TRIP TO PARADISE
Delta to Atlanta to San Francisco, Singapore Air to Seoul, Korea to Singapore, Malaysia,
Merpati Air to Pekanbaru, Indonesia.
Singapore Air 747 flight business class was very nice, much food available. Excellent
service for 11.5 hour flight. In Seoul spent 1 hour in airport perusing the duty free store.
All seemed expensive. Maybe on the return trip I can but some souvenirs if we come this
way again. Seoul airport clean but very plain and looked old.
From Seoul to Singapore another 6 hours of flying arrived at 3:00 am. Spent night in
Transit hotel. Very nice and clean. Rate w/tax $56.00 US, but you are only allowed to
stay 6 hours and the next days rate begins again. Tried to get some sleep and shower. Got
up at 8:30 so I could be out by 9:30am. Spent 6 hours roaming the Singapore airport
waiting for the flight to Pekanbaru. Singapore airport is probably one of the nicest
airports I have been around. Outside was very modern as well and complete with transit
trains, lots of moving sidewalks, exhibition rooms, restaurants, banks and full fledged
convenience stores. Everything was splendidly designed and kept polished.
Merpatti Air flight to Pekanbaru was a nightmare. An old plane that obviously had been
ditched once or twice and rebucketed was our ride. Took off in clear weather, then hit a
thunderstorm head on. Thought the flight was over right there, it was for me, but we
finally climbed over the clouds. Stewardesses served a box lunch- something baked,
couple of road kill sandwiches and a cup of orange juice. At least the orange juice looked
safe. Approach to Pekanbaru took us over the paper mill, but the plane flew and flew. I
knew I was in for a long drive back across the jungle to the mill. Thousands of acres of
palm trees were planted in very exact rows. Later found that they harvest the palm kernels
for palm oil. Get about 40% of the weight as oil. Still haven't seen how they get at all
those palm trees- no obvious roads for miles and miles across the plantation.
Arrive at Pekanbaru airport about 3:00 pmSaturday 4/5/97. Airport customs looks tough ,
but turned out to be a joke. Airport terminal looked very Far East. Through with customs
and looking for my ride I spot somebody holding a sign looking very lost himself. The
sign Had big letters WAIN ADAM- its gotta be for me. A local Indonesian and his wife
and their little girl pile into a little mini-van they call a KJIANG. Like a mini-van but has
bucket seats in front, a bench seat in the middle and two opposing seats in the rear. Inside
is about 5 feet x 9 feet but it seats 8 or 9 people- maybe 5 bubbas.
The Driver nor the wife speak English well enough to say more than hello. I think they
expected me to go to the market, but I didn't know where or what to do and said go to
Kerinci, so we did. Leaving the airport it starts to rain like hell. Streets and scenery
reminds me a lot of the back streets of Caracas, Venezuela. Roads are very poor, crooked
and everything is dirty and dirtier as we go. At this point the driver began to get harried.
First you must understand this is a right hand drive country so we are on the wrong side
of the road. The drivers pass on every curve and hill with a toot of the horn and a foot on
the brake. Close calls get closer and closest were breathtaking. Merpatti Air was not so
bad after all. The drive from Pekanbaru to Kerinci took a couple of hours. The little girl
was tired and hungry so mama pulled up her shirt and tried to feed her . Discreetly at first,
but then on the flop side we all knew what was going on. Driver tried to keep telling to
tell me he worked for BSP. Never heard of that. I asked if he worked in the mill and said
very deliberately NO- BSP. OK I'll buy that.
Arrived at guest house- finally some smooth paved roads, but paved with z-sided blocks
the size of bricks. Roads are very narrow here in the mill compound- about 15 feet with
concrete curb sections about 2 feet long and concrete ditches that resemble flat bottom
troughs. Almost all housing is identical with only 4 or 5 styles apparent. Styles are
segregated to large groups and are composed of single dwellings, duplexes, and row
apartments. More on houses later.
Guest house (row apartment- mom & pop motel) receptionist says it is full when I get
there. So after some deliberation I go to the Hotel Unigraha on the hill. It's a grand hotel
but at $80.00 US per day, it doesn't have the goodies that price would fetch in the states.
Got a room on the first floor of this three floor high rise, close to the front door, close to
the pool and close to the restaurant. It's 6:30pm now and its getting dark
After trying to call and sending faxes to people there I suddenly run into Mike Jones
and Emilio Cerinci who came to the hotel looking for me. They knew I was to stay there,
but nobody else had been informed. Mike took me on a 30 minute driving tour in the
dark. First impression was that he talks just like my dentist Dr. Wallace. After the tour he
dropped me off and I had supper alone and went to bed.
Hotel room is very nice. Two beds a little larger than twins but not a regular size either,
TV, mini-bar, desk and a regular bathroom- that's it.
Sunday was boring, nothing to do but go to the pool watch TV (cricket or rugby) and
sleep. TV choices are pretty bland, but they obviously screen what hits the air regarding
violence. The news is even tame or lets say reserved.
Mike Jones told me there was a little store down the hill 400 yards or so, so I checked it
out. Boy was it small and hot like they ran a heater in there, but it was packed so tight
with items that light couldn't get through some spots. Many US items , but pricey. Corn
Flakes 10,000 rupiahs or about $4.25. Bran with fruit 18,500 rupiahs or $8.00. Bought a
bowl , a spoon, a fork and a can opener for $1.50, can of tuna for $1.75, quart of water for
50 cents, quart of milk for $2.00, the expensive cereal, soap for clothes, instant local
brand coffee and I've spent 40,000 rupiahs or $17.57. Got to get use to this currency.
I had cashed a hundred dollar bill in Singapore to get some Indonesian rupiahs and
received 230,300 rupiahs- that should last quite a while I thought! However I find that to
eat regular meal at the restaurant cost 15,000. The same meal cost 9,000 at the guest
house restaurant and if you go to the local Kantin a similar meal is 6,000.
First day at work I arrived at a big one story field office at the mill. Damn ! it's BSP.
Well actually its Bina Sarana Pengembang Engineering company who employees
BE&K, Bechtel, H.A. Simons, and others on this project. The mill produces 2,500 tons
per day of bleached tropical hardwood pulp and is expanding to produce 1,000,000 tons
per year. There is currently construction going on to add a 300,000 ton free sheet paper
machine and plans are there for several more machines up to 6 in all. Now there is one
Tampella recovery boiler rated at 7,600,000 pounds per day of solids and two identical
ones under construction from the same engineering basically.
No.1 recovery will get an air system upgrade after No2 & 3 recoveries are built. There is
one line of Tampella evaporators running 5,000 gpm of 16% solids to 70% solids liquor.
Two new evaporator lines are just beginning construction and are to be supplied by HPD
from Spain. These are 5 effect falling film evaporators with EHSC (extra high solids
crystallizers ) per line and also rated for 5,000 gpm each.
My job at this point is to design a system for 1000 metric tonnes of saltcake storage and
feeding of 250 metric tonnes per day between the two new recoveries. They want to use
the new recovery boiler mix tanks for this service and pump the firing liquor directly
from the high solids storage. Additionally the boiler salt ash must be collected in these
same tanks and all this mixture is to be pumped to the evaporators at around 43% solids.
Something is amiss with this idea. The only source of saltcake is in 50kg bags (110#=s)
There is only 100 tonnes per day available from a rayon plant so all the rest must be
imported from China. All this must come in bags! What a nightmare! Imagine busting
2500 bags per day to feed this system. Well, I guess the labor is cheap. I understand these
guys make about 50 cents an hour and the top help gets about $1.75 per hour.
The office at BSP has hundreds of people in accounting, engineering, logistics, and
purchasing. Looks like a dress code for all the secretaries. Each day they wear a different
color of uniform blouse and skirt, except on Saturday when they dress as they please,
free day they call it. This building is about 100 feet by 400 feet and I estimate there are
200-250 computers in here.. The office girls seem mostly to be on call to run faxes , get
things and occasionally do some typing and putting books together.
Tuesday 4/8/97 I spent most of my day calculating and trying to make sense of the
project scope. Actually I got a lot of work done. This day we were informed that
tomorrow was a holiday for the new year 1919. Beats me, I thought I was by that one!
We had to work anyway. Every day is started at 7:00 am with lunch from 11:30am to
1:00pm and then go home at 6:30 pm. Here it is dark at 6:30 in the afternoon so the day is
shot then and there. So goes the first few days.
Wednesday - New Year Holiday 4/9/97. Almost nobody at work except a handful of
BE&K people and a few vendors. I almost couldn't find a ride into the mill and was an
hour late at that. Been trying to meet the manager of the chemical plant for two days and
guess who I catch a ride with to the mill. We had a meeting at 10:00 am and started a
dialogue Used this morning to review two days of work with Bechtel supervisor Bob
Donnelly. Not much other productivity this day in spite of the quite atmosphere.
Rode down to the water supply line to the river water intake with Bob Donnelly. Line is
about 5.5km and is 48 inches diameter.. A floating barge- 50 meters into the river has 4
lift pumps plus one diesel lift pump. There is a village of people who have built shacks at
the river intake and have a little jungle village community. After walking about 40 meters
across floating logs sawed in half and held together end to end with iron pins, we reach
the hard Rock Cafe Serina. Well they got a sign and sell beer and bar-b-que shrimp
(udangs). No shrimp today! Well I got to go there anyway.
Thursday 4/10/97 It seems every day more people are here. I am told that the current
expansion effort has 4,000 people on site for all services. There was a small pickup truck
similar to a Chevy S-10 which had a headcount of 38 on board leaving the mill. An eight
yard dump truck carried 104 people on one occasion. Toady I calculated piping and
pumping requirements to slurry saltcake a distance of 1.2 kilometers each way. The
obvious are beginning to raise up to the disbelief of the blue sky thinkers. It seems that
money is no object, yet I am hearing now that the mill missed the 1996 production budget
of 750,000 tons of pulp by 232,000 tons. Claim was market condition and decision to
fallback to preserve prices. There was a half day labor strike today because the crane
operators had not been paid for 10 days. Just those operators involved struck, but it shut
down the job. Seems the mill thinks their $1.50 wage is too high for their services and
there had been an attempt at adjustment without negotiation!
I also understand the rigging people have dropped several loads and buckled some cranes.
The new deaerator tank for the power boiler was rolled off a truck on the highway to the
mill and some boiler modules were wrecked as well. I'm going to stay clear of overhead
loads from now on. Looks like this day is becoming slack. I'm stuck here waiting on a
decision.
Made a walking tour of part of the mill alone. It took me 45 minutes to get down to the
evaporators and back around to the BSP office. I'm not doing that again on purpose.
It was some kind of hot out there in midday. Tours have to be done in early mornings.
Got a surprise today. Been to the restroom several times and had noticed that all the
urinals were kid sized here. Two doors previously had always been closed when I was
there, but today both were open. I had assumed those were the toilets. Well they are the
toilets, but its not a toilet toilet. Its some kind of contraption that looks like a Cadillac
latrine. There is a porcelain fixture with indentions for your feet to stand, obviously squat.
Hell, there's nothing to hang onto. My grandfather always told me when I was a mere
child to find a good green 2 inch sapling to hold on to before planning the event. This
whole fixture here is raised about six inches off the floor. There's a water spigot and a
bucket and a dipper. I am thinking, I've got the idea but what this place needs is a good
roll of paper. How do you splash your butt with the dipper and not wash your clothes at
the same time? Obviously you can't read the paper in here either. After looking around
to the other stall I find that there is a regular toilet, but no paper here either, just a dipper
and a spigot. I'll just plan my arrangements elsewhere!
4/11/97- Waiting for some meetings. Reached impasse on some design considerations,
that need clarification. At least need to meet and find out what can be done in the
meantime. May try to make some sketch drawings of some plans to kill time. Never know
, may come up with a different view without trying to concentrate on a solution. There's
a guy here called Dr. Fuji. He is the main project manager for BSP and has one of the few
closed offices in the building. He sits just behind me, but slightly out of sight. He is
Chinese and reminds you of the frustrated general in the movies who shouts out his
orders in desperation as the fortifications are collapsing around him. Every morning all
of the power project group office and field heads and construction leaders congregate
outside Fuji's office to get their 5-10 minute inspiration of the day. Seems to work
because they are always down when they go in and seem so happy to leave and get to
work. This guy seldom leaves the office, but holds fear over all his subordinates. Well
fears not the word , but he thinks its so while the others kind of take it in stride. He's
been known to fire people on the spot because they reject his planning or don't respect
his decisions. I'm thinking I'll probably have to see him one day on this saltcake
project. I'll probably get fired!
I was informed today that I will have to move from the hotel to the guest house. I've
been waiting and dreading this inevitable event. I don't know what to expect, but I've
heard things. At any rate I'll be separated from quick meals and the pool at lunch.
Moved into new room #66 at the guest house. Looks like a cheap motel room , but is
clean. There are two single beds and they are smaller than twin beds in the states(not as
bad as Tufts Univ. though) bathroom is about 6x6 feet with toilet wall mount sink and a
shower. There is no division or curtain so when you shower everything in there gets wet.
This bathroom has permanently open louvered windows so you can't leave the door open
or all the air conditioning goes out. There is at least toilet paper here, but just in case a
local patron gets a room there is a dipper on the toilet. The room has a 13 inch Sony TV
and a 1.5 cubic foot refrigerator and wardrobe closet and a portable clothes rack that you
can sit in the yard to dry your clothes on. That's it.
The TV and refrigerator both plug into the same outlet. I guess the previous tenant had or
took the duplex receptacle. I'm moving the refrigerator to the other side of the room.
I'm feeling sick and seem to be taking on a cold so I went to bed early.
Woke up at 2:30am with a clap of thunder- that's all. Woke up at 4:30am, there's a little
rain coming down now and I can't sleep. About 4:45am I here a little pop and notice that