East vs West: Matters of security

"Your house is not very safe.  Your apartment in KL was much safer."

"Why do you say that, Ma?"

"Aiyaaaa....  KL apartment got security guard, got high walls, got big fence! Just look at your fence!  It's so low even I can hurdle over it!  You should build a higher fence!"

"What for, Ma?"

"So that no robbers can get in!"

"What robbers, Ma?"

It is definitely a Malaysian thing to put iron grilles over your glass windows so that no one can smash their way in, build as high and as sturdy a fence as you can to deter all bad men, install the world's biggest gate and to quadruple lock every single door in your house.

When my parents came to our house, they were astonished to see the fence that surrounded our house was made of (what they thought of as) flimsy wood.  Even worse, Connor was taller than the fence!  None of our windows had any grilles on them either.  To them, we were sitting ducks for anyone who wanted to break in.  How could I be so irresponsible with regards to security when I have their precious grandsons living here?

I explained to them the low crime rate in our tiny village and "...look, every other house here doesn't have grilles and fences either!"  but I don't think I convinced them.  I know how they feel because I felt the very same way when I first came to the UK.

I love seeing our new home through their eyes.  It makes everything new again.

Odd neighbours

The road we live on is a cul-de-sac or as Dear Hubby and I call it - a cuddlysac.  We're the end house and to get to our house, we have to drive past two other houses.  So it's houses on one side of the road and green grassy bits on the other side.  I'd always wondered about the grassy bits - if they were communal or if they belonged to each individual house as there seemed to be a stone border in the middle, dividing them into two neat parcels.

I got my answer last week.

Connor was happily going up and down on his scooter the road in front of the two neighbouring houses as I kept an eye on him.  Our house doesn't have a paved driveway for Connor to scoot on, we have a pebbly bit which is really useful as we can always hear who's pulling into our driveway.

One of our neighbours came back just as Connor was coasting merrily along and I immediately called him back.  Connor then quickly got onto the grass to let the neighbour pass and I waved my hand in greeting.  We've been living here since mid Feb and this is the first time I've seen my neighbours.

So if it were me and this is the first time I've seen my new neighbour who looks pretty harmless, very pregnant and is the mum of a young boy, what would I say?  "Hello, so you're my new neighbour!  Nice to meet you at last!"  "Hi, you're the new family, how's it going?"  "Hello, you must be our neighbours, nice to see you!"

Right?  I would have done so.

What I got from my neighbour was "Just to let you know... this road and the gardens?  They're not shared.   They belong to each individual house.  So this patch is ours."

I.e.  GET OFF MY LAND

Fine.   That was the wife.  A few days later, I helped take delivery of some of their parcels as they weren't home.  When the husband turned up to collect them, he was just as brusque even though it was:
1.  the first time we'd met
2.  I had just done him a favour

All he said was "I've got some parcels?  Right, that's them.  Thanks.  Bye." and he took them out of my hands and walked off.

That's the last time I'll be helping you take delivery of your parcels and watching out for you.

That's the first weird family I've met in the village.  Everyone else has been quite friendly.

Doesn't matter where you go in the world, there's always a weird family somewhere.  Lucky for us they just keep to themselves and don't bother us.

Home Sweet Home

It's been 2 weeks of hard work but we've finally got a home. This is our 2nd move since we've been together and I've become convinced that men and women really do come from different planets when it comes to making a home.



HIM
Unpack hi-fi equipment. Spend all afternoon rewiring plugs for hi-fi. Sort out CDs and LPs by genre, then alphabetically. Spend more time finding sweet spot to put his leather armchair for best possible listening experience. Try to get PC started. Ignores everything around him while tinkering with PC, cables, hi-fi and CDs.


HER
Unpack toys so that Connor can keep occupied and stay out of our way while we're unpacking everything else. Unpack his mattress so that he can have somewhere to have naps. Organise our clothes and bedroom so we have somewhere to sleep. Organise kitchen. Dash out to get some groceries so that we can have something to eat. In between unpacking, life goes on ie change diapers, make lunch for Connor, offer him juice from time to time, wash dirty cups, put Connor down for his naps.


This is why Nature chose women to be the nurturers of the family. Because if it had been men, it would have been Origin of the Species swiftly followed by Showing Off Who Has the Biggest Stone of the Species followed even more swiftly by Death of the Species Because No One Bothered to Do Something Useful Like Catch a Woolly Mammoth for Food Instead of Showing Off Collection of Clams.

Why men focus on things that aren't critical to living like hi-fi and where to hang pictures when the kitchen and bedroom (the bits of a home that ensure we have something to eat and somewhere to sleep) aren't sorted out yet is beyond me.

We've still got the study room and some odds and ends to sort out but it's good to have somewhere to call home again.

A funny thing happened with my curtains...

When we moved into this house, it was as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. Our agent promised us she would get us some sheer curtains for the windows facing the road but as days passed and she never got us anything, I got fed up with her. Her name is Adeline, she works for Colliers and I have not been happy working with her. Entirely up to you, dear reader, to judge if you decide to use Colliers and end up with her.

Back to my curtains. I got Supardi, our trusty compound superintendent, to get a curtain guy in. Then I had to learn new terms. Curtains are called gorden here. Sheers are called vitreous (spelling?). Now I discovered why Supardi had looked puzzled when I used the Malaysian word for it, which is langsir.

So curtain guy, Suratman, came in and did all the measurements. Since we had old curtains from our house in KL, we decided to re-use them for this house. No sense buying new curtains when we're sure to move again and god knows what kind of house we'll end up in when we do. I gave three different sets of curtains to Suratman and told him which curtains were for which rooms.

Suratman and his helper came back last Friday to put everything up. Now unknown to me, one set of curtains I gave him contained a panel that was far too short for our tall windows. It was only long enough to cover about half the window's height.

Now, if I were Suratman and I found out about this shorter panel, I would have asked madam of the house if she had another set of curtains. But did he? Nooooo.... He put up the two longer panels at the double windows and then for the single window, he put up the window rails at - yes, you guessed it - halfway up the windows and hung my shorter panel curtain up anyway. So my window looked like one from a brothel or something... kinda embarrassed to show the inside type of window? Gawd.

When I went in to check their work, I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. I asked him, "Why did you put it up anyway?" His answer was a defensive "But YOU gave me the short panel and it's not long enough!" I decided there and then that it would be futile to argue with him and told him to remove the rails and curtains and let it be.

I am now getting just a simple wooden blind for that window. Less headache, I think. Can't go wrong with the blinds, can I?

We've finally used our pool!

After almost 2 months of living here, Dear Hubby and I took our first dip into our pool today. When we first moved in, the compound management had just lost its pool boy, so there was no one going around to service the pools in the compound. As a result the pool looked really dirty and I didn't dare immerse my toes in it, let alone my whole body.

Then when they finally found the pool boy, we went off to the UK to see Dear Hubby's family. Upon our return, I was running about trying to find a maid, trying to get our curtains done and all sorts of donkey errands. By 3pm, I would be so tired I would need a nap and when I woke up, it would be time to start cooking dinner before Dear Hubby came home from work. So I never had the chance to try the pool.

Until now.

We jumped in this afternoon about 3pm. Actually, more like waded in carefully since the shallow end of the pool only comes up to about my abdomen. The water was lovely, there was a warm sun that provided just enough heat to keep us from being cold and best of all, the water took all the weight off me. I enjoyed walking about in the pool without feeling big and heavy for the first time in months.

I can't swim, so Dear Hubby started with the basics - by teaching me how to float. Unfortunately, I kept tilting to one side as I floated, I think it's got something to do with the baby inside me. LOL

Guess I'll be popping into the pool more often now! I find it very soothing and relaxing to have the water support me. The only problem is when I finally get out of the pool and argh! I have to carry all that weight again!

Electrical matters in Jakarta

I found this really cool site that tells you what plugs are required for different countries around the world. The voltage used in Malaysia and Indonesia is about the same, just that the plugs required are different. So you either change all your plugs or you buy a whole bunch of adaptors. Go here to find out what you need. The homepage will auto-detect your current country from your IP but you can always change that.

We've just received our first electricity bill and it's about the same amount as we have usually paid while in KL. The nice bit about this area of Jakarta I live in is that we can pay our bills at the ATM. Look here for a list of banks which participate in this programme.

You can also opt for an auto-debit service for your electricity bill. Banks which take part in this service are listed at the state electricity board's website. If you have yet to receive your bill and are anxious to find out how much you should be paying, there is a section there called "Rekening Anda". Just key in your 12-digit customer ID, select the appropriate month and click on the button "lihat". Ta-dah!

But if you have time to spare, you can pay at the payment counters set up across the city. Check here for a list of where to go.

In my area, electricity bills should be paid by the 20th of each month. I'm not sure if that is standard practice across Jakarta. A bill will arrive at the house, stating the user ID, the amount of electricity consumed and the amount to be paid. If you haven't yet paid it by the 24th.... like yours truly... then a warning notice will arrive at your house stating the date by which the electricity supply will be cut off temporarily if you don't pay and it's like... erm.. tomorrow? You'll be charged a reconnection fee on top of your usual monthly bill if you fail to pay before the cut-off date.

So if I don't post anything for the next few days, you'll know that I'm living by candlelight. Haha. Not.

Expat Questions on settling down in Jakarta

I've just had the chance to read a comment from a Achuthan Kutty on a previous post of mine. I haven't been able to reply earlier due to my lack of internet access so I'm only doing it today. Since the questions he asked are common expat questions, I thought I'd just do a post related to his queries. Maybe some other expats considering a relocation here will find this post useful. If any more experienced expats or locals would care to add/amend some of my stuff here, I'd like to thank you in advance for that.

1. Cost of housing in a gated community
I suppose the cost is all a matter of location here. When we were searching for a home ourselves, we saw houses in various compounds that ranged from US$2,500 to US$4,000. The cheaper ones we saw tended to be in areas which are reached by a maze of narrow roads. We knew we didn't want that because if I had to travel alone, we didn't want to risk having an evil cab driver take me elsewhere instead. We finally found one that was within our budget and was within walking distance to a major road but was still tucked into a quiet corner. We knew we didn't want to live too close to a major road and have to contend with the traffic jams on a daily basis right on our doorstep.

From what I've been told, Kemang is a popular area for expats and we've seen nice houses here that cost about US$2,500 in gated compounds. That was our lowest end of the budget to the agent, so sorry, I didn't see any houses which cost less. If you have family, it is definitely preferable to live in a gated compound as the wife and kids can make friends quickly and it's safer. There's also the advantage of having a compound superintendent to consult when your pool gets clogged or when you need the lights fixed.

Be sure to check if the amount quoted to you by the agent is inclusive of various other fees such as maintenance, security, pool etc. If you don't check and you agree to the house, you may find yourselves over your budget when the final figure is quoted to you. And remember, house rents in Jakarta are paid for about 2 years in advance, so that's a BIG lump of money.


2. English-speaking maid and cook
Check the Jakarta International Community Center (JICC) for maid listings. They are located near Hero Kemang. Hero is a chain of local supermarkets. Alternatively, Hero Kemang and Hero near Kristal Hotel has a bulletin board where maids often post letters of recommendation from previous employers and their phone numbers, hoping to find potential employers. Pick those who are accustomed to working for expat families as they tend to have experience running the whole household and will manage things such as handling repairs, topping up the groceries etc. They should cost over Rp1 million monthly (approx US$100+) and they get every Sunday off. You should also be aware that you should pay them a month's bonus around Hari Raya and depending on your agreement, they can get up to two weeks off for the holiday period. This seems to be standard practise here and I've read somewhere that Indon law requires them to be paid that bonus, so don't skimp on it.

What I've been told by other expats: Always ask for a reference and check out the reference before you hire the maid. Spell out clearly what you want them to do and ask if they can do it. Do a trial period first, say for a month, before you agree to hire them permanently. ALWAYS send them for a health check prior to employment, the cost of the health check will be borne by you.

This excellent expat site has a table of approximate costs of hired help in Indonesia.


3. English-speaking driver
Okay, ours came with Dear Hubby's job. He speaks basic English. If you have an accent, please speak slower than your normal speed. Sometimes the accent matters. There have been many hilarious moments when Dear Hubby says something to our driver/taxi drivers and they don't understand him because of his English accent but when I say the exact same thing in a Malaysian accent, they all get it.

But if you need to hire your own, I've found that again the Hero bulletin board and JICC has ads for drivers. Our driver costs about Rp1.5 million per month and he gets to claim all the various parking, toll and food charges as well.


4. What car to drive in Jakarta
Haha.... I'm just glad I don't have to drive in Jakarta, the traffic is crazy! Where we live is prone to floods in the rainy season, so Dear Hubby insisted on a 4WD. We were issued with the standard expat vehicle that is the Toyota Kijang (the Innova in other countries) when we arrived but we changed it to a Honda CRV. I would reco a vehicle that's got BIG HIGH wheels so that when it floods, the waters don't get into your car and you can still get past some flooded areas. A no-no car for Jakarta roads will be something sporty and low. That's just plain asking for trouble and it's simply not practical in a city where I've never gone faster than 60km/h and there are more craters in the roads than there are on the Moon.


5. Shopping for food
Okay, Achuthan didn't ask this but I thought I would just put this in anyway. My favourite supermarket is Ranch Market. They have various branches but the two I know of are in Dharmawangsa and Pejaten. This is where I can get my supply of roasts and bacon to feed Dear Hubby. They also carry all our favourite curry pastes and various stir-fry sauces (guess how else I manage to serve up Nasi Goreng Belacan for Dear Hubby without stinking up the whole house!).
Kemchicks is pretty good too for expat-y stuff and they have one in Kemang. A bigger outlet is located downtown in Pacific Place Mall (hope I got the name right, I keep getting that one wrong!)
Hero Kemang is also quite good for your everyday needs. I've also tried Giant and Carrefour in Lebak Bulus but I found the quality of the meats there to be a bit dodgy. And the broccoli I bought from Carrefour had a family of worms in the center! *sigh* Well, at least that shows they didn't use that much pesticide...
Another supermarket I frequent is the one in Cilandak Town Square (Citos). I pop in there if I'm in Citos for lunch.

6. Trawling for furniture
We've spent the past two weeks doing nothing but this. We found that Jln Kemang Raya has a lot of furniture shops - some hideous, some nice. My reco would be Koi Gallery, just next to the McD in Kemang. It's in the same building as Celebrity Fitness. It's a furniture gallery-cum restaurant and I think it's run by a Frenchman. We met him but I don't know if he's French or Belgian-French. They do some nice pieces in recycled teakwood and we've bought some. For price comparison: a dining table made of recycled teakwood that can seat 6 costs about RM2,500. I've seen pieces in IKEA catalogues from pinewood that cost the same.

Another shop I liked was Eight Rooms, also along Jln Kemang Raya. It's got very nice pieces and they can customise the furniture to your measurements.

Jln Benda nearby also has a lot of furniture places and a lot of local places where they can make what you want. If you're looking for rattan furniture, a friend of mine bought some lovely pieces from The Rattan House. You can't miss it on Jln Benda, the shop signage is visible from the moon.


Achthan, I hope this helps if you do decide to relocate to Jakarta and do come by and say hi!

The reason behind my silence

Well, folks... I've been back in Jakarta since last week but haven't managed to post anything because I'm currently without any regular internet access. I'm now sitting in Dear Hubby's office and borrowing the corporate wifi to write this.

Well, first things first - we've moved into our house! Yay! It really makes a difference to life in a different country when you have your own pad as opposed to living in a hotel. Although I do miss housekeeping and laundry, I prefer having to do my own dishes and laundry and knowing that this pad is ours. It took me a week and more to unpack and sort out all the various knick-knacks that followed us from KL. This is where I learnt that unpacking knick-knacks is much, much worse than unpacking the big stuff. We discovered stuff we never knew we owned - like two sets of candle stands. ??? Where on earth did those come from? And this weird cooking utensil from IKEA that both of us looked at and asked each other, "What is THAT???" I'll post a pic one day and I hope someone can tell me what it's for.

What's my favourite part of the house? Probably my kitchen. Even though I've only just learnt how to cook, hehe. I spend a lot of time inside there, trying out recipes. It's got a pantry which proves really useful because we can lob all our stuff inside and not clutter up the cabinets. I've only made use of the floor-level cabinets and the ones that are just above my head because I'm too short to reach anything else. I really need a small stool to reach the top shelves but Dear Hubby won't let me climb anything right now.

We're still sorting out stuff, we've yet to buy a bookshelf for our books and we've yet to throw a house-warming party for the neighbours because we haven't got any dining chairs. Haha! We brought along our dining table but we'd tossed our chairs in KL because they were coming apart. So now, we have this nice clean table that's laid out with napkins and a beautiful big mood candle... and NO chairs! We eat our dinners seated on the sofa.

What I would like to use next in the house - the pool. I've been far too busy these last two weeks to even think about a dip. It looks really pretty at night when we put the pool lights on and we sit in the hall and look out to see this patch of shimmery blue outside. We did that for the first two nights, then we got tired of having to walk out and switch the lights on and having to bat off mozzies at the same time.

Which brings me to my pet peeve about this house - the light switches. They put them in very odd places. The lights for the front porch are out in the garage. Why can't they have the front porch light switches in the hall as they do in every other house I've lived in? We finally discovered there is another switch for the front porch light... upstairs in the family hall! Gawd.

So dear visitors, our Top Monkey Hotel isn't quite ready yet... though we've got the guest rooms ready and stuff like that done, so if you don't mind having your dinner at the sofa and unopened boxes as decor, you're very welcome to come and stay! We're headed to the UK next week to say hello the in-laws (and to buy Little Monkey his LFC baby romper!) and won't be back till first week Sept, so drop along any time after that!

We've found our house!

Yippee!!! We've found our house! My first experience house-hunting in Jakarta was quite tiring as we saw as many as 15 houses in 2 days and most of them did not suit our needs. It was either too large or too little or more frequently, something wrong with the kitchen. I don't cook very well, I'm still learning how to cook well enough to feed my husband but I do like a nice kitchen. The one house I did like was not in a gated compound and company regulations decreed that we had to live in a gated compound for security reasons. Sigh. Back to square one.

Luckily, my friend S called me and said his cousin had just moved to Jakarta and had found a lovely house in a gated compound in Kemang. I told Dear Hubby right away who contacted the agent. Unfortunately, that was the compound we'd tried to see in our first visit because we'd really liked it and were told that no houses were available. Just when I was wondering when we would ever find our house, the agent called up again and said there would be a house available in said compound but only in July. Did we want it? Did we ever!


On my most recent trip to Jakarta, Madam Top Monkey finally got to see her new home. Here we go! This is what you guys will see when you come to visit me, just drive in straight from the main entrance and make a left turn. We're in the first house on the right.

(Clockwise, L-R: Our unit, road leading into the compound, our neighbour, our unit again)

Let me show you the ground floor. First, ze kitchen... where I will be cooking for Dear Hubby. He doesn't get to eat very healthy lunches at office, so I have decided that I will make him lunch. Then, the hall. Please excuse the agent's presence in the pic. At the bottom is the entrance to the house. You can see a room just off to the side, that is a small room that can be used as a study or home office. Last pic shows the garage, known as a carpot here. The maid's quarters and storage areas are located behind the carpot and they have a completely separate entrance from the main house.

(Clockwise, L-R: Kitchen, living + dining, main door + stairs to 1st floor, garage)

The first pic on upper left is the study room. The current tenants have left it empty except for a chessboard inside. They are Japanese you see, so I think this must be their interpretation of Zen decor. Another look at the hall and then we go upstairs where there is a family hall. We're thinking of turning it into a mini gym. The last pic is the master bedroom.

(Clockwise, L-R: Study, living, family room, master bedroom)

Finally... the pool! And a rather unusual tenant! The pool is shielded from prying eyes by high walls, so those of you who visit and wish to skinny dip are able to do so. Just warn me first please. Those are the doors leading to the er.. patio.. is that what you call it? - where you can sit and sip your margeritas and watch people frolic in the pool. And guess who's sitting by the door? A lovely dog! S/he belongs to the current tenants and she was very friendly. What a smart dog. She doesn't come with the house though.

(Clockwise, L-R: Pool, hall, doggy, pool again)

So there you are. A tour of my future home and perhaps your future holiday hotel. There are three bedrooms in the house + study room, so we'll be able to accomodate at least 4-6 guests at any one time. Plus if we really need to, some people can always sleep in the family room which is large enough to sleep at least 4 on the floor.

What I like about this place is the security and that I'll be able to take walks around the compound without fear. When the little one comes along, we can both take walkies in the compound and go say hi to everyone else. I also like the pool. I'm thinking that I'll be as large as a whale further along in my pregnancy, so it will be nice to have a pool to exercise in as the water can help take some of the weight. Plus it's in Kemang which is a very lively area and it's close to the Malaysian restaurant, so if I get homesick for nasi lemak (I don't see this sold anywhere in Jakarta? Sobs!), I can just pop over and gorge myself silly.

What I don't like about the place is that to get there, you have to squeeze through a narrow-ish lane. But most houses in Jakarta are like that anyway. It always amazes me, the juxtaposition of haves and have-nots here.

And guys... the pool isn't big enough to really swim in. Dear Hubby said three strokes is all it would take for him to do a lap but then again, he is 6'2". Hehe. We 5'++ mere mortals may be able to squeeze in more strokes, I'm sure. We'll have floats and water toys, so you can just splash about and it will be a nice place to do a BBQ party in the evening.

So I hope you've liked this little cybertour and I'll be very happy to show you everything in 3D once you get here. Just let me get some furniture in first and then the Top Monkey Hotel will be open for business!

Housing in Jakarta - My personal experience Pt I

Our first shot at looking for housing in Jakarta was last Saturday. Our initial criteria for housing in Jakarta had been security (because you don't want Madam Expat running off with the young handsome pool boy, do you? Or being kidnapped by a bunch of riff-raff) and proximity to Dear Hubby's office so that he doesn't have to endure the traffic jams.
Rental in Jakarta can range from USD$2,000 - USD$6,000 per month, depending on location and facilities. As mentioned earlier in this post, this may or may not include maintenance fees and taxes. And don't forget all this has to be paid in full 2 years in advance.

Dear Hubby's company arranged for an agent to take us around. We were not too happy with the first lot of houses that we saw but it was a useful exercise because we got to know what was available in Jakarta, what sort of conditions we were likely to encounter and we got to know what sort of house we would like to live in. After the first round, we realised we wanted (still) a secure area, preferably a house instead of a condo, something with a pool (insert comment about young handsome pool boy here) and somewhere that was close to shops so that I wouldn't feel isolated and alone.

Take a look at some of the houses we saw!

This was one of the first houses we saw and it was in Pondok Indah. The house looked pretty modest from outside but when we entered the hall, this took our breath away. Sorry, it's not a very good picture but that's a stone garden plus koi pond at the end of the hall. A real wow inducer. I didn't take any other pictures of the rest of the house because it really didn't appeal to me.

This one nice or not! It's in a gated compound. Okay, I wasn't too impressed with the inside though. The rooms were oddly shaped and the kitchen was ghastly. All these pools make me think of young handsome pool boys.... ooh.

This was also in a gated compound. It was not too bad but I thought the design was a bit too Mak Datin for my tastes. The house was undergoing renovation when we visited and the funniest bit was when Dear Hubby went to inspect bathroom, only to come out looking rather annoyed because one of the workers was using it! LOL I like the doors, the ceiling was about 12ft high and the doors were almost floor to ceiling height, so the place was flooded with light.





Oh man! This was our favourite house!!! Until we saw the kitchen that is. The house was sleek, it was modern, it was minimalist, it looked like it came straight out of my design and architecture books. I was so in love. It consists of three levels. When you walk in, you come to all the bedrooms. Check out the master bathroom... glass walls, woohoo! Then you descend one level to the small living room which can be used as a TV room. Then one more trip down the stairs to the main living hall, kitchen and the wraparound-the-house pool. Everything was so WAH! until we saw the kitchen. Or the lack of it, more like. It was just a short row of cabinet and a hob unit. That's it??? No oven??? *sigh* Bummer betul. PLUS the view off the master bedroom wasn't too great... it looked out over the messy kampung behind. We had to scratch this off our list.

So, after all that huffing and puffing, Mr and Mrs Expat have got not much to show for it and we will be going house-hunting again. I just find that most of the houses we were shown were too ponderous, too ostentatious and too Mak Datin for my tastes. Can someone please find me a nice, secure house in Kemang that is modern with a pool (so that some young handsome pool boy can get a job) and a garden and a living hall that's big enough to accomodate Dear Hubby's hi-fi?

Am I asking too much? Hope not!

General tips on housing in Jakarta

One of the main concerns for expats is housing. Most expats prefer to live in South Jakarta (Pondok Indah, Cilandak, Kemang) as the area is very expat-oriented (ie pubs, bars and supermarkets that sell expat food) and the international schools are located here. But choosing a house/apt in Jakarta is more complicated than that. You'll have to consider whether you want a house or apartment as well as many other factors.

First, you have to consider your commute. If your office is in Central Business District, don't pick a place where the commute is over an hour. Dear Hubby works in Cilandak, so naturally we're looking at some place in the south. A house would have to be really special for us to consider living far away from Cilandak. Trust me, you don't want to get stuck in the traffic on a daily basis. It's more than enough to drive you bonkers.

Then, you have to consider security. Compared to KL, Jakarta does have an air of recklessness about it. I can't tell how much more reckless yet as I've only been here a week. I've lived in KL for 7 years without coming to any harm and it may well be the case for my stay in Jakarta. However, most expats prefer a gated community for their families as some do travel regularly for their work, leaving their family behind. The cost of the maintenance (garden, pool, common areas) and security may or may not be included in your rent, so do check before you commit. However, many of these secure compounds are serviced by small streets and I wouldn't advise Ma'am Expat to go a-walking down the streets herself. Best to always call the driver or get a cab.

The location plays a big part too. I personally like Kemang because of the many shops along Jln Kemang Raya and it looks really lively at night. Plus our favourite restaurant, Gourmet Garage, is located there as well!

Finally, the rent. The difference between KL and Jakarta is that here, you pay the rent upfront for a minimum of 2 years. So if your monthly rent is USD$2,000, you'll be paying 24 TIMES that amount upfront before you even move in. Once you've paid up and you happen to change your mind, you can kiss that money goodbye. You could negotiate with the landlord but you won't see all of it back for sure.

I'll post tomorrow about our own experience in looking for a house.