September Diary
Blok M Diary, September 2004
Dog days and doldrums
After a promising kick-off September turns out to be a bit of a bummer - a characterless intercalary spell sandwiched between August and November in which Blok M is on autopilot. Things go on as ever, but with an unpunctuated aimlessness, a languid lassitude, the dull tread of routine. The place is like fish and chips without the vinegar, rice without sambal, Laurel without Hardy.
But underlying this seasonal dip in the graph there’s a longer term hard truth - the sober fact that there’s simply less money flowing into the Blok’s coffers than of yore. The days of the gravy train bule with his bloated expat payment package have long since passed into history, and the screws are now being tightened even more. As companies remorselessly continue to downsize and pare their costs to the bone here in what has been eloquently described as "the economic basket case of South East Asia", more of their dwindling band of employees are put on short-term contracts with lean salaries and seriously reduced allowances. And entrepreneurs who’ve set up their own businesses are being sucked into a growing quagmire of taxes, levies, backhanders and sweeteners until they’re floundering in a morass of brown envelopes.
So the regular punters are now more cash conscious than ever, especially when it comes to the girls. Lavish gifts and munificent remunerations are - except for a few well-heeled high rollers - things of the past, and Sweet Young Things who demand crazy money for the transient pleasure of their company can only expect to hear the Two Magic Words and be sent packing with the proverbial flee in their ears.
Your mileage may vary
Perhaps because of the new economic order one of the questions that the old hands are increasingly being asked by newbies is, "What’s a night out in Blok M with all the trimmings going to cost me?". Well, the obvious reply is to counter with "How long is a piece of string?" - but that’s a cop-out. What the guy’s really asking, the sous-texte of the question, is "How the heck do I avoid getting ripped off?". To help the wary would-be reveller on his way, here’s a check-list of a few of the things to look out for. But first and foremost, do read the FAQ pages - they cover most of the things you need to know!
Prices in Blok M are very reasonable, so you can get totally blotto for a couple of hundred thousand rupes on draught beer and/or the lower-end spirits if you’re not a hardened case who can stack it away by the crateful and still be the last man standing. But of course, if you harbour amatory intentions you don’t really want to get smashed, do you?
Bar bills are pretty honest nowadays. (A couple of years back bill manipulation was rife, and one bar in particular became notorious for overcharging and adding drinks to the bill that were purportedly ordered by girls without the punter’s knowledge. The word of course went round the Blok like greased lightning, and within a couple of weeks the offending place was shunned by enough guys to make a serious dent in its cash flow.)
Rule one - keep your tab on the bar (or at your table) where you can see and control it.
Rule two - check the bill for accuracy immediately it’s presented.
Rule three - don’t hesitate to challenge any drink you didn’t order personally, and demand to know who ordered unrecognised items.
There are two costs associated with a girl. The first is the drinks in the bar, and for the uninitiated this can be a hefty whack. Follow these rules carefully, and you should achieve your evil end without bankrupting yourself in the process.
Rule one - all drinks are ordered by you, and you alone. When she smiles sweetly and insists that you stay seated while she goes to the bar to get the drinks, alarm bells should ring. Do it yourself.
Rule two - when she innocently asks if her best friend (who’s always lurking nearby) can also have a drink, tactfully decline. Unless, that is, the best friend is a real smasher that you actually fancy more than the one you’re chatting up and you’d like to switch horses in mid stream. (But only a total blaggard without an ounce of moral scruples would think like that, of course.)
Rule three - beware of buying innocent-sounding drinks that are in fact a wallet-crippling concoction of exotic sprits and upmarket fruit juices - Long Island Tea is a case in point, as a good friend of Bart (of Bugil’s Bar) recently discovered to his cost.
Rule four - listen carefully for the whispered request, as "tonic" may have been surreptitiously prefaced by "gin and" or "Gordon’s" without your catching it. (The Reveller’s golden rule is to stick firmly by the line that girls are offered soft drinks only, unless they’re old friends or a new sweetie that you just don’t want to loose.)
The second cost is the baseline charge for services rendered. Now haggling in the bar is a real turn-off. For starters it makes you look like a miser or a cheapskate, and secondly it quite ruins the illusion of romance that you and the Sweet Young Thing have been assiduously working on for the past hour or more.
Fortunately, there are time-honoured (and remarkably effective) ways for the newbie to bed the beauty of his dreams without getting a nasty shock later on. You spin the line that you’re new on the Blok, and that a guy at the other end of the bar has told you a hundred thousand rupes is the going rate. As she gasps in shock and swoons in horror, you gently ask if that’s too high. If she has an ounce of sense she’ll tell you the real going rate (which is between Rp 150,000 and Rp 250,000 for a short time). Anything more than that and she’s a gold digger who should promptly be ditched in favour of her best friend who by now will be giving you the glad eye and smiling invitingly whenever the other girl’s back is turned.
There are rules. Read, learn, and inwardly digest them.
Rule one - don’t be bullied into paying more. Reactions can take the form of stunned disbelief, sheer horror, a deluge of crocodile tears, a blatant lie ("in bar you tell me you give me one million"), or a heart-rending plea that she desperately needs money to pay for a family emergency (usually medical, invariably her mother).
Rule two - double count the notes before you hand them over. If she subsequently claims you’ve miscounted and given her too little, politely insist that you’ve paid her in full and that you’re not going to give another penny. If she turns loud and aggressive or starts to threaten in any way, gently bluff that hotel security might be interested to hear her side of the story.
Rule three - bonus payments for exotic extras are the norm, and an extra Rp 50,000 or so is generally sufficient (unless you’re into really weird stuff).
Rule four - if you get lousy or perfunctory performance (ie you’ve got yourself a Starfish) don’t hesitate to sling her out on her arse. If she’s in and out in a flash (ie she’s a QuickFit girl) give her what you reckon the service is worth as a percentage of what you expected, and send her packing.
Rule five - all things being equal, it’s customary to pay the girl’s taxi fare. The going rates are Rp 20,000 or so if she’s met minimum performance standards, up to Rp 50,000 if you had a really wild time and are blissfully knackered.
The taxi drivers in Jalan Pelatehan are a happy-go-lucky bunch of amiable crooks. The minimum they expect for whisking you and the fair damsel who’s clinging to you like superglue to a local hotel is Rp 20,000 - and if they sniff that you’re a newbie, they may quote as much as Rp 50,000. Now the metered rate for Pelatehan to the Melawai Hotel is less than the Rp 3,000 minimum fare (it’s literally just around the corner, behind the bus terminal), so 20,000 is already a hefty mark-up. (Most of the regular punters are known to the drivers, and can usually negotiate a rate of Rp 15,000 or so.)
Rule one - consider walking up the road and hailing a cab that’s passing the top end of Jalan Pelatehan.
Rule two - if you take a waiting taxi, don’t be bullied by the drivers into taking the cab of their choice - choose the least decrepit one that looks as though it’s got a better than 50-50 chance of not breaking down on the way to the hotel.
Rule three - agree the fare before you open the taxi door. If, before setting off, the driver turns round and invents a totally different price, don’t say anything - just open the door and get out.
Rule four - have the exact change for the agreed fare.
Rule five - be prepared for, and ready to rebut, the inevitable begging/cajoling for extra fare. If it’s raining, expect them to ask double; if there’s more than three or four cars waiting at the traffic lights, expect them to claim it’s macet (a traffic jam) and slap on a time surcharge. Only ever pay the agreed price, and not a penny more.
The going rate in the Melawai Hotel is Rp 220,00 all-inclusive for a room for the night. Be prepared to pay for a deluxe room (Rp 280,000) on a Friday or Saturday night if business is brisk and demand is high. Tip the security guy who shows you to your room a couple of thousand rupes.
Rule one - don’t let the girl anywhere near the mini bar without your permission: she’ll clear it out, and slap a hefty mark-up on your hotel bill in the process.
Rule two - unless you’re in a very generous mood, don’t let her order from the room service menu. She’ll invariably order a slew of expensive items that don’t get finished (and it’s not unknown for a girl to be in cahoots with the hotel to bump up your bill).
Rule three - keep your valuables safe. Hand phones, wallets, cash in pocket are all vulnerable.
Rule four - don’t let her make calls on the hotel phone. Girls have been known to phone their far-flung family in all corners of Indonesia, and even make international calls to friends working overseas.
Up Beat
It’s time to revisit the new D’s Place down Kemang way, thinks the Reveller one evening - so it’s into a taxi and off to The Beat to see what’s cooking. And the place is doing very nicely. There’s a goodly crowd of regulars, Kemang dwellers for the most part who for a variety of reasons would prefer not be seen sloping off to Blok M. Darryl is working the room, greeting everyone by name and backslapping his way from group to group.
The bar staff are friendly and affable, and the Reveller is soon downing his first jar of the evening and chatting to a couple of guys he hasn’t seen for ages in Blok M. Business is good, and there’s the sweet smell of success about the place. The design is particularly effective, as it doesn’t take many punters to make the place look full, and when it does get busy there’s still plenty of space to move around in and stools to sit on.
As he downs his last drink of the evening and prepares to leave, the Reveller reflects that, for all it’s qualities, the place is a singleton - it stands alone in the middle of Kemang, there’s no tipping out of the place and rolling into another hostelry. And that’s Blok M’s strong suit. Whatever your mood, there’s somewhere on the street that’ll hit the spot, where you can find just the atmosphere you need at that moment.
Epilogue
September draws to a close with the optimists down the Blok murmuring that things can only get better. And what are we all down there, if not optimists! Like Mr Micawber, we all believe that "something will turn up", that the Blok works in weird and wonderful ways to restore its equilibrium. And as the Reveller drains his last glass of the month he silently salutes the diehard management of Lintas Melawai, who keep the doors open and lights burning in spite of a total lack of custom. And who’s to say that they’re not right, that the wheel of fortune won’t eventually turn in their favour?