Jakarta

[QUOTE=DrDoalot;1753089]Hello all,

Booked my ticket to Jarkarta yesterday. But then, while going through this forum, I came across some posts on police check ups for ID, Drugs etc. This kinda scared me. I'm not the kinda person to take any chances on this. Would rather cancel my ticket and accept the losses (its non-refundable). I've been to Bangkok many times. Never had to worry about anything. In fact, I didn't carry my passport with me when I went mongering in Bangkok. I always kept it in the safety locker. Is it safe to travel in Jakarta without being hassled by the police for bribe? Will they stop me while coming out from a bar / club and ask for my passport (original)?. What about the drug checks? Scared after reading some articles on the web about drugs getting planted on you. I'm mostly a daytime guy and can restrict myself to places like Hotel Classic and Malioboro. Would really appreciate any advice on this matter.

Thanks[/QUOTE]It's not likely you will be stopped during a short visit. Even if you did get stopped by the police, the bribe you would have to pay would be less than the cost of cancelling your flight.

[QUOTE=Lefeu;1753131]I hope I am still in my right mind, because I have paid $150 USD for a bottle of wine, and even more than that. If you like good wine, no price is too high![/QUOTE]A bottle of Australian Wine that I pay $7. 00 for in Honolulu, is $40.00 in Bali. Yellow Tail. So $150.00 in Indonesia is no big deal. The duty on imports there is just ridicules.

RL.

[QUOTE=RobertLong;1753297]A bottle of Australian Wine that I pay $7. 00 for in Honolulu, is $40.00 in Bali. Yellow Tail. So $150.00 in Indonesia is no big deal. The duty on imports there is just ridicules.
RL.[/QUOTE]True. But some months ago I noticed a bottle of Cognac Remy Martin XO 750 ML, which is priced about 150 EUR in duty free shops of most airports wordwide incl. Europe and Singapore Changi, sold for 1. 45 M IDR in a shop of Batam!.

That is about 100 EUR at the rate of that time.
Mysteries of Indonesia. Fake? Deteriorated? Stolen? Underground market?

[QUOTE=BlackPage;1753332]True. But some months ago I noticed a bottle of Cognac Remy Martin XO 750 ML, which is priced about 150 EUR in duty free shops of most airports wordwide incl. Europe and Singapore Changi, sold for 1. 45 M IDR in a shop of Batam!.

That is about 100 EUR at the rate of that time.
Mysteries of Indonesia. Fake? Deteriorated? Stolen? Underground market?[/QUOTE]There is nothing free about Duty Free. They pay millions to secure contracts in airports and with that name customers assume that something is free. I am a cognac drinker myself. And I always buy a liter of Hennessy or Remy in Taipei on my way to either Bangkok or Denpasar. Same price as any store in Honolulu.

The same with Cologne or Aftershave, Polo green or red in DF is $95.00, it's only $65.00 in Macys in Honolulu. I always get the perfume sets for the ladies I know but I buy on the flight and get a discount as a gold customer on China Air.

I have never heard of a grey market on cognac. But don't put anything pass the free market in Asia.

RL.

[QUOTE=Lefeu;1753131]I hope I am still in my right mind, because I have paid $150 USD for a bottle of wine, and even more than that. If you like good wine, no price is too high![/QUOTE]Hey, each to their own, I have never been one of these people who feel the need to tell other people how to spend their money but it's just that I have rarely found much of a co-relation between price and the quality of wine (spirits like cognac and whiskey, I accept there is a distinct difference). There's cheap plonk and then there's decent wine, but above $100 a bottle and you really aren't seeing any great difference, there's no way a $500 bottle of wine is ten times better than a $50 bottle (I am of course referring to normal prices, not Indonesian prices).

In the same way that an Rp 80 million-for-two-hours sinetron artis can turn out to be a total starfish, and you can have a great night of unbridled passion with a good time girl fresh up from the kampung for the price of a couple of Long Island Ice Teas, so with wine more often than not you are paying for the prestige rather than any great increment in quality.

The most sublime wine I ever drank was in a little roadside bistro somewhere south of Lyon in early September 1998, it cost a couple of francs a bottle and was simply magnificent. By contrast I was visiting the home of a Chinese businessman in Jakarta once, and to show me what a connoisseur he was he opened a bottle of Chateauneuf de Pape of some supposedly exquisite vintage and for which he paid an astronomical sum, he sipped it with me, rolling his eyes at the sheer delight of the heavenly nectar, I hadn't the heart to tell him it tasted like vinegar.

But like I say, each to their own, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

[QUOTE=Smoothy;1752794]Unfortunately, women have come a long way in forgetting how to take care of their man. That's the main reason western men prefer Asian women these days.[/QUOTE]Sometimes I wish there was a like button on this forum. Head of nail, meet hammer.

[QUOTE=Hilo77;1753006]The interesting bit of the story you leave out is how you dealt with the cops.[/QUOTE]Yeah, I was thinking the same when I read the his first post.

Oh, and LOL at all the bleeding hearts saying how bad it was he slapped her. Wake the fuck up to yourselves, the girl went on a rampage in his apartment causing a lot of damage, and you think he should just stand by and calmly ask her to please stop? We don't know the details, but it sounds like she got off lightly. You are not in Kansas anymore Toto.

[QUOTE=Ceegee;1753491]
Oh, and LOL at all the bleeding hearts saying how bad it was he slapped her. Wake the fuck up to yourselves, the girl went on a rampage in his apartment causing a lot of damage, and you think he should just stand by and calmly ask her to please stop? We don't know the details, but it sounds like she got off lightly. You are not in Kansas anymore Toto.[/QUOTE]The guys complaining about that are likely Americans. American men have been brain washed over the past 40 years. I know because I'm one of them. If you look at the old movies, American men slapped women all the time when they got out of line. Even Ronald Reagan did it in the movies. These days, we have it beaten into our heads that it's not acceptable at any time to touch a woman in any way. Even if the woman goes ballistic and burns your house down, you can't touch her. I've never hit a woman in any manner in my life and likely never will. But casting aside the decades of mental conditioning in my life in the USA, and logically reviewing the situation, that chick deserved to be slapped. I think our way of looking at it in the USA is wrong. I agree that you shouldn't "beat" a woman. But to slap her with reasonable force when she is clearly acting destructively towards you or your possessions, in order to let her know that is not acceptable, should be fine.

DrDoalot: The police stops tend to be, or maybe exclusively are, at night. Out of an abundance of caution I always carry my passport in a passport holder in my front pocket and securely tied to a belt loop. It is a PITA but I too dread getting stopped particularly without my passport.

I too generally go out during the day and early evening so avoid most of this. But a couple of times at night I did get stopped, in one instance ending up having to give the criminal in blue (maybe it's not blue in Jakarta, perhaps brown, not sure) a $10 US bribe because I only had a copy of my passport with me.

But I wouldn't cancel a trip over the corrupt police issue unless you were planning on spending all your time at late-night clubs taking ecstasy, which it sounds like you aren't.

Yep, 100% agree. If it had been a man damaging his property and they were in certain states in the USA presumably he would have been within his rights to pull out a gun and use deadly force to stop him. Of course this is Indonesia, and Egy was not packing a gun, I assume!

I'm still dying to know how he dealt with the police though.

[QUOTE=Smoothy;1753525]The guys complaining about that are likely Americans. American men have been brain washed over the past 40 years. I know because I'm one of them. If you look at the old movies, American men slapped women all the time when they got out of line. Even Ronald Reagan did it in the movies. These days, we have it beaten into our heads that it's not acceptable at any time to touch a woman in any way. Even if the woman goes ballistic and burns your house down, you can't touch her. I've never hit a woman in any manner in my life and likely never will. But casting aside the decades of mental conditioning in my life in the USA, and logically reviewing the situation, that chick deserved to be slapped. I think our way of looking at it in the USA is wrong. I agree that you shouldn't "beat" a woman. But to slap her with reasonable force when she is clearly acting destructively towards you or your possessions, in order to let her know that is not acceptable, should be fine.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=LAGuy5;1753529]Out of an abundance of caution I always carry my passport in a passport holder in my front pocket and securely tied to a belt loop. It is a PITA but I too dread getting stopped particularly without my passport.
[/QUOTE]I leave my passport hidden somewhere in the room, not necessarily in the room safe either. I would rather hand over $10 once in a while than risk losing my passport. Luckily I have never been stopped so never had to pay the bribe, I actually thought it was higher than that.

[QUOTE=BlackPage;1753332]True. But some months ago I noticed a bottle of Cognac Remy Martin XO 750 ML, which is priced about 150 EUR in duty free shops of most airports wordwide incl. Europe and Singapore Changi, sold for 1. 45 M IDR in a shop of Batam!.

That is about 100 EUR at the rate of that time.
Mysteries of Indonesia. Fake? Deteriorated? Stolen? Underground market?[/QUOTE]That's because Batam is in a Free Trade Zone, hence there is no import tax levied on the items unlike most other places in Indonesia. If the exporting country then also has a tax free agreement with Indonesia the only factor is profit of the companies involved. That's also the reason why cars in Batam are very cheap and you are able to actually import your car into the island, something nearly impossible in the rest of Indo. Small problem; if you wish to take the car of the island you are required to pay the full amount of taxes, so event he ferry to Bintan won't be possible in that imported car.

If you know where to look, cheap black market alcohol can be had in Jakarta as well, at nearly the same prices. The way it works, legit companies import 100 boxes of item x, pay the duty on 80% of it and sell 20% on the black market at higher margin rates for them. Still cheap if you compare it to the selling prices in most shops, see list below for example. First price is box, second per bottle. No, contacts are not available through PM.

[QUOTE]
SUPER PREMIUM
63 Martell Chanteloup 6 x 70 cl 25,000,000 4,166,667
64 Martell Cohiba 3 x 70 cl 25,000,000 8,333,333
65 Martell Creation 3 x 70 cl 18,000,000 6,000,000
66 Martell Lor 1 x 70 cl 62,000,000 62,000,000
67 Remy Martin Louis XIII 1 x 70 cl 45,000,000 45,000,000

PREMIUM
68 Courvoisier XO 12 x 70 cl 22,000,000 1,833,333
69 Martell Cordon Bleu 12 x 70 cl 23,000,000 1,916,667
70 Martell Cordon Bleu - Large 12 x 100 cl 32,000,000 2,666,667
71 Martell XO 12 x 70 cl 29,000,000 2,416,667
72 Remy Martin XO 12 x 70 cl 25,000,000 2,083,333

V.S.O.P
73 Courvoisier Premier Reserve 12 x 70 cl 12,500,000 1,041,667
74 Martell VSOP 12 x 70 cl 9,000,000 750,000
75 Remy Martin VSOP 12 x 70 cl 9,000,000 750,000

PREMIUM PACKING PRICE/CASE PRICE/BOTTLE
120 Absolut Elyx 12 x 75 cl 7,000,000 583,333
121 Ciroc 12 x 75 cl 8,000,000 666,667
122 Grey Goose Original 12 x 75 cl 6,000,000 500,000
123 Kettle One 12 x 75 cl 4,300,000 358,333
124 Russian Imperial 12 x 75 cl 6,000,000 500,000
125 Russian Platinum 12 x 75 cl 4,500,000 375,000
126 Skyy 90 12 x 70 cl 6,500,000 541,667
127 Smirnoff Black 12 x 75 cl 4,000,000 333,333

[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Ceegee;1753577]I leave my passport hidden somewhere in the room, not necessarily in the room safe either. I would rather hand over $10 once in a while than risk losing my passport. Luckily I have never been stopped so never had to pay the bribe, I actually thought it was higher than that.[/QUOTE]The one time--a few years ago--I was pulled over in a Blue Bird taxi the criminal in blue (or brown) first asked for $100 US. I laughed (as in that's not going to happen) and ended up giving him 100,000 rupiah, around $10. I had heard back then you could get away with 50,000, but it didn't really matter to me; I just wanted to get out of there.

These days the amount I hear most often is 100,000, which is now less than $8. But the idea of dealing with corrupt cops makes me want to avoid situations where it is likely to happen (e.g., for awhile I knew where in North Jakarta they were likely to be posted during the evenings and so avoided those routes).

[QUOTE=Ceegee;1753577]I leave my passport hidden somewhere in the room, not necessarily in the room safe either. I would rather hand over $10 once in a while than risk losing my passport. Luckily I have never been stopped so never had to pay the bribe, I actually thought it was higher than that.[/QUOTE]I completely agree. There is no way that I would recommend carrying your passport around Jakarta with you to try to save 10 bucks on the rare occasion the cops pull you over. I've been pulled over an average of less than once a year. Even if I were pulled over once a month, I still would not carry my passport.

[QUOTE=HihiSter;1753591]That's because Batam is in a Free Trade Zone, hence there is no import tax levied on the items unlike most other places in Indonesia.[/QUOTE]Also the *duty free* shop in Changi Airport is a free trade zone, that is without taxes applied on new prices!

Such a price difference (excl. Taxes) is huge (100 Eur vs. 150 Eur).