Jakarta

Jakarta was the last city I visited in Southeast Asia. By the time I reached Jakarta I have been backpacking for about 1 month and 10 days. I have learned so much about backpacking and I learned many life lessons. I decided to stay 10 days in Jakarta so I can absorb as much as I can about how people live in Jakarta.

The first thing I decided to do is take a Bajay ride. Bajay is what they call a Tuk-Tuk in Jakarta. It was a good ride but I had to negotiate the price, otherwise they charge anything they want. Check out the Bajay ride video.

The hostel I stayed at in Jakarta was one of the most expensive hostels but it was one of the best. It had a gym, pool tables, ping pong table, a simple home theater, and excellent rooftop to relax and socialize with other backpackers. I spent most of my time in Jakarta chillin' in the neighborhood, getting to know the locals, and socializing with other backpackers.

Hostel gym, I liked the motivational art on the walls.

One of the best free breakfasts I got at a hostel.

I found Jakarta to be an extremely busy city. It is very big and the city center looks luxurious, but behind the expensive malls and nice fancy restaurants, slums were just around the corner where people lived in poverty. Most Southeast Asian capitals are like that. It is really sad to see such circumstances, but the people are very nice in Jakarta. Every time I asked about something even if they did not understood me, they would always try to help. The people of Jakarta are helpful, but of course there are those who try to scam tourists or backpackers if they ask for some kind of service. Jakarta has some of the biggest malls I have been to. People can easily get lost in Plaza Indonesia and Grand Indonesia mall. The prices were almost the same as in the US. I really did not like that fact, because there is a big difference in income, so the price of sale should be different.

I visited the biggest mosque in Southeast Asia, they have visiting hours for everyone to go inside and take a look at the inside of the mosque. The mosque is called Istiqlal mosque and it was huge, really really huge. Check out the pictures below.

National Monument

One of the best things about backpacking which I had said so many times is the people I meet. It is a fact to me, if you really want to meet open minded people who have an incredible amount of social skills then you should go backpacking. I learned so much from the people I meet. Socializing with others who have an open mind can teach you a better lesson that a book can (this is coming from an introvert). Among the travelers I meet, there was this Dutch guy who told me some interesting facts about the Dutch ways and current issues. We talked a lot during the dinners we had together and when we played pool. I really enjoyed the beneficial conversations we had. He was around the age of 28 and his grandparents were staying in Bali, he spent couple of days in Jakarta and then headed to Bali to stay with his grandparents. I noticed that there were so many Dutch people in Indonesia, more than all the countries I have been to combined. I have crossed paths with at least 14 people from the Netherlands in Jakarta and Bandung combined. I knew an Indonesian guy before I came to Jakarta, he was studying in the University of Indonesia in Depok (very close to Jakarta). I was happy that we got to meet for lunch in his university and walk around in Depok city.

On the last day in Jakarta, I decided to hang around the hostel. I decided the best way to go to the airport would be a taxi. The hostel had a whiteboard where people can put their name on it to share a taxi to the airport. I put my name and the time and there was one girl who needed the taxi around the same time. So I meet with the girl and we agreed on the time. The girl was from Spain. We talked for a little bit and we decided to go and explore the downtown area and the Ancol Dreamland. We walked for about 20 minutes to the downtown area. It was super hot. We took a Bajay to the National Monument, we had lunch around there, and we then took another Bajay to the Ancol Dreamland. Entrance to the Ancol Dreamland was expensive, we told them we just wanted to take a look inside and it would be very quick but they said we must pay for two tickets. We bargained until we payed half the price (bargaining skills level 9999). The Ancol Dreamland was semi-empty, and I think the reason was the incoming rain.

Lizard on the left side of the tree

The Crazy Taxi Ride

The girl I meet from Spain specifically from Barcelona was a really friendly person. She was meeting some friends in the Philippines and she decided to stop in Jakarta. She was an experienced backpacker, because she had backpacked other countries before during her previous trip. We talked about how Catalan people (people from Barcelona and the regions around it) wanted to have their own country and leave the Spanish government because Barcelona's economy was being dragged down by the rest of Spain. We also talked about football (not American football) and other sports, I could tell she was a very athletic person. She also taught me some words in the Catalan language. We left the Ancol Dreamland around 4:30pm. We took a taxi back to the hostel and the taxi driver was new, so he had no idea how to get to our hostel. I had to use my Google Maps to navigate back to the hostel, I had to tell him which turn to take etc... There was so much traffic that it took us about 45 minutes to get back to the hostel rather the normal time of 15-20 minutes. As soon as we got to the hostel we ran inside the hostel grabbed our backpacks and left on a different taxi. Believe it or not, this was not the crazy taxi ride, going the airport was the crazy taxi ride. My taxi acquaintance from Barcelona wanted to get to the airport around 8pm and her flight was around 9:50pm if I remembered correctly. My flight was around 10:10pm I was not safe from missing my flight either. There was so much traffic and with the crazy rain, we ended up getting to the airport around 8:40pm. we had to be at the check-in at least an hour before so it was very close. A one hour ride took almost three hours. We were lucky we made it. The taxi driver was driving like a maniac because at one point he was driving on an illegal road to bypass other vehicles. It is true, traffic in Jakarta is one of the worst, maybe worse than Ho Chi Minh city traffic. I bid farewell to my travel acquaintance from Spain and went our separate ways.


Next Stop: Tokyo, Japan