Hotel Indonesia: Still a place to stay

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - It was Indonesia's first

international hotel, a symbol of prestige where

diplomats, generals and other luminaries once

came to play and plot. In tropical Jakarta, the air

conditioners of the hotel were as much a draw as

the cachet of its 1960s heyday.

Almost 40 years after it opened with fanfare, Hotel

Indonesia is a faded relic, a drab facade of glass and

concrete in the shadow of two sleek, modern five-star

hotels. Yet it lingers, as much a piece of history as a

place to stay.

Any visitor to Jakarta is bound to pass Hotel Indonesia,

which sits on the city's main thoroughfare opposite a

landmark fountain and statue. An Indonesian monument

itself, the hotel is worth a glance or a visit, or even a

stay.

During Indonesia's economic boom, which stumbled into

crisis in 1997, tall buildings shot up and have

transformed the capital's skyline over the past few

decades. But unlike Hotel Indonesia, the others haven't

witnessed two bouts of political upheaval a generation

apart.

The hotel helped secure its place in Indonesian lore in

"The Year of Living Dangerously," a fictional novel based

on Indonesia's 1965 tumult that became a movie starring

Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt. Hunt

won an Oscar for her portrayal of a cameraman with a

social conscience.

In the book, foreign journalists covering a power struggle

between the military and the Communist Party - with

President Sukarno maneuvering between the two sides -

often drank in the "red-and-gold cave" of the hotel bar.

In one of the movie's climactic scenes, Hunt's character

falls to his death from one of the hotel's upper floors.

Equipped with its own power supply and purified water,

the hotel was "like a luxury ship in mid-ocean" and

"majestically expensive," Australian author C.J. Koch

wrote in the novel.

"No Indonesians were allowed inside the hotel except the

generals and the very influential top brass of the

government," Koch said in a recent telephone interview

from Sydney. "It was very much a Western island in the

middle of Jakarta."

Koch recalled that air conditioning units in the hotel were

bugged and Indonesian security agents with headphones

used to sit in the basement listening to guests'

conversations.

The 1960s conflict ended when Suharto, an army

general, rose to power and launched a bloody purge of

the communist movement.

Suharto's turn to fall came in 1998, and the Hotel

Indonesia staff erected barbed wire barricades in front of

the entrances as riots and student protests helped oust

the authoritarian leader.

These days, most of the guests are Indonesian and

many staff members don't speak English. The city's elite

prefer glitzier night spots.

Despite several renovations over the years, some rooms

have peeling wallpaper and smell damp. Some are

decorated in pastel pink or orange and framed images of

gods and other figures from Indonesian mythology hang

on the walls.

Occupancy was about 30 percent in June, a normal rate

in an industry that has yet to recover from economic

turmoil. A standard room costs 300,000 rupiah ($40).

Built with Japanese reparations from World War II, the

state-owned, three-winged hotel has 586 rooms, a

swimming pool and two tennis courts.