I guess most people have heard about the floods in Jakarta a few weeks ago. We actually missed the whole event as we had to go back to Perth that week so watched all the action on the internet. It was, by all accounts, a pretty bad one and some areas have only just dried out in the last week or so.

We went for a ride this morning into the Ben Hilar area which we later realised, had been quite badly flooded. After cycling around some of the backstreets we found ourselves down by one of the many rivers and canals which link into the main Ciliwung river. We cycled along a narrow path between the houses and the river and had a great time taking photos and shooting the breeze with the locals.

They showed us how high the river had been on their house walls, about 6 feet up – way above most of their heads!! Although they are pretty rickety, most of the houses are two storeys so I guess everyone, including the rats, just headed upstairs. There wasn’t much trace of flood damage, but then the houses are so poor there’s not much to damage. One house had some handsome chairs drying outside and another had the table tied to a pole to keep it from floating away. People were, as always, friendly and welcoming but, boy, they have a hard life.

Floods aren’t unusual in Jakarta – significant flooding is almost a weekly event during the wet season. The same poor people get flooded every time, usually due to the flood gates getting jammed up with garbage being unable to drain. Anyway, it’s Chinese New Year tomorrow, apparently it usually rains like hell on the day then after that the rainy season begins to abate. I can’t say I noticed it stopping until May last year but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

So what else in new? Not much. We’re enjoying a few quiet weekends in Jakarta – the calm before the storm. March and April look like being busy months with several overseas weekends lined up and friends and family staying. Yay- we’re really looking forward to catching up on everyone!! A quiet weekend in Jakarta starts for me with a “body performance” exercise class with a couple of friends! This is usually followed by a bowl of muesli and a couple of hours on the couch! We sometimes go for a bike ride or drag ourselves to a mall if there’s something we need to buy.

Last weekend was a mall horror weekend trying to find a birthday present for my gorgeous god daughter. In three years we’d never been to Mangga Dua before. It took us one and a half hours to drive there, more than an hour to drive back and five minutes to realise it was a waste of time! Undaunted the next day I went to the much more upmarket but equally unsuccessful Grand Indonesia mall. At least the air con worked there and I managed to come away with some rather tasty arabica coffee from Toraja,so not a completely wasted journey.

Cheers for now

Suzy and Neil