Thursday, May 15, 2008

Jakarta

I flew into Jakarta from Padang to avoid the 30+ hour bus trip. It was a Ryanair style flight (Jokeshop village BBB) and I had to pay extra at the airport for the luxury of taking my luggage with me and for using the airport too. On top of this they had the gall to confiscate my insect repellent, which was in my hold luggage, and had already flown all the way from Glasgow. So if I get malaria you know who to blame!

I dozed a bit and didn't get the view of Krakatoa I was hoping for. I did however see quite a few idyllic looking little islands. Arriving in Jakarta airport I managed to find the bus to to town but it got stuck because the road was flooded due to a burst dyke of a paddy field. As always I was quite tired when I got into town, but I found a hotel on what was meant to be the main budget accommodation area, but was still pretty dead, and had a pizza and some overdue internetting before bed. The next day after a leisurely morning I headed for the old square on the local train. The square is surrounded by some pretty crappy museums (I went to the history museum and the shadow puppet museum) as well as an old colonial bar/restaurant called Cafe Batavia. I decided to have lunch here as I'd not gone to the Raffles hotel in Singapore or any other such place. I had a Greek Salad (mmm Feta, they were a bit stingy with it though) which was about the cheapest thing on the menu, but it was nice to eat in such surroundings. Mid-afternoon I headed back on the train, and realised I'd ridden in on the AC train when I only had a ticket for Economy, tsk tsk. It was then a bit of a walk (on this walk I passed a police car with a rather fetching Winnie the pooh window shade stretched across the windscreen, I'd have taken a photo if I hadn't thought the snipers might get me as it was outside the Japanese Embassy) to the Plaza Indonesia Mall where I was meeting Lauren's mum, Ann (Lauren being my brother Ewan's girlfriend, for those who don't know (is anyone actually reading this??)), who works in Jakarta with her husband, who was off on site in Papua.

I got my tea and a few beers bought, which was nice! We went to the Hard rock cafe first, which was a bit of an empty barn, and they played Robbie-fucking-Williams. Then we went to a place called the Jaya Pub which was pretty cool but a bit dead, before going somewhere Mexican for dinner. Then her driver(!) dropped me by my Hostel. Very nice to meet someone I knew (vaguely!) and have a chat and some western comforts.

The next day I went to visit the national tower in freedom square. It was Saturday and I arrived at a bad time right after a big group of school kids so it was a long time queuing for the little slow lift to the top. I then tried to go to another museum nearby but it was shut for the afternoon, oh well. That evening I got the bus overnight to Yogjakarta (14 hours).

Photos:
This cannon has been around a bit, captured by the British, Dutch and Portugese at various times I think.
View of Jakarta from up the National Monument.
This museum looked nice, but was shut.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Haha, Cafe Batavia!!
Shit, man, I used to go there regularly with Dad and my sis...

ahhh, the neocolonial life

-Hen