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I arrived in Jakarta on the evening of 4th of July, for my sister’s wedding and Anggi’s sister in law’s wedding. Somehow many people are getting married in July 2007, I think about three or four of my high school friends are getting married during the period, and at least two of my university friends. Interestingly, during this trip, I experience a few “culture shocks”, as I haven’t been home for more than one year. I’ll list down those “shocks” in a two parts: the first one is about internet connectivity, and the second one is about other stuff.

Getting Connected in Indonesia

When I go to Indonesia, I would always prepare myself to stay disconnected from the internet during the period. Not that I want to, but internet connection in Indonesia is expensive, really slow, or impractical (like, I have to go to a mall a few km away from my inlaw’s house to get free wi-fi, or that I have to subscribe to a broadband service: impractical for my short-term stay).

But this time, I can’t avoid being disconnected any longer. The reason is that I didn’t manage to finish a few papers to be submitted to my bosses, the professors. So, this time around, I couldn’t relax in Jakarta, since I have to fit in a few hours a day to work. And just working on those paper isn’t enough, I still need to send them over to my bosses. Those papers are at least 5 megabytes in size, because it has a few images. For Singapore standard, 5MB in filesize is peanut. But for Indonesian standard, sending it over the internet pipe is like fitting an elephant into a Volkswagen.

So during the first few days, I tried to stick onto Telkomnet Instan, the only service available in my inlaw’s house. I used to remember that Telkomnet Instan wasn’t that bad: the connection rate is quite fast for dialup Indonesian standard. But this time, I felt like pulling my hair out because sending 1MB of document took me at least 60 minutes, and sending 8MB of document took me two hours of effort, and failed because it got disconnected at 60 percent upload. My gmail accounts kept getting disconnected. And forget about browsing images: I had to turn them off in firefox. And my laptop modem port and HD were at the brink of being overheated. I gave up and send the files using thumbdrive over at my uncle’s house, which has cable internet, several hundred meters from my inlaw’s.

A few days before my departure to Jakarta, I asked my pak-bos-dangdut Jeremy Wagstaff for the solution to my problem. He promptly suggested that I try HSDPA 3.5G connection, which he had been very satisfied about. So, back in Singapore, I did a quick research about this and agreed that it’s quite promising. However, it was not easy to make a decision. First, the upfront cost for HSDPA modem is high, so, I had to do a research on market price very carefully and look for lobangs for a bargain. Second, most HSDPA connection requires subscription, something that is not worth for my short-term stay in Indonesia. Third, not many people are using HSDPA, or most of them are on subscription, therefore it was difficult for me to find a solution specific to my needs: for a short term stay in Indonesia.  

Then I found out that Telkomsel had just released their FLASH scheme. There are a few things that attracted me into this scheme: First, it does not require subscription. Second, it’s time-based rather than use-based: which fits to my needs for downloading and uploading big files. So, the first thing I did upon arriving in Jakarta is to buy a prepaid Telkomsel SIM card which I would use solely for HSDPA.

But there’s another problem. I need an HSDPA modem. It was difficult finding one because most of my friends who are using HSDPA are on subscription scheme (so they got a bargain deal). Moreover, I want a modem that is not locked to specific network, because I would want to use it outside Indonesia. If I buy the modem from Telkomsel, it would be locked to Telkomsel network. I could get a modem in Singapore for free (as part as M1 subscription), but it is also locked. The Singtel’s HSDPA modem looks like unlocked, but it costs more than 400 SGD and I had to sign up for 2 years contract. (note: I found out that unlocked / non-contracted HSDPA modem is far more expensive in Singapore, perhaps because there wasn’t a very high demand for it due to nationwide Wireless@SG scheme).

Thanks to Othe and Bram, who are very active in forumponsel and have an understanding on HSDPA market due to their work with the telcos, they recommended me to buy a modem from a shop in Taman Anggrek. It was quite a bargain, about almost half the price compared to buying it at bhinneka.com, and worth the hellish traffic to go to Taman Anggrek. The shop even installed the modem for me and it came with one year warranty. The only downside is that the built-in software comes only in German. Perhaps it’s a smuggled product or something, because I couldn’t even log into Optic Globesurfer Icon Website to download the manual using the serial and IMEI numbers at the back of the modem. Nevertheless, when I tried to get connected to Flash Telkomsel, I got 1.8MB speed, and it was quite a breeze. A far cry from Telkmonet Instan’s 52K crippling speed!

In a nutshell, looks like cellular based broadband has a strong prospect in Indonesia due to the strong demand, telco competitions, and less cost in building cellular network compared to fixed line or wi-fi network. Correct me if I’m wrong. But I felt that the demand is really strong, that the current modem price is almost 80 percent compared to a few months ago, and even that dodgy HSDPA modem seller in Taman Anggrek has already reduced the modem price for the next shipment by 100,000 rupiah (I bought the last unit of their first shipment). So, thanks to my dad, Jeremy, Othe, Bram, Ankz, and Phoebz for helping me in the quest for HSDPA connection. And for Singapore residents who want to go to Indonesia, I suggest you to rent my modem (hoping to recoup the cost).

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Travel Tips: Do make an effort to learn the language of the country that you’re going to. People would appreciate your effort greatly. The locals are easily impressed and amused by your enthusiasm to blend in, and also it’s a sign of humility because you’re trying not to force the locals to speak English. Also there is less likelihood that you’re gonna be tricked because local people became aware that you might understand their language. Sometimes you can bargain better price by only speaking the language.

Preparation

For this Mexico Cuba trip, we had zero knowledge of Spanish, except for a very very few words. We took an effort to learn the language with a very limited time of three months. We didn’t enrol to a class due to our limited time. Instead, we borrow tapes and books from the library. The Pimsleur method was proven to be very effective to obtain basic knowledge of conversational Spanish. We spend about one hour a day playing Pimsleur tape in our stereo. The good thing about Pimsleur is that you can learn it while doing something else, something that didn’t require much concentration such as while doing housechores, cooking, or commuting. In three months we only manage to get to lesson 15 of level 1, partly because we didn’t spend time to study spanish daily, but rather, only a couple of times a week.

On site

Nevertheless, our rushed effort paid off rather well because we managed to engage in basic conversation with people around Mexico and Cuba. For example, we managed to understand Maribel’s Mayan background from a conversation with her, or note down the roast chicken recipe given to us by the Mayan people in Chichen Itza. That’s why we highly recommend Pimsleur Method due to its proven effectiveness. But the downside is that it is really expensive, therefore, it’s highly recommended to borrow it from libraries instead.

When we arrived in Mexico, communcation turned out to be easier than what we expected even though most people can’t speak english. Why is it so? Because when we’re actually in the country, we could use body language, sign language, gestures, and eye contact to enhance the communication. Those are powerful tools that helped communcation.

Spanish language in Mexico is easier to understand because Mexican pronunciation is clearer. However, Cuba has been a challenge. This is largely because their accent and pronunciation are rather difficult to understand. Cubans would eliminate letter “s” in the words and tend to mash together the words in a sentence. For example, “de donde es usted?” becomes “donde e’uted?”, “buenos dias” becomes “buenodia”, “muchas gracias” becomes “muchagracia” and “nos vamos” becomes “nobamo”. I also think Cubans use the letter W, B, and V interchangeably, while the letter “N” in the end of the word is pronounced as “NG”.  And Cubans talk really fast, faster than the Mexicans. So it has been more difficult there. Luckily Eko’s family and friends had been very helpful to us while in Cuba.

Back in the USA our ability to speak basic spanish has also been helpful, particularly in San Diego, where many of the workers in restaurant are hispanic. Once I spoke spanish to them, suddenly the services in those restaurant became significantly better and friendlier.

Tricks to Communicate with Limited Vocabulary

I could recommend three tricks to communicate with limited vocabulary.

First, is to use a lot of body language / sign language. If you don’t know the word for a thing that you want to buy in the shop, just point at the thing. Sign language does help too when your pronounciation is bad, or to emphasis the meaning of particular word. For example, you create a big circle when saying “grande” to indicate big size. You can also draw things, or type numbers into calculator.

Second, choose words cleverly despite not knowing many words. The key is to simplify your thoughts, to strip the sentences into basic words. Therefore, you don’t need to memorize all adjective, for example, because you can indicate a negative adjective by adding “not” in front of it. For example, rather than saying “ugly” you can say “not beautiful”. Or rather than memorizing the word “hungry” you can replace it with “want to eat”. Or, rather than using the word “buy”, or ordering in restaurant you can just simply say “I want”. Rather than saying “hate”, you can say “don’t like”. Rather than saying “I was born in …” you can simply say “I’m from …”. You can say “a place to eat” and “a place to buy” rather than saying “restaurant” or “shop”. Rather than saying “I want to do a reservation of a room for a week” you can say “I want to stay here for seven days”. Rather than saying “sanitary napkin”, I said to the shopkeeper “towel for women”.

Third, you may try to use the words from other language such as English and French, then change the pronunciation to mimick Spanish, and pray that there is such word in Spanish dictionary. For example, for adverbs, you can try to change the “-ly” in english into “-mente” in Spanish, such as “particularly” into “particularmente”, or “totally” into “totalmente”. Or simply change the pronunciation, such as “information” (informesyen) in english into “informacion” (informasiyon) in spanish.

With this three tips, you can reduce the need to look into phrase books and dictionary. To save time in your trip, use dictionary only as last resort.

List of Essential Words

I try to compile a list of words and phrases that I have considered as essential. It’s rather disorganized, and I appreciate your feedback / comments before compiling it into a more formal list. But basically, I’d like to keep this list totally minimal, as practical guide to people who are travelling. Because, based on my experience, not everything that you’ve learned in language course is totally useful. There are only few words that are more often than the other, hence totally essential, and here, we’re trying to identify those words.

Basic Words / Phrases that You MUST Know

• Yes
• No
• Please
• Thank you
• Hello / Good Morning, Afternoon, Night / Greetings
• Excuse me / Pardon me
• Sir / Ma’am
• Mister / Madam
• How are you?
• I’m fine
• Good (to comment on things)
• Sorry
• I don’t understand / I understand
• I don’t speak ____ language
• Do you speak english?
• Help!
• What is this / that?
• No pork please (if you’re muslim or jewish) / No meat please (if you’re vegetarian)
• No alcohol please (If you’re non-drinking)
• I don’t have time / I don’t have money (Staying away from persistent touts)

Very Essential Words / Phrases

• Numbers
• Have
• This / That
• Something
• Nothing
• Want
• Need
• Like (preference)
• Can / Able / Unable
• Do / To do
• See / Look
• Stay
• Go
• Here / There
• Buy
• Know / Don’t Know
• Eat / Drink
• Delicious
• Too (as in, too much, too expensive)
• Buy
• Cheap / Expensive
• Good / Beautiful / Lovely (to comment on things)
• I’m from ____ (country)
• To / From
• What ___?
• How ___?
• How much ___? How many ___?
• A lot / A little
• Where ___?
• Place (general terms that can be used to denote other things, i.e. a place to eat = restaurant, a place to buy = shop)
• Who ___?
• Speak slower, please
• How do you say (insert word) in ___ (language name)?
• What does (insert word) mean in English?
• What is the address of ___?
• Could you write it down please?
• Fast / Slow
• Quickly / Now / Later
• Waiter! / Waitress!
• Salt / Pepper / Ketchup
• Drinking water / clean water
• Soft drink / Soda / Beer / Coffee / Tea / Sugar
• Hot / Warm / Cold

Essential Words / Phrases

• Inside / Outside
• Big / Small
• Check Please! / To Pay
• Cash / Credit Card / Debit Card / Traveller’s Check / ATM
• Directions (N-S-W-E, right, left, straight, front, back, under, above, up, down)
• To say time and duration (minutes, hours)
• To say dates
• When ___?
• Yesterday / Today / Tomorrow
• Before / At / After
• Still / Yet / Not Yet
• Basic measurements (miles, meters)
• Near / Far
• Glass / Cup / Plate / Spoon / Knife / Fork
• Feel sick / ill
• Room / Reservation / Available
• Towel / Soap / Shampoo / Flush / Toilet
• Cushion / Pillow / Bedsheet
• Clean / Dirty
• Wash (general terms for washing, bathing, showering, cleaning after something, and even laundry)
• Tired
• Words for streets / roads
• House / Building / Apartment / Hotel (depending on your destination)
• Beach / Mountain / Wood / Forest / Lake / Park (depending on your destination)
• Car / Bus / Train / Airplane
• Rent

Good-To-Know Words / Phrases

• Words about yourself (where you’re from, professional background, age): Work / Study / Learn, etc
• Part of your body and basic words for feeling sick (just in case)
• Swearwords (to bluff people)

How About You?And how about your experience in travelling to strange exotic destination? What are your tips to overcome the language barrier? Do share it with us here.