Wholesale Time to say goodbye - Ancient Wisdom - Giftware and Aromatherapy Supplier

Greetings from Central Jakarta

Last week I was telling you about Moonshine and Mystics and our visit to the peaceful town of Sideman. If you missed it, you can catch up here.

Coco (my wife and your China agent) has been with me in Indonesia for almost two months.. but the time has come for her to go home.

We booked flights from Bali to Jakarta and then on to Guangzhou for the 29th August, where Coco will need to do a 7 days quarantine before flying back home to Yiwu..and then probably another 7 days. On Monday we thought we had a full last week to enjoy together in Ubud, but then the long arm of Chinese authoritarianism reached out and buggered up the plan. News came that in order to board the flight Coco would need a PCR test at a specific location in Jakarta four days before, then if negative need to check into a hotel for three days quarantine and four separate PCR tests. After which she will be taken by bus directly to the flight.

The zero covid regime in China is serious control freakery, and Coco has been so happy to be free of all that crap.. the 72 hour regular testing.. free to walk around without a mask, free to escape all the mindless rules and regulations now abruptly came to an end.. so on Wednesday she needed to be in Jakarta.. so naturally I came along also.. to say goodbye.

Coco (in the blue dress) waiting to be tested.

The testing site was in the carpark of a hospital. It took almost three hours to get tested, because it seemed to me like a mindless confused admin. Queue to get a ticket, queue to register, queue to get a photo taken, finally queue for the test - both nostrils and throat - deep ouch. Later Coco got a call with instructions to go to a particular hotel.. no choice. I googled it - the reviews don't look good.

But interestingly most of the people on the flight and in the queue were contract workers working on Chinese projects around Indonesia. Coco has a hobby.. she uploads whimsical videos to Chinese TicTok (Douyin) - it's the same company and logo, but totally unconnected eco-system. Days after arriving in Indonesia in a hotel bar in Surabaya she made a short video about Bintang Beer, pretending to drink from a bottle (she doesn't drink) and the upload went viral..(16k views) since then she has picked thousands of fans mostly Chinese folk in Indonesia, chatting to some of them, they are mostly contractors, and often only had a vague idea of where they were in Indonesia. I think she is pretty unique because there are virtually no tourists from China now.. and the algorithm seems to pull people in the locality.

Whilst waiting Coco made a little video and later in the day uploaded it.. within minutes 8 people from the queue had messaged, that's me in the video.. I knew I knew you.. and I was two people behind you..

I fall asleep, whilst Coco is chatting to her fan club of joiners and electricians.

11pm

Coco wakes me up..

BIG PROBLEM!!

Despite being told verbally the result was OK, an emailed Positive test has arrived and a message not to go to the quarantine hotel in the morning.

The situation has gone from difficult to horrible and Coco finds social media stories of people trapped in limbo for months unable to pass the Chinese rigorous test. I phone the clinic hosting the PCR tests and finally get through to someone who tells me that yes the result is borderline, with a CT score of 39, 40 apparently is classified as negative. I ask if we can retest.. yes is possible. So we grab a taxi from the hotel this morning straight to the clinic, not far from our South Jakarta hotel. The staff there are lovely and kind, and quickly organise everything. Whilst we are waiting to be tested the airline calls to say it's too late anyway, and she will not be able to join the quarantine program.

The particular test the Chinese insist on is of course the most expensive, but we pay up, have the test and are outside within a few minutes. The results of this test are slow, maybe we will get a result in the evening or next morning.

So it looks like 7 days in Jakarta, we can't really go anywhere.. I found an apartment hotel, where we can stay for a week. It's on the 31st floor and there is a view of central Jakarta downtown. Whilst Coco is a little distressed and worried, the good news is she is fine healthwise and we can at least spend another 7 days together.

Downtown Jakarta is not like Bali..

Back in the UK we have lots of stuff back in stock and a few things running out. It's actually all systems go.

In Slovakia - it's a party weekend, our new warehouse is now totally finished and a delegation from the UK has gone to visit. They are having an official launch party. The idea is our teams can swap ideas and encourage each other as well as bouncing big ideas around and doing some serious bonding. It kicks off this afternoon (friday) and will last all weekend.

Here are a few pictures added by our on the ground photographer Rodrigo.

I'll report what happens to Coco and me next week.

Hope you are doing well and things are buzzing along..

All the best from Jakarta.

David