Two important visitors to Indonesia in March. The other one? Oh, that's Barack Obama who is coming to see his childhood home in Jakarta and touch base with this most populous muslim country. Did you know it has the fourth largest population in the world? Or that is further from end to end than the States? Or that Britain is the third largest inward investor? No, nor did I, until I got here.
My uninformed impressions of Indonesia started with the Java Cotton Company where for ten years my wife and I bought the most beautiful textiles and objects; and ended with the 1990s film "The Year of Living Dangerously" with Sigourney Weaver escaping at the finale onto a KLM plane. All hopelessly out of date. Though the batik textiles are still heart-stoppingly beautiful, the Dutch influence is almost wholly gone, as the political instability of the film has gone too.
What I did find was a huge market, the largest by far in ASEAN; a lively UKTI team with a thriving British business community; lots of commercial opportunities. With help, there is profitable business to be done, not perhaps by the inexperienced exporter, but Asia hands can do well here. And the potential for huge volume is very tempting. 240 million people, a middle class of 35 million, extraordinary natural resources, a wonderful wildlife and natural world, as good a natural hub position as Singapore. Indonesia is not just Bali, in fact there are over 17,000 islands in Indonesia.
I spent a lot of time in meetings with Ministers and senior officials where I took British businesses in to lobby to resolve specific obstacles. The usual speech to the British Chamber of Commerce and the TV and press interviews. The TV reporter told me she had a summer in England as a 15 year old, but had found it a bit quiet! Then she explained it had been in Bognor Regis.
The most encouraging thing was to find out that more UK businesses are coming out to explore this promising market; and the day before I arrived, International Power had just signed the financing deal for a US$1.3bn contract. Now that's a good warm up act.
Off to Singapore on Wednesday evening. Still tropical (it was -1C when I left London), but a country where the ban on chewing gum has just been renewed. I have to say, I rather agree when I look at the gum all over the pavements of London!!
And, of course, I must say I flew out here on an A380. Very quiet, great aircraft; over 30% British manufacture.