I stayed one night in Jambi, as I was in a bit of a rush.
– While I was there I found out that there is an archeological dig site not far from Jambi that is bigger than borobodur and could well be the next wonder of the world; with time restrictions, I didn’t get a chance to check it out :(
– As per usual, the local indonesians don’t drink alcohol, but the guys I met in Jambi like to sing and dance every night, I struggled to get into it without the aide of the liquid bread. The more I travel indonesia the more I am reminded how useless beer really is, it makes us socially weaker and gives us a necessity to force our bodies to relax instead of training our minds to just let go naturally.
Other than this, jambi is a nice clean city and I had a reasonably uneventful time.
So… batam!
In batam, I got drunk.
Batam is a mix between singapore and indonesia, which makes sense considering its location. The streets are clean and the commerce is a-plenty, large malls and fancy hotels span the city centre; however everything is still pretty cheap. [To Note: Singaporeans that I met in singapore made me think that I was just in a nice area of batam, the other half of the island could well be full of retired Singaporeans and prostitutes]
After getting reasonably drunk with a guy who works for UNESCO, I found out that batam is actually an unclaimed country; when the dutch left, the kings from the surrounding islands decided to burn batam to the ground so that noone could take it. Today Batam is run by two governments, the autonomous region government, and indonesia; but less indonesia than you’d think. You still need to consult the island eldars before buying property and other misc governmental activities, I was told that batam could quite easily become it’s own country due to the lack of some kind of international contract binding it to a country. I was drunk and I’m not quite sure how much I could trust this guy, so there is a chance it’s all bullshit.
After speaking with another guy in batam and after hearing the same thing from a few indonesians, it would seem that a lot of people preferred the good ol days of communist rule, if people were bad they would just vanish, everyone would live in fear and at the same time feel nice and secure. What they did not know didn’t matter, obliviously they were happy. Now with the introduction of democracy there is far too much transparency, the people know how corrupt the government is and the bad people tend to just linger waiting for the courts to sort it out. Harsh times aye, with this unbiased justice system :P
Singapore post to follow very shortly…
The 5000 Project 
Nic,
Sometimes just listening to others wouldn’t be enough until you really figure it out by your own eyes. What you’ve experienced and seen in Batam is the actual story that you could tell others about Batam. I’ve been living here for more than 15 years and I definitly disagree if someone tell story that half of Batam is full of retired Singaporean or Prostitution! There are more nicer things you could have seen here!
You should make another trip back to Batam, find out more and discover it but make sure you are not drunken! lol
Good luck with the rest of your trips!
Hi Budi, you are correct – with time restrictions it was difficult for me to see more, I thought the post was accurate with what I experienced – but its never enough. In the blog I explained that the Singaporeans claimed differently, referencing them; I may not agree with them but I found the bickering between batam and singapore amusing ;) – Thanks heaps for hosting me budi, I enjoyed my time and regardless of what the Singaporeans say, I like batam! Also good to hear that the history is true, i wasnt sure when a few locals I spoke with never heard of it, heh