Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!

Henk and I arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia ready for the worst – we had read online that the city was going to be pretty unpleasant: smelly, incredibly hot, with an immense amount of poverty and very little to do. On top of that, we heard that it was even confusing to get around the city; buses are unpleasant and taxis sit in a horrible amount of traffic before they get anywhere.

When we first arrived in Indonesia, we had difficulties before we left the airport. Since Henk and I are traveling on an ‘around-the-world’ ticket, we hoped that would justify us not having a flight out of Bali yet. We had one picked out, mind you, for the 3rd of December, but we weren’t planning on purchasing it just yet. However, before we were issued our visas, we were told to present our flight tickets out, and thus had to use the Air Asia computers to purchase and print out our tickets on-the-spot. Armed with our visas, we made it through customs and found our driver waiting outside.

Before we left Singapore, I had e-mailed a guesthouse in Jakarta that I found online which had extremely good ratings. Sounded too good to be true in a city like Jakarta – a spacious room with a huge bed and comfortable accommodations for just $25 USD / night. But it was true! Bangka Bed and Breakfast sent our driver complete with a ‘Francesca and Henk’ sign to pick us up and take us on an hour and a half drive to their location in the city. They were located in Kemang, a district famous for being the ‘ex-pat’ area, filled with the more expensive bars and cafes.

However, right outside of our hotel, there was still quite a bit of poverty present. Little run-down shacks and crumbling shanties – there were men sleeping in wheelbarrows, women selling nasi (rice) for just a handful of cents per plate and so many people squatted on the street corners without any work. We felt a great sense of appreciation for being able to get out of the heat and sleep in a nice room with a comfortable bed. Compared to the people outside, we felt like millionaires. Even exchanging our money -- $10.00 USD for 100,000 Indonesian Rupiah... WOW.

We arrived at Bangka and met Sonny, the caretaker of the house. A nice and extremely talkative guy, he spilled out a ton of information about Jakarta to us before showing us to our amazing room. The first afternoon and evening in Jakarta, we slept. It was hot, sticky, and smelly in the city and we were not in any shape (being completely jet-lagged from the 4-5 hour flight) to explore yet. I researched a little about the city, and Henk and I both got some sleep. We didn’t wake-up until the evening, around 8 pm. Being too worried to venture out into the poverty-filled streets in the dark our first night, we asked for a little help from the woman who owned the B&B and she called a savior for us: Pizza Hut! Yes, it is not the healthiest thing in the world. But it was so cheap! We got a large cheese pizza and garlic bread plus delivery to the hotel for a little over $8.00 USD. YUM! We devoured our dinner while watching a few episodes of Heroes and then passed out again for an even longer sleep.



The next morning, November 5th, we woke up to the most amazing complimentary breakfast we’ve ever had at a hotel! Not only was there a huge selection of spreads – chocolate, peanut butter, pineapple and other flavored jams, chocolate sprinkles, and tons more – but there were a bunch of different cereals, juices, milk, and fresh fruits for us as well. But it wasn’t even close to over! As we were stuffing ourselves with the great assortment, Sonny shows up in the dining room carrying a large plate filled with hot food. He had made us a plate of ‘nasi goreng’ – one of the famous Indonesian dishes we would try plenty of during our time in the country. Consisting of fried rice with spices, (the ‘nasi’ part means ‘rice,’ while ‘goreng’ means fried) this dish is topped with a fried egg and the rice has little pieces of chicken mixed inside it. Henk and I took spoonfuls to try while chatting with two of the other B&B guests, Nicole and Dries. The couple had met in the Netherlands, and had come traveling here. We were just beginning to realize just how many Dutch people were interested in visiting Indonesia: a ton! They are probably the largest foreign visiting group to the country, we’d guess, as we’ve seen an overwhelming number of them at every tourist area or attraction.

We spoke with Sonny that morning for some advice about traveling around the city. We had heard that public transport was confusing as well as extremely uncomfortable (aka pretty nasty) and we learned that was accurate. We asked how much it would be to grab a taxi into the city, and since it was just $8.00 or so, we decided it was worth the bit of extra money. Sonny called one for us, and we got ready for our first experience of Jakarta. While driving though town, we had also noticed some interesting statues in various parts of the city. We had read about them in the Lonely Planet – they were famous governmental statues honoring the first President of Indonesia which had acquired interesting nicknames. We passed a giant man holding a flaming disk dubbed ‘Pizza Man,’ a collection of half-formed and decomposing horses pulling a chariot, and the National Monument: a giant phallic-esque tower with a golden flame sitting on the top which is known as ‘Soekarno’s last erection.’ Finally, after more than an hour of driving through horrible traffic, we arrived at the famous Fatahillah Square.

What we found there was a whole lot of nothingness! I had previously looked up some museums that had interesting descriptions and websites: the Indonesian Puppet Museum, or ‘Wayang’ museum and the Indonesian history museum both sounded pretty cool. However, upon arriving we realized that both were pretty run-down, despite the visitors in each. There was no lighting, no AC, and historical pieces that were getting ruined by lack of care. Still, it was less than $1.00 USD per person for each, so we paid some quick visits. One of the more interesting things was the Old Dutch Church and graveyard which happened to be near the Wayang museum. Henk translated for me while our ‘guide’ in the puppet museum attempted to sell me a bunch of souvenirs. The historical museum, situated inside the former ‘City Hall’ building, ended up being a collection of old Dutch furniture, which while ornate, did not tell us much about Indonesia’s history. Plus both of the museums had ‘Indonesian-only’ captions on the items... not very useful for either of us.













After sweating half to death in the museums filled with dusty rubbish, we were desperate for a drink and a comfortable place to sit down. Henk told me that the café across the street, named Café Batavia was famous, so we decided to get a drink there. We stopped to look at the sign outside which told us that the building was erected between 1805 and 1850, and is the second oldest building on the Square. It was supposedly popular in the late 1930’s, but was pretty deserted while we were there. We sat down and enjoyed a Sprite while leafing through some of the local ex-pat newsletters to distract ourselves from the blazing heat.



Finally, when we couldn’t take the endless sweating anymore, Henk asked the barman for directions and we decided to walk down to the harbor for a look at one of the Dutch drawbridges there, known as the ‘Chicken Market Bridge.’ We must have spent a good hour trying to make our way to the bridge, but after a lot of walking, getting stares from locals, and even more sweating, we decided it probably wasn’t worth it. Everything we had seen previously – such as the ‘magnificent ships’ that were supposed to be at the harbor were, to be frank, material only fit for a junkyard. They might look OK in this picture, but up close, they were worn and gross. We were extremely grateful to catch a cab and be enveloped in the cool blast of AC. Jakarta is SO HOT! Yuck…



That evening, we spent some time talking with Nicole and Dries again, ordering Pizza Hut with them (I know, again with the Pizza, but they really wanted some!) and playing a gazillion rounds of Uno. Previous to the Pizza, we walked with them to the supermarket, seeing a little more Jakarta, and even sampling a fried pastry snack from one of the vendors that Nicole purchased and graciously shared with us. While we were playing cards, we had some Indonesian music channel (or what we thought was one) playing in the background for a good 40 minutes or so before we realized it was a Christian music network. We wanted to hear some local Indonesian music! With 80% + of Indonesians being Muslims, I doubt the Christian music channel represents them too well. Eventually, we flipped the channel to a famous physically competitive game that Henk really enjoys watching called ‘Wipeout.’ The rest of the evening was one of amusement watching people do anything for a chance at some money!

The next days (the 6th-7th of November) I didn’t feel too well. My dry cough I’ve had for a couple years now really started acting up, probably because of the immense amount of pollution in Jakarta. Along with that, I developed a runny nose and had a headache. Henk ran out to the pharmacy to get some cough medicine (along with some Burger King to cheer me up) while I tried to rest in bed. (And for shame, we ate pizza for a third time that week… OK, to be honest, I didn’t mind much. I love pizza!) I kinda wanted to check out ‘Stadium,’ this huge and elaborate local club famous for staying open from Thursday night through (not closing at ALL!) Monday morning. However, we were both feeling worn out and tired; and the club, while famous for its trance/tribal music, is also famous for its very unsafe location and huge ecstasy parties... maaaybe another time. :P

Henk and I had been discussing how we were going to get from Jakarta to Bali. Our choices were to go by land, either by ourselves or with a guide/driver, or to fly. Knowing there were some awesome temples (including Borobudur, the largest Buddhist Temple in the world) on the mainland island of Java, we decided we didn’t want to miss out and opted for going by land over flying. We had looked at a few tours back in Singapore, but were still really uncertain what we wanted to do. There was one cheap budget tour via public transportation, and then everything else was at least double that price.

At the last minute, because the budget tour couldn’t accommodate us anymore, I contacted an agency and Henk and I spoke with them about giving us an extremely discounted tour by basically providing us with just a guide and a driver. We would pay our meals, hotels, and entrance fees. Not that bad, because none of those were supposed to be expensive according to Lonely Planet and the Internet. They even included a ‘tour of Jakarta,’ meaning we could skip our own Jakarta struggles and let them bring us around to just the ‘good stuff.’ (What there was of that, anyways…) All right, we will do it! We booked the tour for the next morning (the 8th of November) and started packing the bags. Thank God we were getting out of Jakarta! That city is pretty horrible…

Cya everyone!

Francesca