Out of everywhere we have been in the last few months, Jakarta was the biggest surprise to me. I expected the city would be massive and populated because of the 8.9 million people residing in the city. Over half of the country’s population of 255 million live on Java the island that Jakarta is located on. What I wasn’t expecting was an ultra modern city with huge buildings, even more expensive malls catering to the elite than Singapore and many high end chain hotels. With so many massive SUV’s and expensive cars and huge mansions it seemed like we were somewhere other than a city in South East Asia. What brought us back to reality was the mandatory security checks when entering any public building in the downtown core. Everyone had to walk through a metal detector and have their bags searched. Cars were also checked by metal detector, trunks inspected and the guards used mirrors to check under the body of the car. It was crystal clear that this was a city that has experienced danger and was protecting the areas most frequented by foreigners or people with money from things like bombings, terrorist attacks and other security issues. Only a few months ago in July 2009, there was a bombing in the city at two high end hotels. The threat is very real in Jakarta, and the only place that we felt like this was in Bogota where the security was also on high.
In Jakarta (I’m embarrassed to say) we didn’t try any of the local cuisine. The city is littered with big Western chain restaurants like Mc Donald’s, Burger King, Chilli’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, Tony Roma’s to name a few. In the downtown core you don’t have to walk far until you come across one of these chains. We did have a great sushi lunch one day, which was a fraction of the price of our Sushi dinner in Singapore.
Gambling and pornography is illegal in Indonesia and drugs are punishable by death. Signs are posted through out the airport so there can be no confusion about drugs in the country. On the entry card, having pornography has to be declared upon entry. Although most of the 255 million populations is Muslim most of the country seems to practice a more laid back version of Islam. We were surprised to find not all women wearing head scarves like in Malaysia. The mosques have loud speakers outside to broadcast the Call To Prayer LOUDLY. The first call is around 5:00am in the morning. Luckily for Andrew he is a sound sleeper and to-date has not heard it at 5:00am. For everyone who isn’t as sound of a sleeper as Andrew, it is loud, sounds a little haunting and beautiful all at the same time.
A night out in Jakarta
We read in our guidebook that Jakarta has a pretty wild night life. On our first night there we decided to take a trip to the entertainment strip and go to a bar. To our surprise the street that was listed in our guide book was practically deserted. As it was a Sunday night there were only a few bars open, and a few people on the street. We went into a British Pub and ate a great dinner. We chatted with the bartender named Vivi, who was a very friendly young girl who recommended a few places for us to go. She told us that on weekends the street is literally spilling over with people, food vendors and the bars are full with people.
Vivi suggested we go to a bar called “Top Gun” which was located on the same street as the pub. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the band was pretty good and they sang all kinds of classic cheesy pop songs. Of course like most places in South East Asia… the bar had an underlying sense of seediness to it. Scattered through the bar were Dirty old Men (D.O.M’s) everywhere and double the amount of Asian women dancing or standing around or chatting. Just like Thailand and the Philippines, Indonesia has a problem with prostitution and unfortunately it is common to find many girlie bars (bar where female escorts wait for male patron’s business). That night we did a lot of people watching and laughing.
The unspeakable… Bedbugs!
Honestly, I can barely say the word before I shudder in disgust. It is a backpackers worst nightmare, and any mention of having bedbugs or being in a hostel with bedbugs can get you turned away from a place in an instant. We have been travelling for over six months now and we have been lucky enough to not cross paths with any hostel or guest houses with bedbug outbreaks. In the hot weather and questionable sanitation bedbugs can spread in a city with reasonable speed. Last year in Thailand we have the unpleasant experience of seeing bedbugs in a long haul bus ride for the first time. At that moment we realized that they look much different than what we had thought and the image of them crawling on the buses carpeted walls will never be forgotten. Recently, on our 2nd day in a guest house in Jakarta we had our first encounter with bedbugs. Andrew and I saw one sitting on top of our bed sheet, we of course freaked out!
Just like cockroaches… where there is one there are many.
Did we bring it in our bags from our last gross hostel in Singapore?
Was this guest house in Jakarta infested?
We examined our bodies for the tell tale signs of bites, but we found none. We made the decision to back up our things and find other accommodation. As mentioned before, Jakarta has many choices of high end hotels and boutique style hotels, but “economical” accommodation is limited. There is a small area which is nothing like Khao San Rd, Bangkok and that was where we were staying. We ended up finding a nice hotel, cheap by Western pricing but our most expensive hotel to-date. We enjoyed the having a few comforts like satellite t.v, hot water and a coffee maker in our room.
We enjoyed being in Jakarta, but just like I said when leaving Singapore… We look forward to getting back to the real South East Asia- sometimes dirty, cheap and full of culture... the way we love it!
~Nicola
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| Jakarta, Indonesia |
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