About Durians

So, after a few short weeks away from the blogosphere, I felt the urge to get back in the saddle and start writing again. Of course, Chubbs Around Africa remains firmly closed- apart from the name being slightly incongruous these days, I felt it was time for a new online beginning to match the new beginning we’ve all had offline.

I suppose the blog's name might need a bit of explanation, particularly for those who have no idea of precisely what “Durian” actually means. Well, a durian is an apparently unremarkable fruit native to South East Asia. Known as the “King of Fruits”, its taste is actually quite pleasant- a subtle musky taste in most cases. However, to access that great gustatory experience you first have to drum up the courage to get within eating distance of it. The durian has a smell so utterly pungent that it is banned from public transport and from most hotels. It is a very divisive fruit, having been described both as being:

“of such an excellent taste that it surpasses in flavour all the other fruits of the world”

but equally of smelling

“like smelly socks with turpentine dressing”

From personal experience, this fruit can definitely be smelt a country mile away, though the smelly socks description is perhaps a little harsh- when someone was eating the fruit a few hundred metres away a few days ago, I simply assumed there had been a gas leak somewhere by!

So, that is a short summary of the fruit- tastes nice but smells awful. So what does this have to do with where we live? Well, it appears that, while New York is known as the “Big Apple”, Jakarta has now styled itself the “Big Durian”. I’m not sure why. Compared to Dar es Salaam, the city certainly smells a bit- then again so would any city of size.

Maybe it’s the way that Jakarta divides opinion. In the weeks we’ve been here, I’ve heard people singing the praises of a vibrant, exciting place. I’ve also heard people moaning endlessly about the traffic and wishing that a new capital could be built from scratch. I suspect that, as the fruit divides opinion, the same is true of the city. If you can get over the smell of the traffic and congestion, you will enjoy the taste of a vibrant, exciting Jakarta. I might be wrong but I intend to test this theory and will try to keep a record of what I hope to be a life changing few years for the four of us as our little world tour heads out of Africa and into the heart of South East Asia!