Jakarta

Three days in Jakarta.

I arrived in “the Big Durian” on Wednesday evening and managed to buy a train ticket to get me to my hostel. Upon arrival the hostel looked pretty closed from the outside and the ground floor was completely abandoned, which didn’t seem too promising, but luckily once upstairs it was actually a really nice set up! The other girls in my room were just about to order a take away as I arrived so I ended up joining them for some delicious food including what I think was the skin from a coconut? I really enjoyed this hostel and spent quite a bit of time with various travellers there – mainly from France and Indonesia, but also met a couple of Germans and Italians too.

The next morning I headed to the national monument first thing, which included having to take selfies with the security guards who were pretty excited to find a bule speaking some bahasa Indonesia. I then spent the rest of the day in museums in the old town, including the puppet museum which had Punch and Judy in their international exhibition!

I spent most of the Friday at a fantastic antique market selling all traditional Javanese and Chinese artefacts. Very tempted by the masks, swords and spears. Later in the day I visited a couple of different temples – one Hindu and one Buddhist. On the Saturday I also ventured to a Hindu temple, before popping into a warung for lunch and one last chat in Indonesian before heading home. It’s so so satisfying being able to hold a conversation even if it is still pretty basic.

Jakarta generally doesn’t have the best reputation as a city to visit and between the heat, the pollution, the smells and the terrifying roads (which really need their own paragraph) I can see why. However, I do think that the street food, history and culture more than make up for it. For me, it was especially interesting to see what initially appeared to be a completely different side of Indonesia – sky scrapers and wealth! But you don’t have to walk far from these to find the little warungs which remind you which country you’re in.