Sunda Kelapa, Spice of life

By: Ed Goodell

Jakarta- Sweet nutmeg, fiery pepper, pungent clove. Sunda Kelapa, port of call to 15th century European spice merchants, must have welcomed its seafaring visitors with the olfactory equivalent of a 12-gun salute.

Medieval sea breezes, drifting of the north Java coast and bearing the essence of sweet cakes and perfumes, surely convinced Portuguese and Dutch sailors of the value of their quest.

They came, they sniffed, they conquered.

Control of the harbor and the spice trade was long coveted. From within Java came the Islamic powers of Banten and Demak; from without came everybody else. The Dutch, under the auspices of The East India Company, gained command of Sunda Kelapa at the end of the 16th century; in 1618 they made it their regional base.

Batavia - now Jakarta - was the name of the Dutch gave the city that sprang up around the prized port. Today the area near Sunda Kelapa, with its garbage-strewn canals and threadbare old-world architecture, retains the fading traces of its ancestry.

Sunda Kelapa's significance as an international trading post is, too, a thing of the past. Today's visitors will find the harbor afar sight - and scent - from its former self.

The morning sky looms gray over Sunda Kelapa, It's the gra of rain clouds, or of smoke, or of smog. Thin rivulets of light flicker and fade in the distance, vertically illuminating the gray from behind, but never piercing it. The water is a deeper shade of gray - dull, still and opaque. It invites no swimmers, but might support a walker.

Source:
Jakarta and Java Kini, September 2003 edition.