It took me 3 days to finally see the view from my hotel room at Hermes Palace. Wasn't bad, but wasn't exactly spectacular, either.

Work

It was hectic today. Fabio and I were at breakfast at 8 something when he got a call that 2 luxurious hotels in Jakarta were bombed. They were the Ritz Carlton Hotel and J.W. Marriott Hotel.

Speculations emerged soon after the bombing which killed 9 people, 2 of them being completely destroyed. Some security analysts said that although it was too early to decide who was behind this, there was a possibility that Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) was behind this. Politicians linked the bombing to the election since it was just a little while ago the Presidential election of Indonesia was conducted.



In the mean time, Indonesian football enthusiasts were deeply disappointed and angered by the occurence that soon after the news went worldwide, famous English club Manchester United had to cancel their trip to Indonesia given the fact that they were supposedly to be staying in Ritz Carlton hotel.



So we spent the day going for rounds of live interviews with the government of Aceh while in the mean time making calls to some analysts so that Fabio could write it in the 30 minutes to one hour window time he had within one interview and another.

Change of ticket

We survived the day, nevertheless. And I've decided to stay longer to see more of Aceh. Vincent did not like the idea, but I hardly saw anything during my three-day stay. I just had to change my Garuda ticket so that I could go home on Sunday.

World Bank Aceh staff

I like them. They're sweet, friendly, very accommodating, and helpful. Some of them like photography and so I shared some of photography tips with them and they almost immediately thought that I was a pro photographer.

"I am not," I said, "But I will be."

That's a positive thing to say about your future career. Hehe...

This is Dhea. She works at the front office and she definitely has an interesting face. I also found out that Dhea and the other WB girls seemed to collect cute stuff and display them on their desks. Look at this one over here.

Food

One of the most important things in my travel is the specialty food of the region I'm visiting. I made some research in advance and decided that I wanted to eat Ayam Tangkap, just because of its name. Ayam means chicken and Tangkap (verb) means to catch. Wasted name like that caught my interest. I mean of course you have to catch the chicken first before you kill it and cook it, right? Anyway, below is Ayam Tangkap.

Review: I have to go rough this time, I'm sorry. But ayam tangkap is not that much of a special food. It consists of small pieces of chicken that are deepfried along with some herbs of I don't remember what kind (I don't think I've ever heard it before). I liked the fried greens but the chicken was just.... ordinary.

terrorism travel

6:46 am

By Carla Ardian.

Denpasar - The convicted so-called terrorists accused for killing 202 innocent people in Bali in the year 2002, namely Imam Samudra, Ali Gufron and Amrozi, were executed today at 00:15, leaving mixed feelings for various numbers of people.


Late Amrozi, the smiling bomber

These past several days the embassies of Australia and the United States of America in Jakarta had received hoax calls threatening that there were bombs planted, which would be activated if the Bali bombers were still to be executed. The police went through and checked the whole buildings, but no bombs were found.

On 5 November 2008, Ustadz Ja'far Shodiq, Amrozi's brother, threatened that bloodshed should occur if the execution would still be conducted. "If you want to be safe, stop the execution," he said.

In August, a website called foznawarabbilkakbah.com stowed the bombers' so-called testament that menaced a death of some important people who "supported" the execution of the Bali bombers. Included in the testament were the President of Republik Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Attorney General Hendarman Supandji, all judges and prosecutors. More people in the revenge list were the Hindus and Christians, who are considered kafirs, and all American slaves.

The police took the threat seriously and intensified the protection for President Yudhoyono. The website now has been reportedly taken down.

Australia, whose citizens were most killed in the bombing incident, is happy that the bombers were finally executed. But hours after the execution took place, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told ABC that they urged countries not to continue the application of capital punishment.

In another place in Indonesia, three of the Bali Nine drug smugglers - Scott Rush, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan - Australian nationals, went sluggish once they heard that the Bali bombers were shot dead today. Their government's failure to ask for the clemency had already put their lives on the same firing squad.

With the mounting threats of revenge attacks coming from the Indonesian Muslim radicals, the Australian government keeps the travel warning to Indonesia.

"We advise Australians firstly to reconsider their need to travel to Indonesia," Smith said.

At the same time the spokesperson of the Indonesian Police main headquarter, Irjen Pol Abubakar Nataprawira, reported that the situation in Jakarta remained conducive. However, high security is focused in some fragile places, such as malls and embassies.

"We maintain a tight security especially at the embassies of USA, United Kingdom and Australia," he told detikcom today.

-CBA-

death penalty news terrorism

4:57 pm