Maintain Holiday Properties In Puncak
The word Puncak , meaning “peak”, ostensibly describes the mountainous landscape of Jakarta’s favorite out-of-town getaway. But “Peak” equally describes the traffic leading up to the hilly resort from Friday morning through Sunday night of just about any week. Stressed out by their big-city lives, Jakartans take great delight in lining up their Toyota Kijang jeeps for a stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper trip that can take up to five hours to cover a mere 70 km stretch of road. An extra day in Puncak is needed just to recover from the nerve-wracking journey.
Once up there and tucked away safely in one of thousands of tranquil villas overlooking lush green valleys (or overlooking other tranquil villas), the air is cool and sweet. Frogs and crickets supply a natural soundtrack, while flowers, shrubs and tea plantations complete the landscape. The serenity has meant that many Jakarta-based corporations maintain holiday properties in Puncak, really just lung-cleansing retreats for over-polluted executives. A variety of religious and cultural groups have set up oases here too, making for a rather unlikely mix of organizational hideaways in the area. Along one mountainous stretch, for instance, sits a Nichiren Buddhist temple, a Sufi meditation center, a golf course, and the Indonesian Police Education Center (which cynics might claim is an oxymoron).
The main road winding through Puncak is peppered with a vast assortment of amusements for weekend holiday goers, each more obnoxious than the next; tacky restaurants with offensive music and mediocre food, sleazy discotheques with sleazy bar girls, a miniature safari park, love hotels advertised by roadside touts as “Villas”, where women are included in the room rate, karaoke bars that cut violently through the hilltop silence, and the mountain crest of Puncak Pass itself, indeed the peak of tackiness for its many young lovers walking hand in hand, stealing romantic moments alongside overpriced souvenir stalls and ceramic animal statues.
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