Jakarta - Indonesia
4/17/05
The flight departed on time to Hong-Kong where we had a connection to Jakarta, a surprise for us was to know that the plane was also going to stop in Singapore. Oh well, as they say in India - Don't worry chicken curry! In Hong-Kong we found free Internet access to entertain our 2-hour wait to board in the plane going to Jakarta.
To enter Indonesia was as easy as getting a ticket to go into the movie theater. All we had to do was to give them our passport and $25 each and voila, we were in. From the airport we took a 'taksi' to the hotel in Jaksa. We made to the hotel at 10:30 pm and found a room for $4.
The temperature was 28.5 C and it was extremely humid, so 5 minutes after our cold shower, we were already all sweaty again. :D
4/18/05
Jakarta is not exactly a tourist attraction, but it features some museums and an old downtown, like any other city, so we were not planning to waste our precious work-free time here. The plan: figure out how to get to Yogyakarta and after that wander around the city, but not stay overnight. We spoke with the tourist office and found out about the train to Yogya, so we headed to the train station to buy the tickets. It was cool to walk around in a new city without hearing - Here sir, yes, yes please, just look, good price, good quality. Where are you going? do you want taxi? hotel? smoke?
We were just two unnoticed strangers watching another city, big (10 million people), crowded, polluted and noisy, definitely not the place to spend time.
We went to the wrong train station so we couldn't buy the ticket but a security guard helped us and pointed which bus we should take to get to the place we wanted. That made our day. Jakarta is well served with many many mini buses, also called mini-metro. Official lines with the rate on the window, and it is extremely cheap, 1400 Rps ($1 is 9000 Rps). So, via mini-metro we saw a good part of the city. It was fun to figure out which bus to take and where to get off. We visited Kota, the old Dutch center, and Kepulauan Seribu, the old port. None of these places are really worth a picture but here is the port.
All ships are loading wood and everything is carried by men, no machines are used. The poverty is also present in Jakarta, just across the river.
We went back to the hotel and after a relaxing dinner in the yard, we headed to the station. Backpack on the shoulder, hit the road again, now to Yogyakarta. The train station was a busy place with many stores on the boarding platform; warungs and music shops playing loud English rock.
During the trip we were amazed to see that, in the train,there were more sellers then passengers. We were offered water, books, magazines, McDonuts, cell phone cases, cd cases, toys of all kinds, news paper, handfan, candies, towels, tea, bread, phone cards, back scratcher that doubles with a massage device, pens, flash light, cigarets, soda, coffee, instant noodles soup, ted bears, a big variety of Indonesian meals, glasses with degrees for reading, pin locks, pillows, fruits, hats and at least another hundred products that I cant remember.
Also, try to imagine that each of these products are handed buy a different seller, so they keep running up and down the corridor bumping on each other. The train had problems with the wheel making even longer the already long journey.
The train took 14 hours to reach Yogya, so we had plenty of time to talk to our seat neighbor, Joseph. Among other information, he gave us hints of places and things to see in Indonesia. After a wonderful sunrise, we discovered the landscape we were riding through. It was amazingly beautiful. There were nices rice fields with some palm trees here and there. In the background there were huge volcanoes. Already early in the morning, the poeple were working hard wearing a dried bamboo hat. We didn't bother taking pictures thinking that it would be easier once out of th train, but we never got to see such wonderful landscpe again. How sad... At 11 am we arrived in Yogyakarta.
The flight departed on time to Hong-Kong where we had a connection to Jakarta, a surprise for us was to know that the plane was also going to stop in Singapore. Oh well, as they say in India - Don't worry chicken curry! In Hong-Kong we found free Internet access to entertain our 2-hour wait to board in the plane going to Jakarta.
To enter Indonesia was as easy as getting a ticket to go into the movie theater. All we had to do was to give them our passport and $25 each and voila, we were in. From the airport we took a 'taksi' to the hotel in Jaksa. We made to the hotel at 10:30 pm and found a room for $4.
The temperature was 28.5 C and it was extremely humid, so 5 minutes after our cold shower, we were already all sweaty again. :D
4/18/05
Jakarta is not exactly a tourist attraction, but it features some museums and an old downtown, like any other city, so we were not planning to waste our precious work-free time here. The plan: figure out how to get to Yogyakarta and after that wander around the city, but not stay overnight. We spoke with the tourist office and found out about the train to Yogya, so we headed to the train station to buy the tickets. It was cool to walk around in a new city without hearing - Here sir, yes, yes please, just look, good price, good quality. Where are you going? do you want taxi? hotel? smoke?
We were just two unnoticed strangers watching another city, big (10 million people), crowded, polluted and noisy, definitely not the place to spend time.
We went to the wrong train station so we couldn't buy the ticket but a security guard helped us and pointed which bus we should take to get to the place we wanted. That made our day. Jakarta is well served with many many mini buses, also called mini-metro. Official lines with the rate on the window, and it is extremely cheap, 1400 Rps ($1 is 9000 Rps). So, via mini-metro we saw a good part of the city. It was fun to figure out which bus to take and where to get off. We visited Kota, the old Dutch center, and Kepulauan Seribu, the old port. None of these places are really worth a picture but here is the port.
All ships are loading wood and everything is carried by men, no machines are used. The poverty is also present in Jakarta, just across the river.
We went back to the hotel and after a relaxing dinner in the yard, we headed to the station. Backpack on the shoulder, hit the road again, now to Yogyakarta. The train station was a busy place with many stores on the boarding platform; warungs and music shops playing loud English rock.
During the trip we were amazed to see that, in the train,there were more sellers then passengers. We were offered water, books, magazines, McDonuts, cell phone cases, cd cases, toys of all kinds, news paper, handfan, candies, towels, tea, bread, phone cards, back scratcher that doubles with a massage device, pens, flash light, cigarets, soda, coffee, instant noodles soup, ted bears, a big variety of Indonesian meals, glasses with degrees for reading, pin locks, pillows, fruits, hats and at least another hundred products that I cant remember.
Also, try to imagine that each of these products are handed buy a different seller, so they keep running up and down the corridor bumping on each other. The train had problems with the wheel making even longer the already long journey.
The train took 14 hours to reach Yogya, so we had plenty of time to talk to our seat neighbor, Joseph. Among other information, he gave us hints of places and things to see in Indonesia. After a wonderful sunrise, we discovered the landscape we were riding through. It was amazingly beautiful. There were nices rice fields with some palm trees here and there. In the background there were huge volcanoes. Already early in the morning, the poeple were working hard wearing a dried bamboo hat. We didn't bother taking pictures thinking that it would be easier once out of th train, but we never got to see such wonderful landscpe again. How sad... At 11 am we arrived in Yogyakarta.
posted by Adriano and Angie | 9:41 AM
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