While, for many reasons, we wanted to leave Burma as soon as possible, we didn’t want to leave Singapore at all! Trying to act sensible, we realised that yet another night at Pan Pacific Hotel may be a little bit too much so instead of changing the hotel, we found plane tickets and flew to Indonesia on Friday night, just as we planned in the first place!!! 🙂
We wanted to fly to Sumatra first, but sometimes you just have to adjust your plans to ticket prices. In the end we took a Lion Air Singapore-Jakarta flight. We arrived at the airport earlier than usual which was a blessing in disguise since it turned out that… we won’t fly to Indonesia without a return ticket! That’s what happens if you buy tickets spontaneously and don’t read the fine print. Don’t do it 🙂 Our explanations about not having a detailed plan, not knowing what we’re going to do and already having tickets from Bangkok to Warsaw didn’t help. You must have an outbound ticket from Indonesia. It got a bit nervous at the airport but the Internet and Łukasz’ exceptional affordable flights searching skills saved us. We got our tickets and we could fly!
Lion Air is DEFINITELY not and airline for the faint of heart – the plane once shook so hard that I had my heart in my mouth. Also, you can buy almost nothing to eat or drink (have you tried Oreo with blueberry-mint filling? We did – awful!), definitely one of the worst low fare airlines.
Jakarta is a little bit smelly but we don’t care that much after Bangkok and Singapore. An old airport, not too many tourists so we quickly pay for our visa on arrival, wait for the luggage, buy a coke, some water and a dunkin donut for Maks and we’re ready to take a taxi to the hotel.
We’re staying at Wahid Hasyim street in a modern part of town. City centre, lots of restaurants and hotels but the taxi driver cannot find ours… a classic. Deja vu from Burma. I already imagine us walking through Jakarta at night with a sleeping child in our hands and all the luggage looking for the hotel. Thank God we finally get to ourKosenda Hotel. If you ever come to Jakarta, Kosenda is a must! Charming, designer, original yet cosy and warm. The room is tiny but beautiful. The price? Approx. 70 dollars which is the same price we paid for some shithole in Rangoon 😉 Welcome to Jakarta!
We start the day with a hotel breakfast. It’s tasty: fried noodles with beef (a must), eggs, muesli, omelette packed with mushrooms, chilli and spices. Exotic fruits and fresh melon or watermelon juice to drink. Or coconut water. That’s how I want to always start my day!
With our bellies full, we hit the city… First the centre: we walk a wide pavement in turtle mode (thanks Maks!) towards the Independence square – Taman Merdeka. A huge lawn, or more a park with a giant Monas – a 137 m high Monumen Nasional in the middle from which you get a panoramic view of the city. We want to check it out but the 3 hour queue successfully discourages us from doing so. We take ride around the monument and leave Taman Merdeka.
We want to go to the harbour but none of the local bajaj (an Indonesian tuk-tuk) drivers at Taman Merdeka wants to take us there. Let’s try Glodok then – the Chinese district of Jakarta. We pay 40 000 rupiah (approx. PLN 12) and go! Bajaj swerves back and forth through crowded streets. Around we see some kind of shops, carts with nasi goreng and other local meals, motorcycles, scooters and mess. Finally, we arrive…
We get off by a huge shopping centre with electronics. It’s hot and loud. Chinatown in Jakarta doesn’t look like the one in Bangkok or Singapore – you won’t see Chinese signs or red lanterns around here. Until recently, using Chinese ideograms was prohibited which makes Chinatown not much different from other districts around here. It’s not colourful which we always liked about such districts. We’re hungry, Maks is tired with the heat and doesn’t want to walk anymore, wants to go piggybacking instead and we’re generally finding it hard to get along in such a chaotic environment. Someone’s definitely watching over us because we choose to walk the biggest street and after few metres find a promised land: a huge Chinese restaurant! After going through the menu we already know that it’s going to be epic! The place is called Imperial Chef – I think it’s that one! The food is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! Tofu with scallops, cucumbers with chilli, delicate chicken with dry chilli and cashews… dessert: coconut pudding and almond pudding with tofu! Amazing!!!
We spend the rest of the day trying to rent a car.. It’s not easy! Traffic jam everywhere, problems with getting anywhere, communication problems with taxi drivers and when you finally get to the place, they tell you that you can only hire a car with a driver – PLN 1900 for 3 days!!! Quite a hit, but we’re not giving up! We give up on the trip to the harbour and a former colonial district and instead try to find some other possibilities. Will we find something? Time will tell!
Once again, the day was saved by amazing food – this time in our own Kosenda Hotel which fills up with trendy Jakarta citizens on Saturday night. Some come for a drink, others for dinner, others for family celebrations. We celebrated our first day in Indonesia and enjoyed their delicious food in an amazing place… teow and hokkien mee noodles, battered crab and aubergine chips with chilli all were amazing!
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