The pieces of rock felt good to hold, their rough vuggy surfaces reminiscent of a fiery origin, and totally out of place in this immaculate room with its electronic curtains. I wondered what the maid would think as I placed them on the cherry wood desk. The dust from my rucksack still carried the sulphurous smell of the volcano, which had filled us with awe as we had ventured into its smouldering embrace that Saturday. Through fissures, malodorous fumes had filled the air depositing their yellow load on cream coloured volcanic rock and dark pumice. Eeriness hung over the crater as many plumes of gas rose like mist against the sun. As we walked within its walls we wondered whether that would be the day it would erupt.

***

The concierge had said it would take forty minutes, maybe an hour, but from the map I could see we were almost there after fifteen minutes. Resting back in the seat, I felt pleased with myself that I had once again broken free of the hotel's marble grip into the real Asia.
We weaved easily in and out of the traffic, which even though it was Sunday, was remarkably thin by Jakarta standards. A few street peddlers were at work but there was little interest in the food hanging from or bubbling in their rickety barrows. As we waited at traffic lights, a man bent double under two large buckets strung on a pole across his shoulders and brimming with greenery, hurried on bandy legs across the street. The city centre was strangely quiet. A modern building soared above us at the crossroads. It was a bank. The taxi driver drew my attention to the fire engine stationary outside.

"Feesh market," said the taxi driver, as we approached the opening to a road thronging with people. We had passed the railway station and some well-spaced white buildings of the Dutch era, and had entered a ramshackle part of town where the buildings were low and crammed closely together. I had wanted to visit the market; always a good place to take the pulse of a city's life, seeing its people buying and selling the country's produce in the raw. But I had heard the taxi driver tell the concierge that crowds had gathered there and that, given the disturbances of Saturday, it would not be wise. As I looked on, the taxi driver grinned nervously and accelerated.

Sunda Kelapa the sign on the archway read, and beyond I could make out the masts and wooden bows of many boats, and the piles of timber that comprised their trade. The car stopped some way short.

"You'll wait here?" I asked, indicating I wanted (needed) him to be there when I returned. He nodded agreeably as he helped me out into the heat. Walking towards the boats I glanced back at the area we had just driven through; no opulent hotels or pristine office blocks but shacks and dilapidated colonial buildings, narrow alleys with dirty washing, and waterways filled with junk and the foul smelling waste of Jakarta life. I dismissed the fear that the driver might not wait; the clock was still running. I'd not gone ten yards before a smiling young man in a flower-patterned shirt attached himself to me.

"You are from Holland or England?"
"England, London."
"Ah, yes. I have a friend in Manchester. You wish to see the boats?"
"I'm just going to take a few photos." I increased my pace and he matched it step for step.

We reached the first boat, its bow reaching up in a triangular wedge over the harbour front and its sides curved in wide arcs as if the timber on board had distended its belly. Several men in smaller boats beckoned me with gestures and smiles, standing up to get my attention. I nodded 'no' and took their picture instead, wondering where they might have taken me given the chance. A woman in traditional clothing - colourful flowing dress and matching cloth hat - was serving something sloppy and hot from a metal container. My 'guide' interrupted my observations by inviting me to go aboard one of the vessels. "Very beautiful inside," he said as I viewed the single plank, warped and bowed, that led from the harbour side across dark pungent water to the gunwales.

"No thanks, I'll probably fall in," I replied. Who knew what was lurking in this murky edge of the Java Sea?

"These sailors from Sulawasi." It was the first time I had really noticed the groups of short but burly men that streamed along the harbour front in groups of half a dozen or more. They were not of the slim, almost delicate build of many of the Javanese but muscular, their open shirts revealing deep chests and flexed biceps. And they didn't smile when you caught their eye like the street hawkers or the hotel staff; they scowled. A few stopped as we walked passed and followed our progress with dark furtive stares that made me feel uneasy.

"Some from Kalimantan. They make very little money."

I squeezed my camera under my arm and suddenly became conscious of the rucksack that was making my back sticky with its stash of dollars in a zipped pocket. Perhaps I was safer with my guide than without him. I slowed my pace so that he could keep up.

The boats bore the marks of the sea and looked as uncomfortable as their sailors being tied to the shore. All were of similar type, except some were clearly cared for whilst others paraded bruised and bare wood needing a good coat of paint.

"Got my photos," I said, turning to retrace my steps.

"You want to go to the sea? Very beautiful," he responded, pointing towards the end of the quay that I could just about see in the distance.
"No, I've got to get back now. How far is it?"
"Not far. See the Thousand Islands."

I looked ahead. Would the taxi wait? Could I trust this man? Thousand Islands? "OK." We stepped off briskly.

At the end of the quay the dark murky water of the harbour met the dark murky water of the sea. Just one of the Thousand Islands was visible; a dark lump far out to sea, its view marred by a rusty merchant ship moored to our right where another part of the harbour with larger berths began. The sun, gingerly lowering itself into the dark mass of the ocean, staining it orange, was the only thing worth a photograph.

As we neared the entrance of the harbour again, I screwed up my eyes in the failing light. I could feel my heart pumping harder at the apparent emptiness of the quayside. As I worried, my guide was keen to know where I was staying, how long for, where I was going next. Nowhere, I thought, if I can't find the taxi. Then I saw the car, the taxi driver sitting on a wall smoking with one of the sailors. I reached into my pocket. As we parted, my guide’s demeanour darkened, and I left wondering whether I had caused offence by paying him, or by not giving him enough.

The taxi driver's head nodded in agreement but I could see from his expression that he was unhappy. At first I thought he had misunderstood as we drove right past the large concrete monolith that was the National Monument. But we circled it, then cut towards it through an opening in some barriers. There weren't many other cars. The driver was surprised (alarmed) when I got him to stop, alighted, walked towards the monument and raised my camera. Street stalls selling Coke lined the wide avenue leading up to the monument. Their incumbents, mostly young girls, sat nervously without trade. I remembered there was another landmark nearby.

"Can you drive me past the Presidential Palace?"
"Sorry, other side." I saw the panic in his eyes as he shuffled in his seat. He seemed to think I had gone crazy.
"OK, back to the Shangri La then." His smile was genuine.

It was as we joined the main thoroughfare that I noticed them. They were mostly in twos or threes, occasionally in a larger group by a lorry. Khaki clad with black boots they held rifles or long batons and hovered on corners and outside buildings. There were police too, more active, moving confidently. As we rushed by new office buildings, fire engines waited. The atmosphere was quiet, but muted rather than peaceful. As we turned at the junction for the hotel, soldiers in dark shiny helmets cradling machine guns watched menacingly over the passing traffic like insect predators.

***

It was only later that Sunday night, through the news on the television, that we became fully aware of the riots that had rocked the city the previous day. Two killed they said, lots more arrested. Like the coup that had resulted in the present regime gaining power in 1965 (The Year of Living Dangerously), Jakarta had again erupted in riot and violence. We learned that the trouble had centred around the Indonesian Democratic Party's building in the Salemba area near the city centre, and had spilt into surrounding streets with several buildings, including a number of banks, ransacked and set on fire.

As we swung into Kuningan Plaza on Rasuna Said, we passed soldiers standing purposefully by the gate, their weapons to hand. There were more in their lorry parked inside. It was Monday and the military had possessed the streets and stationed themselves outside all the major office blocks. Our colleagues in the office were tense and apprehensive. I learnt that nearer fifty people had been killed on Saturday. The Jakarta Post reported the army's intent to restore public order "at all costs". Tuesday saw a number of bomb threats across the city, including the evacuation of a nearby bank. Tension, like static electricity waiting to strike, was tangible in the hot polluted air.

On Wednesday we made our way on uncharacteristically quiet roads to the airport. The flights out of Jakarta were full; it had become a city people wanted to leave. The military stated that further rioters would be "shot on sight". We left the city as it simmered again in its sultry heat.