Indonesia consists of two large islands and several smaller islands. The island which we flew into was called Java and home of the capital, Jakarta. We flew with Air Asia and our 2.5 hour flight cost less than 40 pounds each!
We landed into Jakarta in the early evening and set about trying to work out the best way to get to our hotel. We had pre-booked a hotel before we arrived as we guessed that Jakarta wasn't going to be the type of city which you could just roll on up to - and we were right!
I had the name of the hotel and the address written on a piece of paper and started asking people which bus we should get. But all I got was offers of a taxi. Knowing that it was going to be a lengthy journey, we continued looking for the bus as it was bound to be a lot cheaper. I handed the piece of paper to various men in uniforms who were sat around the airport not doing a lot (a familiar sight we've found!). They in turn would pass the piece of paper onto another man in unifrom. Then would follow a period of conversation and arm waving between the officials, before the familiar shrug of the shoulders and the return of the piece of paper to me. All the while, individual taxi drivers would walk up to us and offer a taxi with the sales pitch, 'I give you good price'. It soon became apparent that the only way to get to this hotel was going to be a taxi. Whether this was a combined team effort by the entire airport to coerce us into a taxi, I don't know, but it was about 100 degrees, I was getting 'agitated' and we were just glad to be on the move!
The taxi journey was a surreal experience and worthy of the time and effort I'm about to spend tryping up about it...so here it goes! We made a slow start, pulling over several times on the dual carriageway leading away from the airport, the taxi driver still didn't have a clue where this hotel was! We think he'd finally twig and then 50 yards down the road we'd jerk to a stop, his light would come on and he'd take yet another look at my piece of paper. Then he'd nod his head and we'd pull back into the traffic without so much of an indicator or even a glance into his mirrors.
The traffic was heavy as it was a Friday night and the motorways leading into Jakarta were at near gridlock. It was raining heavily, but that didn't stop our alarmingly rapid progress! In and out of cars we weaved, as did every other car on the road. Lanes didn't appear to count for anything and god help you if you were driving a moped. Even when all three lanes were at a complete stand still, cars, including ours, would veer onto the hard shoulder to make a break for it with the hope that they could re-enter further up the road.
Drivers in Jakarta drive on the principle that providing you're beeping your horn, you can get away with anything. It's like watching bumper cars but without anyone actually bumping into each other, I can't work out whether they're actually quite skilled drivers or just really, really lucky. But Jenna and I were loving every minute, we felt invicible in the back of this taxi being driven by someone who we can only guess thought he was auditioning for the role of Stig on Top Gear. The 90 minute journey was incredible. We saw so much of the real Jakarta as we made our way through countless backstreets and along roads which I'm sure weren't even roads. We passed a cyclist by inches who had no shirt on and a plastic carrier bag on his head, I'm still unsure whether it was a make shift helmet or umbrella. We saw carts being pulled by horses on roads with three lanes of fast moving traffic, people walking in the middle of the road, mopeds with entire families hanging from every available corner - we just sat back in amazement!
The hotel was perfect and just what was needed to escape the chaos from outside. They even upgraded us from the studio we'd booked to a suite! The view of the Jakarta skyline at night from our balcony was incredible. We'd only seen the city from the window of the taxi, but from the height of our hotel room we could see the scale of the city. Jakarta city centre has a population of over 9 million people and is the 13th largest city in the world - and it certaintly looked it.
It was getting late so we asked the hotel reception where we could get some dinner. We were pointed in the direction of a nearby shopping centre which was a 10 minute walk. This walk was another experience! We'd found the whole way in which Jakarta and it's people move hiliarious from the comfort of our taxi - but now we were the pedestrians! There were no pavements and deep drain trenches run along the very edges of the road so it took a few minutes to work out exactly where to position ourselves!
That night at about 4am we were woken by the sound of prayers from a nearby mosque. Indonesia is strongly Islamic and the sound of tannoys calling Muslims to prayer is a common sound. The next evening as the sun was setting over Jakarta, I stood outside on the balcony for a few minutes and looked across the city as the sound of several nearby mosques reverberated around us, it was the most humbling moment of our trip so far.
The following day we made our way to Jakarta's most 'famous' land mark, 'The Monument'. We travelled there by taxi as it was cheap enough to do so. This was our first sight of Jakarta in daylight and it was just as chaotic. It was at this point that it suddenly dawned on us that there were no other Westeners. We were at the city's main tourist attraction and there were no other white faces! It was a really strange feeling and something we hadn't thought about. I started wondering whether I'd misjudged Indonesia and if it was somewhere we should really be backpacking.
It's funny how you react in situations like this, and my immediate reaction was to put my guard up! A couple of school kids no older than 14 shyly walked up to us and asked if they could take a photo of us. My first reaction was 'what are they up to?'. Why on earth would they want a photo of us? After a few minutes of chatting to them we realised that they just wanted to practice their English and Western faces were a bit of a rarity! In actual fact that they were really friendly kids - boy did I feel guilty! As we made our way towards the Monument, more and more children came up to us asking to have a photo taken with us! Jenna was in her element as she worked the various cameras.
We saw one of the world's largest mosques which can house an amazing 250,000 people at a time. There wasn't really a great deal to see or do in Jakarta so we made plans to move on to the next sizeable town, Bandung. Jakarta was such an eye opener and an amazing city, but not somewhere we would probably rush back to! It was a very poor and dirty city with very few glimpses of wealth, or even what we'd class as a 'normal' UK standard.
The following day we caught a train to Bandung. The journey took nearly 8 hours but the train was comfortable, if not quite National Rail standard! The carriage doors are left open to help ventilation, so one wrong move could result on you falling out of the train and onto the tracks! We passed some amazing countryside and also plenty of very poor looking communities. The train tracks take you right through areas that you would never travel by foot, so we saw all sorts.
Bandung itself was a dump and we stayed one night in a very grotty hotel. We checked the train timetable the next day and got out of there straight away and headed towards the more 'touristy' East Java!
Sounds like a real adventure - glad you are embracing it all, plenty more to come - the bit about the photo's was the same for us, you are wary at the beginning but then realise they are just being nice!! and the taxi ride, well yep and the waving of the paper and shaking heads!!
ReplyDeleteKeep enjoying
Love Tina and Ian x