With over 9 million direct inhabitants, and almost 30 million in the greater metro Jakarta area, the capitol city of Indonesia is one of the fastest growing and emerging cities in Southeast Asia, and is quickly becoming a local powerhouse in trade, international banking and business, as well as becoming a local center for culture, money, and manufacturing. Fantastic and modern skyscrapers are rising, often right out of slums and shantytowns, creating odd juxtapositions of new and old, modern and historic, rich and poor. It is a city well worth visiting just to see it once and feel it's pulse.
Though there was a local community here first, the city we know of as Jakarta today was started by the Dutch (the primary exploiters of the Indonesian Archipelago) and originally named Batavia, in the early 17th century. It was originally a colony for the Dutch to feel safe in- a walled enclave housing the various facilities operated by the Dutch over seers. Over time the city grew and grew and quickly became the central hub of power in the Spice Isles, and in 1946 the Indonesians finally emerged from their Dutch colonial history and the city became the official capitol of a new country: Indonesia.
Today the city is a crazy amalgamation of different social levels. The vast majority of the city lives in poor housing, whether tin shacks and shanties or cheap houses. There is a middle class who live in nicer but still kinda poor housing. But there is also a wealthy elite, and an ultra-rich super elite, and there are buildings and infrastructure to support all walks of life. It's not uncommon to walk over homeless and downtrodden people on the raised walkways between five-star hotels and fancy malls with Dior and Cartier stores. It is a testament to the Indonesian people- chaotic, crazy, frenetic, and a melting pot of different customs, people, and cultures. And yes, as you can imagine, the traffic is everything it is billed to be. It is legendary, nightmarish, and seemingly never-ending. I always thought living in Vietnam had made me hardened to driving in a mega-city in Asia, but the busiest day in Ho Chi Minh City would be a walk in the park compared to Jakarta traffic. I don't think I would eve want to drive here, given the opportunity. It's just that far out of my league.
We visited Jakarta in late January 2014. We had three nights in the city, but since we flew in at 11:00 pm at night, and were leaving at 5:00 am, we only really had two days to go exploring. Still, this was enough time, and we ended up seeing quite a bit in a short period. The first morning we were out early, hiking down the street. We stopped at several small shopping centers, enjoying a Starbucks, and just generally seeing the sights. Eventually we made our way to a large park, where we took in the view of the Monas, or Monument Nacional, a key landmark for locals. Kind of like a Statue of Liberty. The park surrounding it was abuzz with activity; there were food vendors, people selling jewelry and tourist trinkets, people dressed up for photos, and all manner of people just hanging out enjoying life. It was a neat place to see how the locals enjoyed their day there.
After the park we ended up at the Museum Nasional, which is a vast building with a great number of artifacts. This building is so big because the history of Indonesia, with it's seven primary islands and 16,000+ other islands, has an incredibly long and varied history, and trying to keep up with it all is a monumental task. Still, the museum does a good job, separating everything into it's assigned place and room, and offering a bit about each one. One of the highlights I enjoyed was seeing 16th century Vietnamese dishes, clearly of Vietnamese style, displayed in the “foreign wares” room.
After the museum we were quite hungry, so we headed for a place Kelsey and I had both been waiting six months to enjoy- McDonald's. Yep, the greasy, terrible food from Ronald McDonald, though not available in Vietnam (except one in HCMC), was widely available here in Jakarta, and say what you want, but our lunch was incredible. One of the best Big Macs I have ever eaten, and the fries were pretty amazing also. Judge all you want, we regret nothing.
From there it was on to the Grand Hyatt Shopping Town- one of the largest and fanciest malls I have ever been to. The mall itself was over eight stories tall, and spread between four different “neighborhoods”, each one housing a certain and particular kind of store. We spent a couple hours here exploring, and going in a few stores before heading out to have dinner with our friends from Da Nang who happened to be in Jakarta at the same time, Angie and Piotr. We met them at a fancy, high level Mexican food place called Hacienda. The food was amazing and so was the company. In fact, the food was so good we came back here for another meal on our one night pit stop in Jakarta on the way home.
The next day we were up and at 'em early, this time off to the complex known as Ancol, where they have combined a whole shit load of activities and attractions in one massive area. In this area you can visit an aquarium, do a ropes course, play paintball, go on some amusement park rides, swim in the water park, take tours of the bay and port area, as well as a whole list I am not mentioning. While everything looked and sounded fun, we were there for the aquarium. It was a fairly decent aquarium too. I have been in quite a bit of them in my travels and was fairly impressed with this one. It wasn't the best or the most clean or modern, and it didn't have the highest number of specimens. But, it did have some cool things, and it was well worth spending 90 minutes strolling through.
I really enjoyed seeing the arapaima, a fish from South America that can grow to massive size and was featured in an episode of one of my favorite show, River Monsters. There was also a giant Japanese king crab that was pretty neat, and the octopus is always a good show. Kelsey really liked all of the turtles, especially the turtle touch pond, where you got to see and handle some of the neat little guys. After that it was back to the Grand Hyatt Shopping Town, where we finished up the stores we didn't get to the day before, and watched The Lego Movie at the cinema as well. We had a nice dinner later on and called it an early night as we had to wake up at 3 am the next day.
I really enjoyed seeing the arapaima, a fish from South America that can grow to massive size and was featured in an episode of one of my favorite show, River Monsters. There was also a giant Japanese king crab that was pretty neat, and the octopus is always a good show. Kelsey really liked all of the turtles, especially the turtle touch pond, where you got to see and handle some of the neat little guys. After that it was back to the Grand Hyatt Shopping Town, where we finished up the stores we didn't get to the day before, and watched The Lego Movie at the cinema as well. We had a nice dinner later on and called it an early night as we had to wake up at 3 am the next day.
On our way back from Lombok to Vietnam, we had a one light layover in Jakarta, so we got a hotel right near the airport and then proceeded to go back into town, through the nightmare traffic, into the crazy city, all for one more meal at Hacienda. And yes, it was totally worth it. The next day we awoke early and flew out of Jakarta just as the sun was rising. Would I ever go back? Yes. It is an amazing city and just being in it is an incredible feeling. However, I don't think I would ever spend more than a handful of days here at a time, as the press and crush of that many people in one area eventually gets to you and you have to leave. Still, it is an incredible place to see and go, and I think this was just my first of many visits.
All photos copyright Kit Davidson unless otherwise noted.