As I walked around Jakarta, I could not believe how many men were smoking cigarettes…it honestly seemed like every single guy was smoking.

Smoking In Indonesia

My son, Augustine, and I flew through Jakarta twice last year on SAS Million Miler trip, but did not go into the city…instead, we stayed at an Ibis Hotel near the airport. The year before, I had been to Bali, but did not recall all the smoking.  I had not spent time in Jakarta since before the pandemic.

As I walked out of the Park Hyatt and down the streets of Jakarta, the amount of smoking was startling. As a matter of fact, smoking was permitted in the bars at the Park Hyatt, which is increasingly rare at luxury hotels these days .

I looked it up and found that smoking is a major public health issue in Indonesia, with the country having the world’s second-largest tobacco market, a high prevalence of smoking, particularly among men, and a significant number of smokers who start in childhood. While only about a third of the population smokes, over 70% of men smoke.

So-called Kretek cigarettes (clove-flavored that make a crackling sound when burned) make up about 95% of the market and are produced domestically, with over a million people directly or indirectly employed by the tobacco industry. The high levels of eugenol in kretek smoke can have a numbing effect, which may encourage deeper inhalation and increase exposure to harmful substances.

Cigarettes are cheap and widely available. Government efforts to curb tobacco consumption have largely failed.

The saddest thing was seeing so many kids smoking. I took a motorcycle back to my hotel and we passed this group of boys smoking…they did not look more than 10-12 years old. How sad.

California has taken the opposite extreme, with many cities banning cigarettes not only indoors, but in most outdoor places as well. That may be taking it too far, but what a sad, disgusting, expensive, and unhealthy habit.

If you’re a smoker, today’s the day to stop!

I’m sharing about my whirlwind trip through Asia.