Today, 29th April, Mai Fest, Free Flow from 3PM!

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Sounds like a good deal. 

Terima Kasih, Arif Suryobuwono – Cerita Miras Luar Biasa!

My sincere thanks to Arif Suryobuwono, who gave me the best laugh this week with his article on drinking, mostly a calm look at how people approach that admirable activity.

But his anecdote about some incredibly naive female entrepreneuse’s ‘all-you-can-drink’ scheme from 6pm till 8pm….

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• …she calculated that they would be late due to traffic,come at 7pm with a growling stomach, eat at her restaurant and have only one hour left to drink the wine…

Wow! He had me guffawing! 

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/04/14/by-way-either-you-run-alcohol-or-alcohol-runs-you.html

Pak Arif was writing about Jakarta, plainly, but my immediate reaction was to speculate on which of Jupiter’s moons his loopy lassie must have been born.

Talk about off yer rocker!

I have been to one or two ( dozen…hundred..?) time-specific free-flow venues since I came here so many years ago. I like parties, okay? And the guests always include a good mix of locals and foreigners.

Few Indonesians are into booze in a big way, or at least not ostentatiously. Foreigners, Western folk at least, are different.

Often ostentatiously so.

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The drill for afficionados is to leave home or work early that afternoon – in Jakarta, if you wish to be on time, you learn fast to allow an extra hour to what might seem a reasonable expectation of the duration of your journey.

For a free-flow evening, serious people make that 90 minutes earlier. A warning note- these common-sense steps can go awry. On rare days, traffic abates.

Then there’s a clear and present danger of arriving half an hour early – when the bar is not yet free! Nothing for it then but to lurk in the lobby, or the car-park, playing with your hand-phone.

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• Or go to the toilet ( at least that makes more room for later intake)
• If not…
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• Sad stories have been heard of guys and gals who don’t check their watches, rush in and order a beer, then – shock/horror – get asked to  pay for it!   

On arrival, one joins one’s like-minded cronies (most folks in the know about these knees-ups DO know each other!) at the bar and greet the waiters/waitresses – especially the waitresses – with a cheery smile.

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It’s important to be on their good side, given the madding crowd that will soon be baying in unison for their attention.

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 ‘What? Free-flow ends in five minutes? OMG!’

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Food may indeed be part of the plan.

But that needs to be carefully coordinated with one of said cronies. He – or she, since fun is a unisex pastime – will scuttle off to corral a couple of platefuls while you are ordering two more bevvies.

Such people understand their objective. That knowledge is based on how much entry to the ‘free-flow’ event costs (they are never free!) and from the going rate for the same brand of drink purchased in a downtown bar.

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• Hence a sound balance of payments demands consumption of at least ten beers or eight glasses of wine.
• Restos and hotels that operate these nights are well aware of the capacity of bule enthusiasts. At first sight you wouldn’t expect business professionals to risk the possibility of immense financial loss.

But Jakarta’s clever catering people understand that when seriously committed thirsts have passed that eight or ten glass mile-stone, yeah, some will slope off, for sure.

But a man ( again, and a woman) who’s having fun? Home? Home’s for sleepy people!

How many will willingly cease and desist from frolic, just because it starts to cost them an arm and a leg? The free-flow may end at 9 pm, but the bar doesn’t close.

It’s still there, with all those friendly bar-maids still waiting to take your orders!

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• Reverting to the matter of food – when your comrade-in-glass gets back with the first heaping helping, that good turn must be reciprocated in half-an-hour.
• One plateful is no adequate ballast for the voyage through a Jakarta night of revelry.

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Getting home is easy – if you happen to be one of the gilt-edged elite with a personal chauffeur. Otherwise, it’s taxi time.

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• Public transport is perfectly okay by day, but by night, it’s dark outside and anti-social elements thrive in darkness, to whom weary or wobbly travellers may fall easy prey!

Cabbies, please note, do not really like to have to shake the passenger awake more than once in order to pin-point the destination. A decent tip is only fair!

But that’s the price you pay.

Free-flow COSTS!