IN just a year's time, from 1808 to 1809, a long stretch of road linking Anyer in West Java to Panarukan in East Java, was built. The entire road was about 1,000 kilometers long. There is no way the work could have been completed without employing an iron fist. Understandably, therefore, the road's history holds many tales of blood, sweat and tears.

In 1808, Marshall Herman Willem Daendels, who was 46 at the time, arrived in Batavia as the governor-