Eating By The Roadside

Today I had dinner with my driver. A couple of days ago, he said he would take me to eat some delicious fried noodles (mi goreng).

He claims that this place along the Universitas Iba (IBA University-business school) has the best mi goreng in Palembang and lots of couples like to visit that place for a meal. He used to bring his wife when they were dating to the place too.

We were there early at 6pm. The sun had just started to set. There were not many people sitting along the wooden benches yet. Many cars and bikes were still driving past as the hawker fried his mi goreng. They had a bucket full of prawn crackers for us to feast on while we wait for our food. Free water was provided but I dare not have a drink there.

Next to me was a bucket full of soap water and some clean plates. I thought to myself, "thank God we were the first ones here". I would not want to eat on some plates that were washed by the roadside. Behind me was a small drain with stagnant water. I could not see clearly what was in the drain but I was sure it was not clean. I also got a mosquito bite on my elbow during the wait.

Shortly, the noodles were served and it was delicious! It smelled and tasted very good especially with the fried egg on top....yummy! It was pretty satisfying.

I only had to pay Rp12,000 (RM4) for the 2 plates of mi goreng. I don't think I would go back there again to eat because of hygienic reasons but at least I have tried Palembang's famous mi goreng for dating couples!

Blackouts, Power & Palembang Dislikes

My wife had just blogged about how she misses Palembang while she was back in Malaysia. Something just reminded me about one of the things that I dislike about Palembang.... As I was about to have my shower after a few rounds of push-ups after work, everything went pitch dark and my emergency backup light came on.

It was one of the regular blackouts in our housing area....AGAIN! This is the 3rd time that blackouts happened this week. It lasted for only 1 hour (better compared to the 2 hours a few days ago) but I could not wait anymore. So I drove out to a nearby shopping mall PTC to have my dinner. I was dirty and hungry. No electricity in the house means no water too because all our water is stored in an underground tank. Every time we turn on the tap, the water gets pumped out from the tank. I could not microwave my dinner from the fridge too.

My company would not get us a generator because the frequencies of blackouts happening (in a year) does not meet the justification. It would cost us too much to buy one on our own, so we had to BEAR WITH IT. The company also would not upgrade our house's power capacity to higher than 2200W (FYI, 1 HP A/C takes up ~600W). This means we could only turn on 2 air conditioners without any other "heating elements" at any point of time. Sometimes we forgot to turn off the hot water heater and caused the circuit breaker for the entire house to TRIP.

During the past few weeks we could not even turn on 2 A/C. The staff from the power company came to check and told us that the incoming power is less than 2200W (what we paid for). When asked how he could fix the problem, the guy just said "that's the best I could do for you". I just have to keep complaining to PLN (Perbadanan Listrik Negara), the one and only government owned power company......until they restore our house's power capacity back to 2200W.

My top-of-my-head below are some of the things that I still dislike about Palembang:

1. Insufficient power supply - have you ever heard of PLANNED BLACKOUTS in different housing areas because of power shortage?? Welcome to PALEMBANG!
2. Mosquitoes - they are everywhere! I get bitten almost EVERYDAY....sometimes by really small ones.
3. Corruption in every process - MONEY IS EVERYTHING
4. Smoking and spitting - huffing and puffing but they are not trains
5. Littering - it IS a norm to just throw a plastic bottle out from a car after you finish it
6. Inferior quality products - everything is cheap but never durable
7. Open burning and haze - continue to destroy our environment
8. Habitual lying
9. People sucking up to the rich
10. Taking advantage of every single good opportunity being given