I am dozing off to a TV show compiling various disasters and criminal acts caught on camera. There is a raucous Bahasar commentary on a desperado who has crashed a stolen minivan and is sprinting away from the police. When the miscreant is caught, the commentator peaks as if a winning goal has been scored in the Asian Cup. This grainy snuff movie, like something out of David Cronenberg’s film Videodrome, is treated like a time trial. How fast can he go? Has he broken any records?

Eight hours later I’m on a train leaving from Gambir station alongside Jakartans heading to the cooler provinces for repose. I’ve always believed you can learn a lot by looking out the window of a moving train. As the journey progresses the things I see correlate with thoughts I’ve been having about the playground archipelago; how Indonesia unwinds and enjoys itself.

A few minutes after departure I can see the ornate bulbs of mosques soaring from the faded discolour of modest buildings, around which a vibrant culture of the street thrives. The equivalent that leaps to my English mind is the pub a space of free expression, camaraderie and indulgence only the sate is far better in the warungs. In Europe a double bass will rarely be allowed to leave a chic jazz club or a concert hall. Here I’ve seen them standing proud in the food courts, being played by maestros for spare rupiah.

Deeper into the countryside the paddy fields are stepped in such a way as to resemble a Roman amphitheatre. It is apt then that they neighbour a red dust football pitch where the next Bambang Pamungkas might be perfecting his headers. The beautiful simplicity of football has seduced Indonesia like it has seduced almost every other country. A crescendo of fervour was generated by the national team’s progress in the Asian Cup and struck full volume with crowd trouble before the final group match. I noticed that after Indonesia’s exit many of their fans charitably switched allegiance, usually to other nations in the Muslim brotherhood. When I went to the final I found most were cheering for Iraq.

During the whole journey I spy plenty of signs reading BILLIARD. The weird confluence of physics and shady hustling that pool (or billiard) has always meant to me doesn’t apply in Indonesia. The pool halls I’ve been to are funky, brightly-lit venues fit for all the family to frolic in. I’ve also seen modish rock bands in these places, although if I were in such a band I might be a tad irritated that most of the audience was bent over a table rather than watching me perform. Pool halls are often located in shopping malls, the national leisure space that eats plenty of disposable income. Shoppers undergo the ritual of consumerism: the search for the perfect goods that will make them happy, then a discovery that these goods are imaginary and exist only in the world of forms which leads to them, after hours of boredom and indecision, settling for a best fit compromise. How many times have we all heard that phrase: “Well it’s not quite what I wanted but it’ll do?”

You might then want to vanquish the passive frustrations of shopping in one of the many shooting ranges, laser quests and computer game arcades. Only those who can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy a statistically small number of us need worry about the negative influence of such pastimes. Clearly they haven’t done much damage to the social fabric of Indonesia: the country is 57th in the world murder rate rankings, well below the UK, France, Venezuela and, predictably, the USA. If you see some tragic slaying in the newspaper tomorrow, chances are there are a whole compendium of social, moral and emotional reasons as to why it happened but Call of Duty 2 wasn’t one of them.

I have arrived at my destination and am excited about what it holds for a traveller like me with a lot of time on his hands. As I step onto the platform to a fanfare of hello misters I conclude that a nation that knows how to enjoy itself must comparatively be a happy and hospitable nation. Granted, along the railway tracks of Java can be found a collage of tin roofs, water butts and tarpaulin sheets that is a grim reminder of all those who have been left behind economically, but I think spirits are higher here than in many parts of the Anglo-American milieu where money is deified and an every-man-for-himself dharma is followed.