4 Days to Change

Our host described Jakarta was a city of juxtapositions. How true: driving through the city is like a cutting through a layer cake of society: slums next to gated luxury apartments. Our driver took us on a short cut through a poor district, where the houses crowded onto the road and I could literally wind down the window and knock on someone's front door and where 50 metres after I saw a little boy taking a dump into an open drain, we emerged straight into a shopping centre where the Gucci and Prada was separated from the outside world only by the metal detectors and security guards.

One more thing: the Jakarta Post is counting down to Obama's inauguration on their front page: "4 Days to Change", stamped right across the banner title. How cool is that.