Prodita Sabarini, Jakarta – Flip... flop... flip... flop... The sound of a man's sandals blended with the chattering of children in their pajamas in the lobby of a hotel.
"Can we have a room? Any room?" said the sandal-wearer to the receptionist at Hotel Ciputra in West Jakarta. Besides his sandals, he had on checkered shorts, a T-shirt, and an expensive-looking leather jacket.
The sight of elegant hotel lobbies filled with businesspeople wearing power suits has changed in the last three days. The lobbies are still elegant, but the suits have been replaced by children in pajamas and parents in shorts and flip-flops.
Luxurious cars dropping guests off in front of the hotels mixed with trucks and rented public minivans bearing well-off families whose houses were flooded or cut off from electricity, water, food and access to roads.
In front of Hotel Borobudur in Central Jakarta, some half-dozen families from Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, jumped out of an army truck Sunday.
To their disappointment, the hotel's concierge remorsefully turned down their request for rooms, as the hotel was full. The families then rented a car from Borobudur to search for other hotels in the city. "That was the third truck today," said the hotel's concierge.
With the flooding in Jakarta showing no sign of abating for the last three days, some 200,000 people in the city have been forced from their homes. The waters have inundated tens of thousands of homes, schools and hospitals in poor and wealthy districts alike.
Many of the homeless are staying with friends or family on higher ground, or at mosques and government agencies. Some are holding out on the second floors of their houses.
Some families have chosen hotels as their refuge. "We've stayed here since Friday because the power in our neighborhood is out, there's no clean water, and there's no access to roads leading to our workplace. So we had no choice," said Dewi Cahaya, 33, whose house is in Puri Kembangan.
She and her husband, Herdi, 40, brought their three children with them to Menara Peninsula Hotel.
Vira Dewiyana, 28, said that although her house in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, was flooded, her family was lucky because they had the luxury of staying at a hotel nearby. "We're still blessed," she said.
Hotels have recorded a significant increase in occupancy rates since Friday, with the numbers of walk-in guests almost quadrupling those with reservations.
According to the Central Statistics Agency, the city had 307 hotels in 2006.
At Hotel Santika in West Jakarta, resident manager Darma Suyasa said the number of rooms requested by walk-in guests had increased from an average of 20 per day to 70 a day as of Friday. "Our occupancy rate is now 92 percent," he said.
On-duty manager Jonathan Makalu at Menara Peninsula Hotel said their occupancy rate had increased to 100 percent since Friday from an average of 70 percent. "We had to turn down some guests since our hotel has been fully booked," he said.
He said while the occupancy rate was increasing, a number of planned functions at the hotel have been canceled.
Hotels are short on staff to tend to the increased numbers of guests, since some employees have been trapped by the floods. Staff members are covering for those who cannot get to work.
Budiharjo, who works at Hotel Ciputra, said he had not gone home for 24 hours. Irfan of Menara Peninsula said he had stayed at the hotel for two days. Nevertheless, both said they didn't mind working another shift or two. "It's a circumstance beyond our control anyway," Irfan said.