Obama arrived in Jakarta under stormy skies on Air Force One from India, as his ten-day Asian odyssey took him from the world's largest democracy to its most populous Muslim-majority nation.
The president spent four years in Indonesia as a boy with his late mother, but will have little time for tourism on the 24-hour visit which will focus on improving ties with the Muslim world and courting opportunities for US companies.
White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs told reporters that volcanic ash spewing from Mount Merapi in central Java could force Obama to make the whirlwind trip even shorter, but said a speech scheduled for tomorrow would still take place.
Jakarta was a leafy backwater still dotted with rice paddies when Obama last set foot in the city 39 years ago. Now it is a traffic-snarled metropolis whose population swells up to 20 million people with its daily intake of commuters.
But Obama's old schoolmates said they clearly remember the chubby boy they called "Barry".
"I believe that he still remembers us although we haven't met for about 40 years," one classmate, Sonni Gondokusumo, 49, said.
Obama showed off some of his Indonesian language skills when he asked foreign minister Marty Natalegawa "apa kabar?", or "how are you?", as he greeted officials at the airport.
With lightning forking across the sky, his motorcade cut a swathe through Jakarta's notorious jams as he headed to the presidential palace and talks with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, expected to focus on security and economic issues.
"It's great to be here. It's wonderful to see you all," Obama told assembled dignitaries.
Some 200 million of Indonesia's 240 million people are Muslim, and Obama is scheduled tomorrow to visit the Istiqlal Mosque, Southeast Asia's largest. He is also due to make an open-air speech.
Security has been beefed up in a country that has fallen victim to a number of deadly terror attacks in recent years, with about 8,500 security personnel, including the military, deployed in strategic locations across Jakarta.
US officials say that, as with Obama's trip to India, his visit to Indonesia is designed to reinvigorate relations with an "inspiring" emerging democracy and one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
Indonesia is Southeast Asia's biggest economy and the world's third-largest democracy, and is seen as a key strategic partner for the US as it faces 21st-century challenges such as radical Islam and the rise of China.
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