Jakarta - soon the biggest city in the world
Jakarta is a Moloch, like the monster it absorbs more and more people. Almost 30 million people live in the greater Jakarta area, the capital of Indonesia. According to forecasts, the city will soon replace Tokyo as the most populous city in the world. The overpopulation leads to constant traffic jams, dirty rivers, air pollution and little green spaces. In addition, the city does not offer many sights. On the other side it is filled with an exciting nightlife and vibrant shopping areas. The city is also the centre and melting pot of Indonesian culture.
Most of the tourists are not attracted to Jakarta, they prefer to go to Bali, visit the volcanoes on the island Java or play with orangutans in Sumatra. Indonesians I had met before also spoke with displeasure about their capital and criticized the traffic, the smell and the many people.
Horrible traffic
My flight from Singapore to Jakarta took less than 2 hours and I reached the Soekarno-Hatta airport, on the northwest of the island of Java First I wanted to buy a SIM-Card at the airport. Normally airports are a good place for that - other than money exchanges. But at the terminal where I came out there were only a few stands. The one where SIM cards were sold demanded three times more than the rate according to the internet. So I refrained from that and ordered a grab-taxi, the southeast Asian version of uber. The Indonesians have set up a special stand for it inside the airport parking lot.
My arrival to the hostel took quite a while because the traffic in Jakarta is extremely busy. Many locals use scooters to get past the many cars. This leads to chaotic road conditions. To cross the street as a pedestrian is a risk. You stick out your hand and hope that the vehicles will stop (what they normally do). There are not many traffic lights here.
Later, to get around faster I too often took an inexpensive motorcycle taxi, which you can easily order on the internet. In Indonesia you don't have uber but Grab and gojek. The drivers will pick you up with motorbike and offer you a spare helmet.
While checking into my hostel, the Six Degrees Hostel, the young Indonesian woman at the reception tried to trick me during the payment and took advantage of my confusion with the large-numbered banknotes (1 € is about 16,000 Rupiah) and kept more notes than she should have. When I double-checked, I noticed the mistake and the receptionist gave me back the overpaid money. The hostel was quite nice, the beds were arranged in capsule form and it had an own restaurant where you could eat cheaply. Generally Indonesia is a cheap country.
shopping center as the biggest attraction
The most rated attraction in Jakarta is a gigantic shopping mall, the Grand Indonesia. It is so huge and branched, that I got lost in it several times. The Grand Indonesia Shopping Town extends over two main buildings, the West and East Mall, and is connected by a multi-storey bridge. The mall is spread over eight levels and covers an area of 640,000 m². When you enter the mall, you are checked out almost like at an airport checkpoint with body scanning and bag checks. With good reason, because a few years ago Muslim extremists launched terrorist attacks here.
lively couchsurfing community
In Jakarta there is a very lively couchsurfing community. Especially as a European you are literally flooded with hangout requests. In the evening I met the young local Amiera in a vegetarian restaurant. A short time later, Nathasya, Faizal and Zufikar joined us and we went to a place to play board games.
With the 2 girls and one other girl, I moved to a beer garden, but the atmosphere of the meeting did not really appeal to me. It was mainly Nathasya who monopolized the conversation and revealed more about her sex life and all the different nationalities of her lovers than I actually wanted to know. This being-a-slut-and-proud-about-it-behaviour I had only known from western women before. The other woman was totally veiled and said almost nothing. While Amiera came to the conclusion that most Germans are boring.
Taking the city tour of my hostel
After I had only seen the shopping malls of Jakarta until then, I took a guided tour of the city from the hostel on my third day. Our guide was a young Indonesian man who flirted with me incessantly and told me again and again that all German men are so attractive.
Dirty Chinatown
We walked to the Cikini station to take the train to the old town in the north. First we visited Chinatown. Chinatowns are actually the same in every city. They are dirty, loud, full of people and often animals are kept in miserable conditions. I saw frogs, turtles and birds crammed in a very small space next to each other. On top of that, some retards even drove through the market with their scooters. (the video shows a less crowded part of the town)
poop coffee
Next up was Kota Tua or Batavia, that is the name the Dutch gave to the town when they founded their colony here. Still today you can find some houses in the Dutch colonial style on the big central Taman Fatahillah Square. We had lunch in a cheap restaurant there and had a coffee for dessert in the noble Café Batavia, right in the centre.
There you can try the famous Kopi Luwak. Coffee connoisseurs know this exotic beverage as one of the most expensive coffees in the world. So a cup there costs over 10 $. The special thing about this coffee is that it is made from half-digested coffee beans from excrements of spotted musangs living in the wild. I decided not to buy such a poop coffee and rather ordered a great Indonesian coffee (from the Papua region). I tried a small sip of the poop coffee with the others and didn't notice any real difference except that it tasted a bit like poop (haha of course not!).
The Biggest Mosque in South East Asia
Our tour continued to the Istiqlal Mosque, the biggest mosque in Southeast Asia. The Indonesian government ordered the construction of the mosque, which has room for more than 120.000 believers, in 1975. In order to enter the mosque, everyone in our group had to wear a long robe with a military pattern and we had access to the upper floor of the prayer house. The lower room was reserved for the believers, where man and woman separately recited their prayer to Allah.
Monas, the National Monument
Only a stone's throw away from the mosque is a Christian church, which we visited next.
Our tour ended at the National Monument, the Monas, a 137 m high tower with a gold-covered flame on top, symbolizing the fight for independence. It towers above Merdeka Square, Independence Square. There is also a viewing platform, but we could not visit it because there were too many people queuing.
Enjoying street food like the locals
I went back to the hostel by Trishaw. In the evening I met the English woman Bo, whose Polish genes made her look much more attractive than her common compatriots. We went to a small streetfood market, where we had a very cheap dinner. We followed the locals' example and sat down on the floor and ate right there. An Indonesian in a funny mascot costume provided entertainment.
The Indonesian cuisine is pretty good. They do a lot with tofu or tempeh (fermented tofu) and of course rice. The national dish is Nasi Goreng, fried rice with vegetables and chips. My favorite dish was "Gado Gado", a salad with hard-boiled eggs, potatoes, tofu and tempeh served with peanut sauce dressing.
