A Night in an Airport Hotel

In between two exciting, but strenuous trips to visit forest people, I decided to spent one night in a Jakarta airport hotel. The price (40 Euro) being well above my previous standards, I hoped for a bit of luxury and Western-style standards in a place advertised as “features of a 5 star hotel for the price of 3 stars”. It became another experience in cultural differences. The trouble started with the usual language problems in a hotel that has everything written in English only. I called 8 times to arrange my pickup from the airport, having to answer at least 20 times the same questions, but still not being understood. No matter what you say, the hotel staff has exactly 3 sentences as reaction at their disposal: What is your name? What is your position? A moment please (music).

At the check-in, I´m asked to leave a deposit of 1 million Indonesian Rupie in cash (the website mentions the prices in USD and the possibility to pay by credit card). 1 million rupie deposit for one night – that’s the equivalent of 2 internal flights in Indonesia or a bit less than the maximum amount you can withdraw at most ATMs.

The room I´m led to is enormous in size, chrome and glass everywhere – and stinks beyond description. It takes a while to explain why I don’t want to stay in a room previously inhabited by a non-stop smoker.

Finally settled, I make my way to the spa area passing through a chain of Karaoke bars. In the highly fancy showers, the first thing I see is a used (but washed) women’s tampon.

The swimming pool looks like a disco in Saturday Night Fever – the music being the same style and volume. Nobody uses the giant swimming pool. All other guests – exclusively male, old, fat and probably of Chinese origin, sit next to it and smoke, eat and chat loudly. All staff is exclusively young and female (ratio: 5 staff to 1 guest). Suddenly, I spot a female guest in the steam bath. She is wearing black leggings, a long-sleeved dress and a black cardigan. I enter the sauna and stop astonished by the shabbiness of the wood and dirt on the floor. Immediately, 3 girl-staff rush towards me to remind me that the use of towels is not allowed in the sauna. They offer to exchange my towel against a handkerchief-sized new one, wet and fresh from the fridge…In reaction to my remark that this is a bit small to sit on, they open their eyes widely: You want to sit down on the bench in the sauna??? Actually, no. I finally realize that this hotel does not advertise itself in English as it targets Western tourists, but male Asian business men.

I wonder if my Asian friends find anything strange in what I described here. Cultural differences are of course the more striking the less you expect them. I suppose my visit to an Indigenous community in Lombok tomorrow will in that sense be less surprising.