Indonesia Day One: Jakarta

07:30 local time: After almost 24 hours of travel (and 11 hours lost in the time change), we land in Jakarta! We had a quick layover in Istanbul, which Turkish Airlines did an excellent job advertising on both flights— I’m excited to see it for a few hours on my journey home! 

Getting through customs in Jakarta was fairly easy. Finding our hostel-arranged driver took a little longer, but eventually we found one another and were on our way to ~Wonderloft Hostel~ about a 45 minute drive from the airport. The hostel lobby had A/C and wifi, two amenities for which I have developed a new level of gratitude while on this trip. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we dropped our bags and set out for coffee. Our driver and the hostel staff both recommended Kopi Es Tak Kie, a nearby and locally-famous Chinatown establishment that has been open since the 1940s! Seems like they are known for their iced coffee and tea drinks, but we weren’t able to verify that the ice was made from filtered water so we went for hot coffee— sweating out all our toxins while we sipped from our steaming cups. 

 

We then walked around the Chinatown markets for awhile, scoping out some of the food stands while dodging mopeds and pedestrians in the narrow, crowded alleyways. I like seeing so many unfamiliar foods, being reminded of how relatively limited my American diet is in terms of diversity of ingredients. 

Despite our trepidation about food poisoning, we sat down for a bowl of stir-fried bean sprouts, chili peppers, and a mysterious ingredient that I hoped was tofu. We ate it alongside some assorted pan-fried pastries with various fillings including sweet onion, taro root, and chocolate. For both, we selected vendors whose cooking setup we could see—and foods that we could see being cooked immediately before we ate it. 

    

Next, we visited the Jakarta history museum, which was just a couple of blocks from our hostel. I gained some vague knowledge about the Dutch colonial settlers, a horrific sugar cane-related massacre of Chinese people in the 1740s, a Japanese takeover in 1942, Indonesian independence in 1945, and some kind of “new order” that emerged in the 1960s. Clearly I need to read some Wikipedia pages to gain a more complete picture. 

Needing a/c, we paused for a bite and drink at a touristy restaurant on the main square across from the history museum. I ordered a vegetable plate with noodles; sadly the vegetables were raw so I just had a snack of plain noodles :D 

We both got much-needed caffeine and then pressed on to the next museum, also on the central square. This one was focused on fine arts and ceramics, mostly from Indonesian artists who’d been trained by Dutch and English settlers in fine arts practices. 

"Cat"

"Old Man and Young Rooster"

There were also some really compelling depictions of the fight for independence and the political conflicts of the ’60s. There was also some fun traditional ceramics, like this scary bat with giant boobs:

There were also children learning pottery, which was super fun to see.

After returning to the hostel to move our bags to our room, we quickly headed back out to keep up the anti-jet-lag momentum. Upon another recommendation from the hostel staff, we stopped at a restaurant close by, where we drank some delightfully cold iced tea. I ate fried rice with sauteed vegetables; Hayley opted for fried bananas—all of which was delicious. 

At this point I was definitely starting to fade, considering I’d been awake since 4am local time, but I was determined to stay awake until at least 8pm. After considering a few options, Hayley found a beach that we cabbed to for the sunset. 

We walked around for a few minutes, enjoying the fresh air and the pleasant family-friendly atmosphere, and noticed that we were the only white people around. Over the course of our two days in Jakarta it became more and more clear that the city is not a tourist destination for Westerners. I had heard others recommend skipping it, but I’m glad we spent two days there because I think any capital city is worth visiting—and it showed us a part of Indonesia not represented in the smaller cities and rural areas. I am glad, though, that I knew in advance about Jakarta’s traffic, air pollution, and sprawly layout. (Interestingly, though, I felt that Yogyakarta—our next destination and a much more popular tourist spot—was much less walkable than Jakarta.)

A beachside restaurant where you can choose your dish while it's still swimming!

Finally it was 7pm and we could head towards bed <3 Back at the hostel, I sleepily FaceTimed my girlfriend and then very quickly fell asleep. 

helloooo Jakarta!