DAN'S TRAVEL BLOG #1 - JAKARTA AND JAVA

 

DAN'S TRAVEL BLOG #1 JAKARTA & JAVA Grab yourself a cuppa while we tell you the story of Dan's Indonesian shopping trip adventures, in the first of this series of travel blog emails ...

Dan and Lisa left England on a Friday night, starting their travels with a short break in Dubai where they had a breathtakingly beautiful sunrise hot air balloon trip in the desert (see video) and got to meet some local camels and falcons 😊.

On Tuesday morning they were up at the crack of dawn for a 9-hour flight to Jakarta at 4am, then it took 2 hours to do a 20 mile car journey from the airport to the hotel in the crazy Jakarta traffic. They finally arrived at the hotel for a good night’s sleep before the trade exhibition the next day.

When they arrived at the exhibition at 9am on Thursday, Dan was refused entry for not wearing trousers - with his mind on the warm Indonesian weather he'd totally forgotten to pack them (don't worry - he did have a pair of shorts on!) Luckily, a more relaxed security guy let them in a different entrance and they spent the day meeting new suppliers and looking for new products. Dan spotted a few things that he'll be revealing at a later date - watch this space!

On Friday morning it was back to the airport to fly down to Semarang to visit Makasi's main warehouse in Jepara, where everything we buy from all over Indonesia goes to get checked, packed and loaded onto containers to ship to the UK. Dan and Lisa stayed in a cool little hotel on the local beach and our main man Agus met them there for breakfast on Saturday morning.

Then it was off to the warehouse to see all the staff and other family members that are involved in the business - it was great to catch up with everyone. You can see Dan and Agus opening the metal doors to our huge wood kiln drying area where the products are dried before they are finished and packed, ready for shipment to the UK. Then in the afternoon they visited some more local suppliers in Jepara.

On Sunday they met up with Agus at 5.30am and headed off in the car on a 5 hour drive to the jungle area - their first port of call was to one of our suppliers, buying raw root material for making our root benches, chairs etc. It's a beautiful area - check out this video of the amazing view. On the drive through the jungle, some local farmers had their crops drying on big plastic sheets spread out in the middle of the road -  as Dan was carefully trying to avoid them, the owners came out of their teak wood houses and waved at him to drive right over the top of all the rice and corn! So if you find a rock in your snap, crackle and pop, it could be a stone from Dan's tyre 😂. On the drive to the next visit they stopped at a roadway cafe to get a coffee and use the toilets and Dan saw "the best view I have ever seen from a men’s urinal!" - see video

After visiting several other jungle suppliers, they headed off to the next hotel - brand new and very swanky, a definite step up from the older, more basic motel-style hotels they had previously stayed in. In fact, last year Lisa slept fully clothed because they had a family of red ants living in their room 😂. They also said their goodbyes to Agus as he was heading back to the main warehouse to organise a 40ft shipping container to the UK before everyone closed down for their Ramadan holidays.

Dan and Lisa wanted to try and squeeze as much into each day as possible so on Monday morning they met up with another team of people who help us source new products and do a lot of our quality control work out in Indonesia, and then they headed back into the jungle area to meet up with one of our teak root furniture suppliers. Dan ordered several new furniture items and some new animals here but you will have to wait and see - no spoilers! Lisa made friends with some local lads - they were having a great time setting off fire crackers and little bangers, reminding Dan of his youth 😂.

Then they jumped in the car for a 3 hour drive over to an area called Solo where they met up with 2 of the biggest factories we deal with and visited the producers of some of our ducks. It's fascinating to see how they are made from scratch - from digging the bamboo roots out of the ground to carving them into fully formed ducks.

That evening they stayed in a hotel in Solo ready for a 5am start to fly onto Bali for the final part of the trip - they saw some amazing views of the volcanic Java landscape from the plane - see video. The long days and lack of sleep, combined with all the travelling and the 7-hour time difference, were all starting to catch up with them.

Stay tuned for the next instalment of Dan's Indonesian shopping trip adventures!

If you enjoyed our videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel