or maybe it's economic hardship that drives ordinary people to unthinkable acts. Whatever the reason, Jakarta is suddenly a very dark and sinister place when it comes to mob lynching incidents known as pengadilan jalanan, or street justice.

The unfortunate 'victim' usually began the day as a mischievous petty thief. He stole a chicken from someone's courtyard, clothing off a laundry line, a motorbike parked in back alley or even just a plate of dried fish from a neighborhood market. Bad move. Local residents caught him in the act, word spread quickly around the block, and to cries of "Thief!" a vengeful mob galvanized around the terrified criminal to deliver an immediate 'sentence'. If he was lucky, the mob beat him senseless but he lived to tell the tale. More likely, however, our hapless chicken thief was doused in kerosene and set alight, and is with us no more.

Cases of citizens taking the law into their own hands grew worryingly frequent in Jakarta in the late 90s. Economic hardship stemming from the monetary crisis that began 1997 and collapse of authoritarian rule in 1998 combined to create an atmosphere of lawlessness on the street. Law enforcement officers were notorious for their reluctance to intervene, even at the scene of a public lynching. Such incidents are rarely ever investigated, and government offices don't bother recording statistics on vigilante justice. But city tabloids still run gruesome stories about public beatings on a weekly bases, and it is estimate that in Greater Jakarta alone, hundreds of thieves are 'executed' in this manner each yar. One commentator put it this way: Under authoritarianism, Indonesian society had order without freedom, whereas with democracy it now has freedom without order.

Jakarta Mall Culture

Residents of less fortunate cities make do with silly things like parks, beaches, playgrounds, outdoor promenades or even museums as places to meet and interact. Jakartans are far luckier. The have The Mall.

Malls are air-conditioned to bone-chilling extremes. Malls contain lots of bright glitzy things on display (not just teen-aged girls dressed to kill, but actual retail merchandise, too). Malls have food courts galore and awful live bands and overflowing cineplexes. Malls have pricey cafes and noisy video arcades and trendy salons and obnoxious kiddy pageants. One Jakarta mall even has an ice skating rink. Most of all, malls are the place Jakartans go to see and be seen. Typical patrons include, but are not limited to:skateboard-toting teenagers; gossip-crazed high society madams; business types on power lunches; gay men on the prowl; soap opera start on spending sprees; house maids with long grocery lists; uniformed nannies in hot pursuit of screaming brats; and tourists hunting for Batik ties and 'authentic' shadow puppets. The reason nobody visits Ragunan Zoo in South Jakarta is because the human zoo inside the city's malls is far more colorful, involves no entrance fee and offers air-conditioning and plenty of underground parking.

The new millennium has so far been a Golden Age for the Jakarta shopping universe. Plaza Senayan, once the last work in luxury shopping, has been cruelly overshadowed by a new neighbor, Senayan City, whose central atrium is so enormous that its monthly air-conditioning bill is roughly equal to the GDP or Burkina Faso. Soon after, the even larger 'Shopping Town' of Grand Indonesia and ultra-modern Pacific Place set the luxury bar higher still.

Jakarta's malls have nicknames that are useful to know when making plans via sms with Indonesian friends who have an aversion to vowels. Plaza Senayan is PS. Pondok Indah Mall is PIM; Senayan City is Senci; Plaza Indonesia is Plazindo; Cilandak Town Square is Citos; Plaza Semanggi is Plangi; Pacific Place is PP. These shortcuts are meant to save precious time, you see, so that everyone is left with more hours to shop.

Jakarta Nightlife in Kota

Jakarta's nightlife is one of the best-kept secrets in Asia, and the thumping heart of all this darkness is the clubbing and entertainment scene in the city's northern reaches, knows as Kota. By day it masquerades as Chinatown's bustling commercial district. When night falls, the place transforms into a wild nocturnal playground, and little of what goes on there is particularly legal. Monster clubs like Stadium, Millennium, Sydney 2000, Raja Mas and 1001 are one-stop dens of unbridled pleasure. 

Kota clubs typically comprise a few floors, each offering a different sort of vice. Ravers drown in heaving techno beats in cavernous, pitch-dark central dance halls. This is also where drugs - mostly ecstasy pills - are consumed en mass. The club management doesn't deal drugs directly, but allows outside dealers to operate wihin the venues so that someone is accountable if things go wrong. Management receives at least around $20,000 per month just for 'leasing ' its turf to the dealer. Pills purchased inside - where waiters and bathroom janitors act as 'runners' cost about $15. Besides the main dance hall, clubs usually house a karaoke floor comprising private singing rooms where male clientele are accompanied by hostesses who double as strippers; a live music floor, where a mama-san introduces glassy-eyed guests to giggle bar girls; and the natural extension of all that - a 'love hotel' floor, where guests and their bar girls grab rooms by the hour to get better acquainted. 

Stadium, which depending on who you're talking to is alternately described as heaven or hell, is surely the most legendary of the bunch. So unrelenting is the weekend action there that from Friday through Monday morning it never actually shuts. The busiest time on its psychedelic dance floor is Sunday at about 9AM, when most clubbers are winding down from an all-night 'trip' and others are just arriving after waking from their beauty sleep.

Jakarta - Hotel Indonesia

The vintage red 'Hotel Indonesia' sign above Jakarta's busiest traffic is nowadays nearly dwarfed by the gleaming skyscrapers all around it, but it's a curious historical landmark. Known locally by its acronym, HI (pronounced "Hah-Edd"), the hotel is an eerie symbol of President Sukarno's obsessive 1960s effort to create a 'New Jakarta' that would bring international respect to his nation and pride to his struggling people. Opened with great hoopla in 1962, Hotel Indonesia epitomized the era's modernization drive, and as it declined over the years in a retro sort of way, it became the stuff of legends. The lobby displayed priceless evidence from that golden period: a photo of their very first guest, a visibly perspiring American named Allen Alwelt, who worked for the Rockefeller Foundation and is seen arriving in a becak and wearing what the captoin describes as "an ordinary shirt with no jacket, and brown cotton trousers"; a 1972 photo of a Bee Gees appearance at the hotel's Nirwana Supper Club; a snapshot of a visit by Senator Robert Kennedy.Australian writer Christopher Koch described it thus in his colorful novel-turned-Hoolywodd filem, The Year of LIving Dangerously, set in 1965 : 

The fourteen-story Hotel Indonesia (always with a capital H) rode like a luxury ship in mid-ocean, being at this time the only one of tis kind in the whole country. It stood in New Jakarta; and like Frinedship Square, and Jalan Thamrin - the six-lane highway that carried the traffic here from the Old City -it had recently been ordered into being by President Sukarno, who considered an international hotel necessary to the nation's prestige. Paid for by the Japanese, managed by the Americans, it had its own power supply (since Jakarta's was fast failing); its own purified water (since Jakarta's now carried infections); its own frigid air, which no other hotel could offer. Food was flown in from San Francisco and Sydney, or grown on the hotel's own farm. With its restaurants, night-clubs, bars, swimming poo, and shops, it was a world complete. It was also majestically expensive; but heat or gastritis usually broke the resove of those transients who tried the decaying colonial hotels of the Old city.

Until very recently, 'decaying' actually described Hotel Indonesia itself, reduced through neglect to a sad echo of its former glory, overtaken on all sides by far more luxurious international-chain hotels. No longer a home-away-from-home for glamorous foreign dignitaries and celebrities, the hotel mainly hosted tired Indonesian civil servants and political party hacks attending seminars in the capital. Five red-and-white ceramic Indonesian flags stood stubbornly over the lobby, greeting visitors at what mostly feel like a theme park to Indonesian nationalism. But history (and globalization) recently came full circle when German hotel group Kempinski revived the fast-deteriorating landmark as one of the city's premiere luxury properties once again.

Jakarta Golden Triangle

When people think of Golden Triangle, it's usually the wild, rugged meeting point of Thailand, Burma, and Laos. Images of vast green poppy fields, opium trade and general lawlessness spring to mind. Jakarta's version of the Golden Triangle is only slightly different. While there isn't much of an opium trade here, and probably no poppy fields, lawlessness is everywhere, for this district is home to most of Jakarta's domestic and international banks. And since Indonesia is consistently ranked one of the most corrupt countries on earth, these banks tend to resemble laundromats more than prudent financial institutions.

The triangle is demarkated by the city's main boulevards - Jalan Sudirman, Jalan Gator Subroto and Jalan Rasuna Said. Jakarta's premiere apartment buildings are located here, as are a majority of the city's 5-star hotels. From a distance, the Golden Triangle's towering skyscrapers - some crowned with their own helipads - lend Jakarta the appearance of a prospering metropolis. 

Closer inspection, however, reveals hundreds of low-rent kampung crammed between the massive structures of glass, concrete and steel. Often they are literally just structures, as Indonesia's monetary crisis halted virtually all of the city's construction activity in the late 90s. Half-finished projects and empty lots are a common sight off these main roads, although lately, building efforts have resumed.

Financial ruin hasn't killed the human buzz of Jakarta's fastest-moving quarter. Themed cafes, wine bars, pubs and ethnic restaurants are tucked into its man office buildings, giving Jakarta yuppies a wide choice of places for power lunches or chilling out at the end of a long work day. State-of-the-art fitness clubs give office folks a place to work off their stress, while the district's many shopping centers, boutiques and salons give them ample opportunity to blow all their money - if and when the economy picks up again.

Jakarta as The Melting Pot of Ethnic Groups

The politically correct way to refer to Jakarta's chaos, petty crime, turf wars, mob rule and inter-ethnic hatred is to call the city a big cultural melting pot. The melting pot doctrine views the city's populace as a smiling happy bunch, grateful for the opportunity to celebrate their colorful diversity through a collective urban experience. 

In a way, this isn't far from the truth, Indonesians from across the archipelago have always flocked to the bustling capital in search of new opportunities and the promise of big city prosperity. Each year after the Muslim Lebaran holiday, some 250,000 migrants reckon Jakarta still isn't full enough and decide to hop on board. This may be a city of immigrants, but one ethnic group, the Betawi, claims to be its true natives. Myth! The Betawi people are actually of mixed Sundanese, Javanese, Balinese, Malay, Chinese and even Arab and Dutch descent. And since Betawi only emerged in late 19th-century Batavia, other ethnic groups can claim an earlier foothold on this land. But never mind all that. An unwritten, highly stereotypical occupation code exists underneath Jakarta's cultural confusion, and it goes something like this:

You are an upper-middle class Indonesian of Chinese descent,and therefore work for your family's trading company; you place legal affairs in the hands of your attorney, an ethnic Batak from North Sumatra; he recently even helped you purchase a plot of land behind your house from an ethnic Betawi Jakartan, who owned the property for three generations but needed the money to go on Haj pilgrimage to Mecca on the advice of this soft-spoken neighborhood cleric, who's from East Java; meanwhile, your housekeeper Inem, from Central Java, said she thinks your rich neighbor - a mafia boss originally from Ambon in the Maluku islands - can get tour car fixed for free by a thug from Flores island who runs a garage in the Tanah Abang market; this sounds like a good idea, beacause ever since the car trouble began you've been unable to take your wife to tacky hotel bars to hear her favorite singers' usually Christians from Ambon, Lake Toba, or Manado in North Sulawesi. You colud go by taxi ,but you'd hae to deal with a driver from Cirebon, West Java, who has yet to find his way around the city since moving here a mere 19 years ago; or you could take a Metro Min bus, but the Batak driver, Batak conductor and Batak pickpocket wouldn't be nearly as classy as your Batak lawyer, and you might mess up the new suit made by your tailor, that chap little bastard from Padang in West Sumatra; you thought of buying anew car with an advance from your loan shark, who is of course from Tasikmalaya in West Java, but his wife, a former bar gilr, just left him so she could re-marry for the fourth time, because she is ethnic Sundanese. 

Now you know.

Jakarta Favorite Energy Drink - Kratingdaeng

Energy drinks probably aren't the healthiest thing on earh. But if you've ever had to watch your taxi driver nod off to sleep with the car going 130km per hour down one of Jakarta's main thoroughfare at night, you might recognize a redeeming quality in those punchy little bottles.

Red Bull's official website plugs its controversial syrupy-sweet brew as the drik "for when a long day is over and a long night starts," and "for long, sleep inducing motorways," No wonder its Thai originator, Krating Daeng, is the beverage of choice for so many of Jakarta's groggy-eyed cabbies. Sometimes dubbed "the poor man's coffee" of Asia, Krating Daeng (Thsi for 'red bull') took off in Bangkok in the early eighties. In recent years the drink shifted upmarket to win over Asian yuppies, from 'e'-popping clubbers to workaholic dot-commers. But its real customer base remains the many long-haul truckers and taxi drivers struggling through 20-hour shifts. Many Jakarta cabbies admit to being addicted to the drink, and down four or five bottles of it daily.

Nasty rumors have dogged the manufacturer for years: That the stuff's made from bull semen; that it's an ecstasy type stimulant; that it contains amphetamine. In reality, Krating Daeng is a very potent mix of taurin, caffeine, sugar, and vitamin Bs. Competing Asian 'health tonics' - Lipovitan, M-150, or Extra Joss for instance - contain similar mixtures. Energy drinks offer a sensation that in some ways reflects Jakarta itself: a wonderful 'high' marked by a strong buzz, which then fades quickly, leaving you feeling pretty drained.

Jakarta Gay Community

Indonesia may be a predominantly Muslim country, but Jakarta's gay community enjoys a surprising degree of openness and freedom. This is partially because the government position of homosexuality is that it doesn't exist. The issue therefore isn't addressed and no formal restrictions are stated within the law. So while homosexuality is generally shunned within traditional Muslim and Christian families in Indonesia, Jakarta's social scene is an entirely different matter.

Not to be confused with the city's marginalized lady boy class, members of Jakarta's mainstream gay community socialize at ultra-trendy parties and clubs. Gay icons are frequently embraced by local media as messengers of new fads and cutting-edge fashion. And like in other cosmopolitan cities, a great number of Jakarta's top designers, artists, media executives, hairdressers, socialites, TB hosts and actors are openly gay. Their influence even extends to colloquial banter, as Jakarta street slang can be traced in part to gay jargon. Bahasa Gaul - the crass lingua franca of the city' s teenage mall rats - for instance, borrows many words from the contemporary gay vocabulary. Everyday terms for gays include g and binan, and the more derogatory hombreng, sekong and sakinah. But the most common is simply 'gay'.

Jakarta's cruising scene is full on. Glitzy shopping malls are prime hunting ground for young gay men, particularly Plaza Indonesia in central Jakarta. In the city's Senen district, a certain cinema has earned renown as a unique gay cruising spot:When the lights go gout and the file begins, members of the audience begin to mingle anonymously...

A handful of up-market clubs host gay and lesbian nights, one of which even features an elaborate cabaret show with dozens of performers gloriously done up in drag. And Jakarta is home to Q Fest, the largest gay film festival in Southeast Asia, now held openly each year at some of the city's top multiplex theaters. Yet gay chat rooms on the internet are as popular as ever, and remain the Jakarta queer community's most active meeting place. Perhaps a sign that despite all the open patying, gay lifestyle sadly isn't yet fully accepted.

Jakarta Landmark - Monas

It is tempting to refer to Indonesia's National Monument by its endearing and enduring popular term, 'Soekarno Final Erection'. This could be considered disrespectful to the country's statue-loving, womanizing first president. Monas is short for Monumen Nasional, and lies in what should be the lungs of Jakarta - a large park surrounded by traffic fumes and political demonstrations.

Monas was first commissioned by Sukarno in 1961 but wasn't officially opened until 1975 by his successor and nemesis, President Soeharto. The 132-meter tower is made of Italian marble and capped by a glittering bronze flame gilded with 35 kilos of gold leaf. Far more impressive than the structure itself is the compulsive symbolism inherent in it: The date of Indonesia's declaration onf independence, 17/8/1945 is incorporated into practically every nook and cranny. The lower terrace measures 45 and 45 meters ansd sits 17 meters above ground level. 17 steps lead to tower's entrance, and its tunnel is 45 meters long; even the surrounding fence boasts a very patriotic 1,945 pillars; whether or not the tower's opening hours (08:00-17:00) are but an extension of the same obsession is anyone's guess.

Underneath the imposing structure is a museum where cool dioramas depict watershed moments in Indonesian history through the ewes of the paranoid Soeharto regime - arguably the greatest re-writers of history ever. The dark, cavernous Soviet-style hall that houses the museum is far too big for its stated purpose. It should instead be used for giant raves. It could be re-named the Monas-try of Sound. The acoustics would be spectacular.

But for all the nationalist imagery here, Monas Park can still be a great place for a stroll. In the early morning it is dotted with exercise groups on their daily workout. In the afternoon, horse carriages ferry families and youg couples around the cobblestone plaza that circles the monument. And the street market that unfolds here each night is typical of the bustling bazaars found in cities across Indonesia. Everything is for sale:inflatable Teletubbies and imitation name-brand shoed;cacophonous alarm clocks and bulk shampoo; flimsily assembled disco lights and even flimsier cassette players; bumper stickers bearing Islamic slogans or images of cult rock band Slank;cheap; colorful children's clothing and budget accessories for the car cotton candy and fried tofu; prayer mats and bed linen;fake Rolexes and spicy fried rice.

Jakarta Pondok Indah Houses

Every city has its affluent neighborhoods, and Jakarta is no exception. Areas like Menteng, Kebayoran, Pondok Indah and Kemang are home to many of Jakarta's wealthiest residents. Sometimes it's 'old money' - landowners from pre-independence days, cronies from the New Order regime boom years, or folks well-connected enough to have had a stake in some of Indonesia's leading conglomerates. Their houses tend to be spacious an very comfortable, but somehow bear the simplicity of Old Jakarta - traditional kitchens; airy living rooms with high ceilings and large ceiling fans; teak wood or rattan furniture; lush gardens.

Like 'new money' people everywhere, Jakarta's New Rich seem determined to test the limits of both their purchasing power and publicly accepted taste. In Jakarta's southern suburbs - Pondok Indah in particular - they build gargantuan new homes that from the main road look a bit like badly constructed spaceships or poor reproductions of Disney-style palaces. In short, garish in just about every way. If you're ever pitying yourself for being poor, stroll along Pondok Indah's main road, look at the houses and see the kind of embarrassment you've been spared.

The entrance facade sometimes carries the family's initials in huge gold letter plates; the front courtyard might contain a pair of life-sized ceramic Pegasus statues; the gleaming marble-laid living room is the size of a small stadium; chandeliers typically weigh two hundred kilos and house enough light bulbs to illuminate a casino; the swimming pool is flanked with spitting fountains; the children's bedrooms are often the work of a specialist interior designer and the kids' beds are shaped like racing cars or medieval castles. Check theses houses out. They epitomize post-modern kitsch. But most impressive of all, real people with real freedom actually choose to live in them.

Jakarta Slums

Known locally as kampung kumuh, Jakarta's urban slums are an eyesore the government would prefer you didn't see. Slum dwellers are regularly evicted to make way for toll roads, golf courses, canals, stadiums, shopping malls or simply a more pleasant view. In the Ramadan holiday period in 2001 alone, municipal authorities evicted an estimated 35,000 slum dwellers from their roadside shacks, often violently. The obstacle to modern urban development, so the municipality's official budget includes a hefty allocation for eviction initiatives. Some evictees were offered humiliating 're-settlement compensation' to the tune of Rp 100,000($10). Others received nothing at all. The scale of forced evictions in Jakarta has been staggering. The 2007 UN Global Report on Human Settlements estimates that 500,000 Jakarta slum-dwellers were evicted between 2001-2003 alone, which would make it the world's fifth largest forced eviction wave of the past half century. 

The most striking thing about Jakarta's slums is their close proximity to shimmering skyscrapers and luxury housing, often in the very heart of the city. You can probably guess who lived in the area first. Jakarta's Central Business District is now a curious juxtaposition of rich and poor that has yuppie executives looking down from high-rise office windows onto landscapes of ramshackle huts and open sewage. The bizarre contradiction often seems to go unnoticed by yuppie and slum dweller alike. Spirited local NGOs such as the Urban Poor Consortium are active in representing slum dwellers' interests and in trying to close Jakarta's painful socio-economic gap. But these organizations are fightin an uphill battle and regularly face resistance by political interest groups and the authorities.

Jakarta Golf Course

Many of Jakarta's beautifully trimmed golf courses boast a unique, added virtue: they double as historical sites. This is because they were build on land previously occupied by slums and rural villages, and nobody knows the precise fate of the unfortunate farmers or residents who were forced to make room for the playgrounds of Jakarta's crony class. We do know that some of the country's largest conglomerates moved swiftly and mercilessly to clear land for what in the 1980s was fast becoming Asia's favorite new hobby. Bulldozers literally rolled across vegetable plantations and farmers were ordered to re-settle elsewhere with little or no compensation. That hasn't stopped anyone from teeing off, though, and rateher sadly, the whopping 38 golf courses throughout Greater Jakarta are the closest thing the city has to large public parks. 

Golf courses are where Jakarta cronies and politicians conduct business. But they attract many happy foreign visitors too, because by international golf standards they offer great values: Most of Jakarta's courses are world class, and some charge as little as Rp 200,000($20) per round on a weekday. Not surprisingly, caddies come cheap and plentiful too, so that even the most hopeless golfer can enjoy the delusion of being Tiger Woods - in between swings, anyway.

Jakarta's Urban Legend

Jakarta, a modern metropolis of twelve million rational, enlightened residents? Not always. Toss a stone in any direction and it's bound to hit someone who's got a supernatural tale to spin. And if they happen not to have a spooky story to relay, odds are they know someone who's heard of a guy whose cousin's deaf aunt an supposedly see jinns or ghosts. These are the people who watched The Sixth Sense and thought, "So the kid can see dead people...big deal!" In Jakarta, three monthly magazines dealing with the paranormal - Misteri, Mistis and Posmo - are amongst the hottest publications on the market. 

It's hard to know why so many Indonesians are so hopelessly captivated by all things mysterious. One obvious explanation is the whole link to animist beliefs, but better to put aside the anthro-babble, because most of Indonesian stopped being animists years ago. Another possibility is that everyday life for many Jakartans can be so discouraging that anything supernatural, however far-fetched, feels like a vast improvement. Then again, it's not just downtrodden kampung dwellers who buy into superstitions. By many accounts, former presidents Soeharto and Gus Dur relied more on spiritual counselors that political advisers - suggesting a leadership style almost as folksy and superstitious as that of -- Nancy and Ronald Reagan.

Local obsession with the inexplicable is all over Jakarta's mass media: TV, radio, gossip tabloids and the internet all carry stories of reincarnation, conspiracy, ghosts and demons. Jelangkung, a movie about a ghost-hunting gang of kids, was one of the biggest local box office successes of the past decade because it hit a lot closer to home than your average Hollywood horror flick. Countless copycat horror flicks have since been churned out by Jakarta's major studios, most of them utterly unwatchable. 

Ghost hunting has become something of a hobby in Jakarta, its enthusiasts staking out cemeteries in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a legendary spirit. Certain locations around the city are reputed to be hotspots for undead activity, like the Jeruk Purut cemetery, which features a headless preacher, and the abandoned house in the affluent Pondok Indah suburb. These places have become domestic tourist attractions of sorts, offering young Jakartans just enough spook to make a visit there seem more intriguing than yet another dreary trip to Monas Park.

Jakarta Love Hotels

The term has sleazy ring to it, and to be sure, most of what goes on in Jakarta's love hotels can hardly be labeled a family holiday or a corporate retreat. But these dens of lust actually meet a widespread social demand : In a society that officially shuns pre-marital sex, the existence of these hotels is testimony to how frequently it is practiced. Known locally by the euphemism Hotel Enam Jam-an (six-hour hotels) or Pondok Wisata ('tourism spot'), love hotels actually began quitei nnocently as roadside transit motels for inter-city travelers. Today they are the refuge of choice for randy young things who live at home until marriage and earn for private moments away from mom and dad's watchful gaze. Extra-marital flings are also frequently used for what's locally known as BBS(Bobok-Bobok Siang or 'afternoon naps'). In fact, rooms are most likely to be fully booked on weekday afternoons at around two or three o'clock. All of this means that occupancy rates at these love nests far exceed those at the city's luxury tourist hotels - no doubt to the dismay of the Jakarta Tourism Promotion Board.

Privacy is taken seriously at love hotels. For starters, the nondescript rows of single-story blocks look nothing like ordinary hotels and are usually set back from the main road, concealed by long rows of tall shrubs. Anonymity guarded from the start : Your car is escorted into one of many personal parking bays with doors that slide shut behind you so that nobody will recognize your battered old red Kijang jeep and spread vicious tales around the office the next day. The garage leads straight into the bedroom. Check-in is done on the spot and with little fuss: A trusty clerk appears at your door with clean towerls, a fresh bar of soap and receipt for the Rp 200.000 (around $20) you'll be paying for a six-hour time block. Rooms are generally clean, simple affairs. They are air-conditioned and equipped with a TV, an mini-bar and a room service menu offering 24-hours meals and snacks. The en-suite bathrooms usually boast see-through doors (if you've ended up in a love hotel, feigning shyness would seem besides the point). Deluxe rooms even include waterbeds, jacuzzi tubs, in-house TV porn and ornate ceiling mirrors. True palaces of good old-fashion romance.