Jakarta (wild monkeys and friends)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are few green spaces in this city. My Green Map of Jakarta lists only 38 sites. Most are small fragments of parks of just a hectare or two or less or they are attached to hotels.

Street vendors, prostitutes, drug addicts, the poor, and the homeless crowd much the public green space. My map shows no connectivity between any of the green spaces dispersed over metropolitan Jakarta.

Of the two largest green spaces listed on my map one is the campus of the University of Indonesia (more in Depok than Jakarta), which is actually quite pleasant, the other is the amusement park at Ancol and is not so pleasant.

However, there is one green space that is quite remarkable. It is number one on the list and is called Cagar Alam Muara Angke.

It is described as follows:

“Muara Angke, Jakarta Barat/Utara. Hutan rawa bakau yang awalnya seluas 70 ha saat ini semakin menyempit. Sebagian rawa telah berubah menjadi empang, tempat pemancingan ikan mujahir dan bandeng, yang popular. Jalan setapak berupa panggung papan (boarwalk) merupakan sarana untuk mengamati monyet; burung gereja, bangau putih, pecuk hitam, dan belibis. Sayang, sampah liar banyak berserakan”.

First, and most amazingly, Muara Angke IS IN Jakarta. It is tucked away between a very garish neo-imperial-roman-housing-tract-shopping-mall for the super rich (only idiots with bad taste and a lot a money need apply) one one side of the river and a poor (this is understated because I cannot think of the word for it) fishing village on the other side of the river.

At Muara Angke there is a new boardwalk running about 1000 meters into a river delta of old mangrove and nipa palm forest. There are open water lagoons, and birds, including ibis, heron, woodpeckers, swallows, and flycatchers, to name a few.

The place is mute with the sounds of the city and loud with the songs of birds. I watched a flycatcher about three feet from the end of my nose go through several renditions of a very nice song indeed before flitting away into the bush. Rather stunning after a full afternoon of Jakarta traffic.

In this place you can actually feel the physical relief of setting your eyes on something green, alive, and entirely non-human.

Muara Angke is just a tiny fragment, some 70 hectares in size, of what the coastline once looked like, oh so long ago.

And here there are monkeys. Not monkeys in a zoo. Not monkeys tied to an end of a rope dancing for a few rupiah. Real monkeys. Wild, free, monkeys. Monkeys in Jakarta.

There are crocodiles (up two three meters in length). Big snakes. Butterflies. Here is everything Jakarta is not.

 

Jakarta (the future and past of transportation, part 2)

 

detail from above

Detail from Shiva, the destroyer and god of bad habits, The National Museum, Jakarta

Here, yet again, is another Mad-Max-Road-Warrior vehicle looking like a chopped and heavily modified Vespa… for two. This was parked when I came across it so I do not know if it runs now or how fast it goes or if it is loud. Probably does all three or did at one time. And you would definitely take your chances in that second seat.

What is striking is that I felt like I had seen this before.

And yes, indeed, I had. Compare the photo detail of the rear fender with the detail from the base of the ninth century statue of the Hindu god Shiva, the destroyer and god of bad habits, that I took at the National Museum. As much as Indonesia is purported to be a Muslim country these images are not coincidental. The Hindu gods are still alive and well in Java.