And so back to Jepara we go. To be honest I’d not really heard of the place until a year or so ago but here I am back there, and in some style too..staying at the town’s one and only luxury resort, The Palm Beach Villas. And by luxury, I mean the only one that doesn’t look like a hospital in Stalingrad inside.
The trip to Semerang was somewhat less eventful than last month’s jaunt, although I like the new range in Garuda childware. And here was I thinking that airlines provided these things free.
Indeed Malaysian Airlines make you suffer through a thoroughly nausea inducing video explaining how to apply these to your kiddies, ignoring the lesson learnt from the likes of Adam Air that if you go down in the sea you are, let’s be brutal, fucked.
The road north from Semerang to Jepara, via Demuk, had recovered a little since the flooding last month but the downside of that recovery was that the number of massively overloaded trucks and buses had seemingly doubled. But life seemed to have returned to normal…or as normal as central Java seems to our closeted kiwi eyes.
The resort was fine….I ordered Nasi Goreng with extra cabe for breakfast but was disturbed to find that, in this land where things like fruit grow and grow in such abundant quantities, we were given fruit juice made from something powered. And undrinkable instant coffee.
We’d also asked for two extra pillows to supplement the rock-like slabs provided. These were delivered with a smile.
But the next morning, when presented with the account we had two add-ons….one for the two pillows, and one for the coffee, which I was told was optional. All of this came as a surprise and I determined to write to the owner to complain about those and the orange sugary substance masquerading as a juice. With that in mind I took a business card and determined to write the owner a helpful (read: whinging, but we do have came back few times in months to come) email.
Fast forward two hours to a hotel back in Semerang where we were meeting a man from the motor trade (not really but I always 
liked that line), a long time expat, who enquired as to our hotel in Jepara. Palm Beach I said…oh, said he (eyebrows on the rise)…how was it there, tense? No said I…why?
Mr Xavier was driven from Yogyakarta to Jepara, where he shares a home with his Indonesian wife. The couple also run a luxury seven-room beachside getaway outside the city called the Palmbeach Resort Jepara
I guess I won’t be writing that email looking for service improvements at Palm Beach. They may have other things on their minds. We’re back there again in a few weeks.
I wonder who the landlord will be….
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