indonesia

i remember when i posted my very first photo album on indonesia in facebook, someone remarked or asked - how's the situation in indonesia? better now?

situation? what situation? the only bad situation i'm faced with on my first trip to indonesia is the traffic situation. i still don't get it why at the traffic light the drivers there prefer to stop on the line, instead of in between the lines. funny. nevertheless, it's a nice country, with a lot of nice places to go to.

my current work has taken me to a lot of cities in indonesia. i've covered more cities in indonesia, i think, than majority of the indonesians. and i loves every part of it. ok... perhaps, except batam. if not for work or a one day cheap stuff shopping, i don't think i'll ever set foot on batam again.

my first trip was way back in early november 2008. to palembang, the historical city once a buddhist kingdom of srivijaya and also where parameswara comes from.

this is the very first picture that i took of palembang.


look at the traffic. it's pretty bad when you're there to experience it. people don't give way, and short honking can be heard from time to time.


i stayed at the aryaduta hotel, in palembang square. it's just a stone throw away from the shopping mall. not the big ones with lots of nice shops, more like the shopping mall that you normally finds in small towns. and it has carrefour as its ancor tenant.


this is the jembatan ampera, on sungai musi. it was built by the japanese as a gift to the people of palembang (what the..??) before they surrender during world war 2.


lastly, this is the ayam bakar that i so damn like, ok. and nope! this is not the local food which is famous in palembang. the famous local food of palembang is called pempek.


i didn't take any pictures of the pempek, as i did not bring along my camera when we went out for supper that night. pempek is actually fish cake and available in varieties. i tried all, some tasted nice, some tasted ok and one sure tasted weird to me tho. i think it's call pempek panggang.

palembang, aside from being a historical city, there are nothing much to offer from a tourist point of view. it can be a pretty boring place as there are not much tourist sites, except the musi river? oh... there's another mosque that was built looking like a temple.


anyway, i went to palembang twice, and i think i'll be making another trip there soon. looking forward to meeting my indonesian friends(from work) there tho.