Indonesia
Arrived in Jakarta on August 15th. A humid heat welcomed me after a 12-hour flight without sleep. I rushed through the transfer in Singapore, but my luggage didn’t make it and stayed behind, arriving leisurely on the next flight. I took advantage of the wait to activate my e-Sim, a wonderful invention, and chatted with some Indonesian women from Jakarta who were also waiting for their luggage. They recommended some places to visit and were surprised that I wasn’t interested in visiting the 3000 malls they have here (apparently very popular among Indonesians). They also acted as a dollar-to-rupiah exchange office so I could pay for the taxi in rupiah. Tip: “only take the Blue Bird Taxi” and pay a maximum of 200,000 rupiah, about 11 €. I managed to do this even if outside the airport they encourage you to take other taxis . I fought like a goat and told the kind lady who wanted to offer me another taxi that even if I spend more, I want the “blue bird.” Well, once in the taxi, I relaxed and thought, now I’ve made it. But no, not at all. First, the driver stopped on the highway to talk to a guy, and I couldn’t understand what he wanted. I thought, “here we go, they’re going to take everything,” but no, always thinking the worst, he just wanted some information, and the kind driver stopped to give it to him. Okay, I thought, now I can relax. But no, the driver couldn’t find my hostel, which apparently is in a one-way area only reachable from Mars. So I was following his movements on Google (thanks to the e-Sim with unlimited data!), and at one point, after he had already asked several times, I indicated that my phone had found a solution. So he took my phone (he didn’t speak a word of English), which I had promised myself to always keep with me and never give to anyone. In reality, I had never even considered the option of handing it to someone.
Well, he took it and put it in his phone holder, and so we traveled with the window open at about 10 km/h where anyone with the traffic could have reached out and grabbed it. I thought, “bye-bye, it was nice knowing you.” In the end, we arrived, and I paid the 200,000 rupiah after an hour of travel, resigned to any unfortunate event… so much for prejudices and recommendations! Anyway, here I’ve noticed that if they greet you, they also say “be careful”…
“Well,” I arrived at the hostel, relaxed, ordered something to eat that was delicious, and waited until 2 for check-in.
The room is small with a bunk bed that I booked just for myself, clean with air conditioning, and the bathroom and showers are shared. Everything is clean and really perfect for the price. I took a shower and slept for a couple of hours.
The next day, I took a walk around the neighborhood and reached Chinatown, where I ate from a very kind woman who told me the story of her family in Indonesian (I understood through gestures that she was talking about children and grandchildren and Florida) and didn’t seem to care that I didn’t understand. She sat at my table and started talking. In the end, she even gave me a bracelet, telling me to come back.
I think there aren’t many tourists around here, or maybe I’m very friendly, or they are very chatty :)
Anyway, I sweated a lot, not used to these temperatures and humidity anymore. Last night I was exhausted. Today I bought an isotonic drink (which I don’t like but it worked!) and took it easy. Today, August 17th, is Indonesia’s Independence Day. There were a lot of people around. I found a wonderful coffee shop, very expensive for these areas (European prices), and pampered myself for 3 hours… I needed it. I also had an affogato.
I read that Jakarta is no longer the capital of Indonesia since last year, but rather Nusantara, which is currently under construction and will be completed around 2045. It’s an interesting topic; Jakarta is sinking, and the new capital will be on the island of Borneo. There are many criticisms and contradictions on this topic.
Tomorrow I’m going to the National Monument, and on Monday I’m leaving for Bali where I intend to relax by the sea.
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