Leftovers...

Glancing through my photos from the past couple of weeks and finding a few that didn't make it into previous posts, but are perhaps worth brief comment.

I stayed at the Hotel Mulia Senayan, one of the nicest hotels I've ever visited.

A small portion of the enormous lobby. The hotel has nearly a thousand rooms, six high-end restaurants, a couple of lounges, shopping, spa services, and on and on - they don't make 'em like this anymore, at least not in North America. In addition to the impressive physical plant, the hotel boasted impeccable service - I was frequently greeted by name, and always with a smile.



My very comfortable room.



A night time view of the rooftop spa, located next to an Olympic-sized pool, and overlooking the city. On this same level there's a poolside bar/restaurant, a spa, and a health club.



The view from my room, day and night, looking south toward the cluster of office towers, high-rise malls, and hotels of the Senayan district. At rush hour (pretty much any time other than between 10 PM and 6 AM) it can take a half hour to get from my hotel to those buildings.





One of my co-workers was nice enough to take me to Sunda Kelapa, a 17th century harbor from which traditional two-masted pinisi schooners still transport cargo from Java to the islands of Sulawesi and Kalimantan. I'm not a boat guy, but it was really cool to see these working vessels. The manual labor required to load them: not so fun. Notice the gangplanks, which are literally notched planks. There are a few small cranes and forklifts on the dock, but all the actual loading is done manually, by the ethnic Bugis and Makassarese sailors who crew the ships. We didn't stay long, but I really enjoyed seeing this fascinating, anachronistic place.