BACKPACKING through Indonesia for the first time in 1991, Daniel Ziv had no idea that the pull of the archipelago would draw him back again, year after year. Following a short stint here as a stringer for the Independent newspaper in 1998, soon after the fall of Suharto, he finally moved to Jakarta in April of 1999.

His early days here gave Daniel, a researcher on Indonesian politics, a whole different view of the city. Exposed to the raw