RIP Bali Hai? How Closed is The Club?

I had a meeting in Mampang yesterday, so went there via Blok M, catching the kopaja 57 – or was it the metro-mini 75? They both go there, and I got one of them out, then the other back.

Having done what was required of me on Jalan Kapt. Tendean, I felt peckish, so descended to the Jaly Jaly, beneath Blok M Terminal, where a plate of tasty nasi goreng and an iced tea cost me less than Rp.20,000.

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I’d arranged to meet some former colleagues for a tea-time pint, but, with time to kill, I thought I’d take a stroll around the notorious Falatehan area, which is always  a bit wierd in day-light, like a sleeping vampire awaiting night-fall.

Nothing of interest in the Street of Dreams itself, but going round the block, I was stunned to see that some sort of building project is under way where once the anonymous doors of The Club stood challengingly.

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That’s it, or was, by that white block

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AKA the Bali Hai bar, The Club was arguably the dingiest, and sleaziest, bar in the neighbourhood, which in the context of Blok M is saying a lot.

How long it had existed there, I don’t know, but it was already a legend when I arrived in Jakarta in the last millenium.

More than a few of us have had (mis-)adventures there, and I mourn its passing – if it has passed. I enquired of one of the idlers who haunt that part of town, but he seemed uncertain – they usually do!

Do any readers know if the old place is truly gone forever, or may it yet re-emerge in some new and shiny incarnation? Perhaps some reader also knows its history?

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The (as yet nameless) new hotel

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Yet Blok M always gains,  as well as loses!

Here’s a photo of the new hotel going up at the junction of Melawai and Panglima Polim. I doubt if it will replace in any sense The Club, but it will be handy if you get stuck in the vicinity overnight.