Visit Jakarta...but where is it?

Early in the morning, my flight arrived from Bangkok. Pretty much exhausted, the flight couldn't be considered to be a 'red eye' flight since the flight took only 3 and a 1/2 hours. Walking toward the immigration checkpoint, I spotted an empty booth of "Ayo Tamasya ke Banten", a pricewar billboard of the local cellular provider and lastly a stack of brochures containing a brochure titled Jakarta City Map.

My first impression was wow! Finally, they come to senses in giving away such hefty information in one brochure. I always told everyone that Jakarta is a big city, bigger than Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur. It's so Huge. Then, I realize that this year is a Visit Indonesia Year 2008 with the slogan "celebrating a 100 years of awakening."

I flipped open the brochure as I was waiting for my bag in the conveyor belt. It contains the map of Jakarta with the color description of the busway route. On the insert at the left hand side, there is an information about busway route and its corridor with the match of color to the one on the map. I said to myself, not bad.

Flipping to the other side, there is a brief history of Jakarta and the section of the interesting sites in Jakarta. Wow, at least someone from abroad knows where to go in Jakarta. But to my surprise, the interesting sites section can only give the name of the site and its function before and at present time. Well, I asked myself as I put myself as a first time foreigner in Jakarta. "How can I get to the site?" or "Where is the location of the site?"

Nothing! Usually those kind of informations will have its address (let alone its coordinating location on the map), its open hours and lastly how to get there with the public transportation. Perhaps, we've been for so long without a proper public transportation. Busway is the current breathing space for our public transportation. But why, in the age of properness and dire need to sell the image of the city, this little tiny thing is being left out.

At the same day, I received an email about the posting in the Jakarta Post by Andre Vltchek. His grumbles is what some of us grumbling about our city. He is right, we didn't grumble because we simply have no reference. I guess the planning of the Jakarta as a megapolis is being left stranded right after our prominent governor, Ali Sadikin, stepped down in 1977.

After seeing Bangkok with several parks (despite the locals also complained about its lack of public park) more than what Jakarta has, sidewalk that cater the pedestrian, my sadness toward my city deepens. Added to that is the promotion vacuum of Visit Indonesian Year outside Indonesia. Where is the money spent? Making a TV ad? Well, Gudang Garam corporate TV ad is more memorable if it's to be the TV ad for the Visit Indonesian Year 2008.

The government simply don't prepare enough and learn enough. Visiting Jakarta, but where? Visiting Indonesia, how? The predicaments are so compounded that the slogan for Visit Indonesia Year should be "celebrating 100 years of awakening in dreaming and drooling."