A Patch of the Middle East Atop the Green Mountain
White clouds floated aimlessly in the aquamarine sky over Puncak in West Java on Friday afternoon (8/1). A young Middle Eastern couple was busy taking selfies and photographs of each other with the verdant landscape in the background.
Khalid, 28, and Zahra, 20, were visitors from Saudi Arabia, and they found Puncak's natural beauty so captivating that they decided to spend their honeymoon there. Jabal al-Akhdar, or Green Mountain, is what they called the leafy and nippy Puncak area, which stretches between Bogor and Cianjur.
"Puncak has beautiful scenery and great weather," Khalid said after he took pictures at the Paralayang Puncak Hill, 1,300 meters above sea level. For Khalid and Zahra, the gleaming metropolises of Europe and the United States hold little interest.
They were traveling for 15 days in Indonesia. Their itinerary included six days at an elegant hotel in Puncak, six days in Bali and three days set aside for flights, including a short stop in Jakarta.
Before he got married, Khalid had visited Puncak six years ago. He adored the beautiful landscape, the cool air, the affordable meals and the locals' hospitality. Those reasons convinced him to take Zahra there for their honeymoon.
They are not the only ones travelling to Puncak from the Middle East. According to Puncak Tourism Association data, 1,000 to 1,500 tourists - 90 percent of them from Saudi Arabia - holiday in Puncak each month.
The rest of the tourists came from elsewhere in the Gulf - the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Yemen - and North African countries such as Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.
A Hint of Arabia
Puncak's popularity as a destination among Middle Eastern tourists has slowly changed the area. Most obvious is the rise of tourism infrastructure that caters exclusively to Arabs over the last 10 years.
These days, some areas in Puncak even have a strong Arab flavor to them, like the Warung Kaleng area in Cisarua regency, Bogor.
Warung Kaleng is another name for Sampay hamlet, Tugu Utara village, Cisarua, that is bisected by Jl. Raya Puncak, the area's main road. Shops bearing advertisements in Arabic line the street where the Constitutional Court's education center on the Pancasila and the Constitution is also located, 2 kilometers from the Safari Garden Indonesia intersection.
Warung Kaleng is a hive of shops, restaurants, perfume stores, supermarkets, foreign exchange stalls, tourism agents, massage parlors and boutiques catering to Middle Eastern clients, including a commercial center called the Bafaqih Business Center. Most of the buildings only have Arabic writing on them without any accompanying Indonesian text.
The Middle Eastern taste gets stronger when one visits the mosques in the area that mostly use Arabic during Friday sermons, like the Al-Qona'ah Mosque on the Friday that Khalid and Zahra were there. Sanjaya, 47, a local, said Arabic sermons have been a tradition at the mosque since it was founded in 1962, long before the Middle Easterners started coming.
The great influx of visitors from the Middle East has extended from Warung Kaleng to Cianjur, in particular around Kota Bunga in Pacet. In the last five years, shops with Arab signage have appeared on the Hanjawar main road leading to the Kota Bunga villas.
One of those shops is the three-story Zahra Al-Jazeera, the largest Middle Eastern restaurant in the Puncak-Cianjur area that was in operation even when the building was still under construction.
Mendi Marsel, Zahra Al-Jazeera's manager, said the restaurant was established to cater to the rising number of visitors from the Middle East. After just seven months of operation, the restaurant now maintains a brisk business.
Each day, the restaurant serves 200 Middle Eastern visitors and sources on average 20 heads of sheep and lamb for a diverse selection of offerings.
Most Middle Eastern tourists in Kota Bunga rent a villa during their stay. Andri, 28, a local who reserves villas in Kota Bunga, said the Middle Eastern tourists normally stay for two to 10 days. Rent is about Rp 800,000 to Rp 1.5 million per night. They usually get ferried around by a guide who doubles as a driver to search for vacant villas.
Two Sides
Teguh Maulana, head of the Puncak Tourism Association, said Warung Kaleng, or Cisarua, has at least 15 restaurants, 11 travel agencies, 9 foreign exchange agencies and two groups of cooks specializing in Middle Eastern cuisine. A manager of a foreign exchange agency said up to Rp 500 million can be exchanged a day. Money circulating in the area is estimated to reach Rp 1.5 billion a day, with 70 percent of that remaining in Warung Kaleng.
The impact of the Middle Eastern visitors on the area has not only been in terms of economics, and not only positive. Dudung Djaenudin, chief of Sukangalih village, Pacet, Cianjur, said the Middle Easterners had impacted the area socially, with increased cases of prostitution and contract marriages.
"If we caught [Middle Eastern tourists] too often, the locals would protest because the tourists would stay way," Dudung said.
Bayu Ramawanto, Cisarua district head, agreed, comparing the arrival of Middle Eastern tourists to two sides of a coin. When asked about businesses that exclusively cater to the Middle Easterners, he said the issue merited further attention. He confirmed that some businesses are owned by Middle Easterners in cooperation with locals.
Besides, he added, those businesses should have Indonesian signage, as well as the Arabic. However, the matter will require intervention from the regent, governor and central government officials because it impacts our linguistic sovereignty.
Bayu's disquiet comes from the few businesses left that bother with Sundanese or Indonesian signage. These days, businesses with Arabic signage have expanded from just restaurants and hair salons to include advertisements of villas on sale. A concrete reminder of how the Indonesian language is losing its bearing slowly at home.
Khalid, 28, and Zahra, 20, were visitors from Saudi Arabia, and they found Puncak's natural beauty so captivating that they decided to spend their honeymoon there. Jabal al-Akhdar, or Green Mountain, is what they called the leafy and nippy Puncak area, which stretches between Bogor and Cianjur.
"Puncak has beautiful scenery and great weather," Khalid said after he took pictures at the Paralayang Puncak Hill, 1,300 meters above sea level. For Khalid and Zahra, the gleaming metropolises of Europe and the United States hold little interest.
They were traveling for 15 days in Indonesia. Their itinerary included six days at an elegant hotel in Puncak, six days in Bali and three days set aside for flights, including a short stop in Jakarta.
Before he got married, Khalid had visited Puncak six years ago. He adored the beautiful landscape, the cool air, the affordable meals and the locals' hospitality. Those reasons convinced him to take Zahra there for their honeymoon.
They are not the only ones travelling to Puncak from the Middle East. According to Puncak Tourism Association data, 1,000 to 1,500 tourists - 90 percent of them from Saudi Arabia - holiday in Puncak each month.
The rest of the tourists came from elsewhere in the Gulf - the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Yemen - and North African countries such as Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.
A Hint of Arabia
Puncak's popularity as a destination among Middle Eastern tourists has slowly changed the area. Most obvious is the rise of tourism infrastructure that caters exclusively to Arabs over the last 10 years.
These days, some areas in Puncak even have a strong Arab flavor to them, like the Warung Kaleng area in Cisarua regency, Bogor.
Warung Kaleng is another name for Sampay hamlet, Tugu Utara village, Cisarua, that is bisected by Jl. Raya Puncak, the area's main road. Shops bearing advertisements in Arabic line the street where the Constitutional Court's education center on the Pancasila and the Constitution is also located, 2 kilometers from the Safari Garden Indonesia intersection.
Warung Kaleng is a hive of shops, restaurants, perfume stores, supermarkets, foreign exchange stalls, tourism agents, massage parlors and boutiques catering to Middle Eastern clients, including a commercial center called the Bafaqih Business Center. Most of the buildings only have Arabic writing on them without any accompanying Indonesian text.
The Middle Eastern taste gets stronger when one visits the mosques in the area that mostly use Arabic during Friday sermons, like the Al-Qona'ah Mosque on the Friday that Khalid and Zahra were there. Sanjaya, 47, a local, said Arabic sermons have been a tradition at the mosque since it was founded in 1962, long before the Middle Easterners started coming.
The great influx of visitors from the Middle East has extended from Warung Kaleng to Cianjur, in particular around Kota Bunga in Pacet. In the last five years, shops with Arab signage have appeared on the Hanjawar main road leading to the Kota Bunga villas.
One of those shops is the three-story Zahra Al-Jazeera, the largest Middle Eastern restaurant in the Puncak-Cianjur area that was in operation even when the building was still under construction.
Mendi Marsel, Zahra Al-Jazeera's manager, said the restaurant was established to cater to the rising number of visitors from the Middle East. After just seven months of operation, the restaurant now maintains a brisk business.
Each day, the restaurant serves 200 Middle Eastern visitors and sources on average 20 heads of sheep and lamb for a diverse selection of offerings.
Most Middle Eastern tourists in Kota Bunga rent a villa during their stay. Andri, 28, a local who reserves villas in Kota Bunga, said the Middle Eastern tourists normally stay for two to 10 days. Rent is about Rp 800,000 to Rp 1.5 million per night. They usually get ferried around by a guide who doubles as a driver to search for vacant villas.
Two Sides
Teguh Maulana, head of the Puncak Tourism Association, said Warung Kaleng, or Cisarua, has at least 15 restaurants, 11 travel agencies, 9 foreign exchange agencies and two groups of cooks specializing in Middle Eastern cuisine. A manager of a foreign exchange agency said up to Rp 500 million can be exchanged a day. Money circulating in the area is estimated to reach Rp 1.5 billion a day, with 70 percent of that remaining in Warung Kaleng.
The impact of the Middle Eastern visitors on the area has not only been in terms of economics, and not only positive. Dudung Djaenudin, chief of Sukangalih village, Pacet, Cianjur, said the Middle Easterners had impacted the area socially, with increased cases of prostitution and contract marriages.
"If we caught [Middle Eastern tourists] too often, the locals would protest because the tourists would stay way," Dudung said.
Bayu Ramawanto, Cisarua district head, agreed, comparing the arrival of Middle Eastern tourists to two sides of a coin. When asked about businesses that exclusively cater to the Middle Easterners, he said the issue merited further attention. He confirmed that some businesses are owned by Middle Easterners in cooperation with locals.
Besides, he added, those businesses should have Indonesian signage, as well as the Arabic. However, the matter will require intervention from the regent, governor and central government officials because it impacts our linguistic sovereignty.
Bayu's disquiet comes from the few businesses left that bother with Sundanese or Indonesian signage. These days, businesses with Arabic signage have expanded from just restaurants and hair salons to include advertisements of villas on sale. A concrete reminder of how the Indonesian language is losing its bearing slowly at home.
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