Dutch expat in Bandung....

Wait... Isn't Sukamiskin a jail? You mean the guests and performers had a luxurious lunch right? And it's probably luxurious for jail food? I suppose once a year a jail that's not max security could have entertainment, like Johnny Cash once did, or Metallica, Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, Sinatra, Santana, and a few others. But I'm sure it's not a common occurrence.
I don’t think you’ve been paying attention to reports from this jail.
 
Makes me think of the time when a friend was in jail, well, jail... In jail at the police station where most of the folks that get caught with weed go, at Jl. Jakarta... An English guy, nice guy, he sadly passed away some time ago.... This is years ago, he was in there for three months, we used to fill up big Aqua bottles and fill 'em with wodka and bring those to him... He was in a small cell with 15 others, right next to the interrogation room where torture was going on 24 hours a day, you know, the usual, electricity, crushing fingers, sticking broom sticks up peoples behinds and just generally beating the crap out of tied up folks, he told me he started feeling bad about himself when all he could think of was SHUT UP because you just couldn't sleep with the constant screaming... Not long after that another English teacher was caught, Peter from The States, he was in there also for three months, same story only he also had to spend time, one month in the normal jail which was much better, pay off the warden, pay off the guards and you're in a room with three others with a tv, dvd player, all the drinks and drugs you might want and warnings when there's another shake-down coming up... When he came out his name wasn't Peter anymore, it was Ibrahim and he had a huge beard, became Muslim in jail because they'll let you out 5 times a day to pray plus it helps a lot in court..... I'm tempted to tell the story about what happened with Timothy, a very dear friend of mine, from Nairobi, Kenya, things go a bit different when you're black here see.... The head interrogator at Jl. Jakarta back then, damn, he was a really scary guy, small with a Jusup Kala mustache and he made the same dumb joke to everybody who went there for a visit "Hi, I'm David Beckham hahahaha", he looked a lot like Heinrich Himler....
 
Yeah I've been paying attention, only last month wasn't it? That surprise visit? When they had to get somebody to break open the door of Setya Novanto's cell :) And it was promised AGAIN to do things different there this time....
 
Yes they have had concerts, not recently.
Massive changes occured after the Tempo article.
It is much more like a prison than a resort now.
I haven't been this year, I was supposed to visit but I was sick & had to postpone, but I have visited regularly in the past.
 
Ok, that's good to hear! I don't mind concerts all that much, even the regular prisons have concerts once in a while, I know guys from the underground scene in Bandung who used to do that....
 
Crazy times!!! Was driving around Bandung yesterday night, almost like how it was when I first came here 23 years ago, not much traffic, most of the restaurants still open though, although in Braga most places were closed, even the Nord Sea bar, run by a Dutch friend of mine....

What's the name of the bar with the "famous" fried chicken out the front? I can't remember.
 
You mean Volcano? Run by Robert from Belgium at Setra Duta Mall?

Close from there there used to be Gambrinus run by Ully from Germany, best wienerschnitzels ever in Bandung, God I miss that place... He then got into India food, they got a cook from Bombay and then the Bombay cook stole his wife and married her and Ully lost the place. He started another place, that went broke and he left for Germany, never came back, but that's all years ago.....
 
Then there is what is now Rumah Miring, up in Dago. Used to be Cloud 9, I was the house dj there for a while. The owner was Andy from England, a friend of mine. He started a small Cloud 9 in a place that was run before by Carmen from South Amerika and Michel the old manager from the Nord Sea.... Andy was one smart cookie, that place was going incredibly well, really good pizza's and cheap beer.... In a few years time he made himself half a million dollars and invested it all in the big Cloud 9 and that went really, really well, packed every weekend, very busy on weekdays. But yeah, this is Bandung, so some of the Chinese owners of discotheques got jealous, plus he wasn't playing the game, meaning paying off the kepala kampung, the cops and all the other leeches that usually show up for money, he got himself many enemies and they got together, rented the FPI to stage some anti-alcohol demonstrations in front of the place and had some of them trash the place a couple of times..... Andy left for England a few years ago and I don't think he will ever come back, he's in love with Africa so goes there these days.... Too bad, I miss him, we had great times together.... And he had huge balls too, I remember one time when the cops came to Cloud 9 to try and shake him down, next thing it was those cops running and Andy behind them screaming with a piece of wood in his hands :)
 
So many memories :) And so much time to write them down now while self-isolating....

If you walk into the Nord Sea bar, at the back you can see a painting... That was done by Frankie, Belgium Frankie the painter.... Great, very sweet guy, he lived in Bandung for many, many years and there was a time when you could see his paintings all over Bandung, in many cafe's, it's one of the many ways how he kept himself going here... When I started living in Bandung, back in '96 he owned a cafe/restaurant, the Copacobana, up in Ciumbeluit. Lovely place, but he started cooking himself there and was caught by immigration, lost everything.... So he was surviving with his painting, incredibly beautiful jazz paintings were his speciality, trouble was, he was also a heavy alcoholic and things just spiraled down and down, he got divorced from Nana who was the daughter of the folks running the Sakadarna guest house close from the train station (gone for many years now) and Frankie ended up on the streets, in Jalan Jaksa, the then backpack area in Jakarta. Begging, sleeping under kaki lima's and smoking stoogies from the street... Just terrible.... Then his mom died in Belgium and he got 40.000 Euro's. Opened up a restaurant up in Ciumbeluit in a complex which went well, but he still was a drunk, sometimes you'd see him walk with his girlfriend in Bandung, out of their heads and stark naked, so he lost that place too after they threw him out of the complex for walking around naked and he ended up on the beach at Pelabuhan Ratu and his money was getting finished... He said "I'm never going back to those streets" and he started really drinking, and I mean REALLY drinking and he drank himself to dead... We all got together, all his old friend when his body was in some place close to the train station and he was all blue, 'cept for the tip of his nose, that was really white, never seen anything like it.....

Next day they cremated him, I wasn't there for the cremation, couldn't make it, but what they told me that once every while they would open the doors of the oven and then throw some benzine from a bottle in there.... When I got there the burning process was all done already, and they gave us a huge bag with his ashes and lots of pieces of bones in it. We, a pretty big group, maybe 20, 30 people all went to Pelabuhan Ratu to throw his ashes into the sea.... Insane weekend, can't write about that here, too much crazy shit and some folks that still live in Bandung to this day so... yeah....

Belgium Frankie... What a guy.... If he had money he would go to Braga, get drunk and then he would give all his money away to local beggars, specially the kids forced to beg there in those times....

His best buddy was Gordon from Vancouver, another great guy who went through so much drama here, truly another incredible story and who lived in Bandung for many, many years, passed away many years ago too....
 
Bamboo Shack in Dago. When all this is over go on Saturday for the Hash.

Volcano sounds right!
 
I don’t think you’ve been paying attention to reports from this jail.
Hah that's probably true :D I always thought it was a normal jail, so much so that I think even a few members of this forum volunteers to socialize and bring books or something (I don't quite remember... old age you see) to this jail. Sorry heheh
 
On a rather sad note btw, Peter from Swiss passed away a few days ago, cancer, his wife Lina is a close friend from my wife, Peter was a regular at Volcano, actually started the place together with Robert,. very nice quiet guy,. I went to Yogya with him once,.,.,.
 

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