Jakarta

I like Jakarta. The article in Wikitravel makes Jakarta sound like some sort of dungeon, dirty, dangerous, difficult. It's not the cleanest place, and it's very crowded and hard to get around in as a pedestrian, but I really quite like the city. I arrived at about 8 at night, flying in from Singapore. I got a bus to town and then set out to find this street with a bunch of accommodation. I'm going to have to get better at getting maps and the like before I do things like that, for I was basically wandering around hoping to bump into one little street in a city this size. In other words, I was lost. After a while, it occurred to me that I was lost and I eventually stopped and asked for some directions. I happened to ask a guy, Jonev, who was going to the same place, as he lived there, and he took me. These Indonesians are a friendly bunch. He got me set up and we ended up going out for a bite and a drink.

The next morning, I struck off on my own to find the center of town. I followed Jonev's directions, but I guess I turned the wrong direction, or at least I didn't really recognize what Jonev had told me was there. In any case, I walked for an hour and a half before stopping in a shopping mall to buy a map and get some info about a tourist information place. Following the map, I worked my way all the way back to the very building where I had had breakfast. Had I just asked there, they probably would have saved me the whole walk. But I would have missed out on the guys at the information desk in that mall standing around the desk with my map spread out, pointing out where I was and where I wanted to go and trying to tell me how best to get there, and just generally being helpful and friendly. I would have missed out on seeing Jakarta's answer to the subway, called the busway. In the center of some of the busy roads in the city are dedicated bus lanes. There are stations along the way. Transjakarta buses move along the lanes and stop at the stations and let people off and take on new passengers. 

There are even transfer stations and you can transfer from line to line. I think it's fantastic. Now, having taken one of them back to here, there are cracks in the system. The buses can be fairly few and far between, and they get pretty crowded at rush hour, so it's hard to get on and you can wait for a while. But the concept is great, and it's a very interesting set-up.

After returning to my starting point and getting some information about things to do in Jakarta, I headed out to the Independence Monument. Under the monument is a museum with a whole bunch of dioramas and explanations about the history of Jakarta and Indonesia. It's really well done and very interesting. The monument is 135 meters tall and you can take an elevator all the way to the top, but I arrived too late. The elevator was closed for the day.

Then I saw this spire in the distance, so I headed off toward it and found a mosque. As I was looking at it, a man came up to me and told me the entrance was on the other side. I hadn't actually planned to try to go to the mosque. I was only in shorts and a t-shirt and I didn't want to offend anyone, but the man told me it would be no problem as there were robes that could be lent to visitors. So he took me in. (I knew it was going to cost me, but I figured it would be fairly reasonable.) The mosque was really nice. And inside it's cool, even though it was over 30 outside, and humid. I was really impressed. In the end I wound up donating about 20 dollars to the mosque, and my guide squeezed 30 dollars out of me, but I didn't really mind. The mosque was interesting and the man was quite a good guide. I would have preferred 20 dollars though. :)