Trip to Indonesia, Part 7: Jakarta's Old City

For many years, Indonesia was a colony of the Dutch, and in Batavia, Jakarta's old city, that history is most apparent. On Sunday, we took a trip to Batavia to eat breakfast, visit some museums, and then eat brunch.

The Jakarta History Museum (formerly the city hall) and a cannon in the middle of the old city.

 

Bustling open market in the old city.

Unfortunately, Batavia has now become hugely run down, and most of the once beautiful buildings are in urgent need of repair before they completely collapse. Walking through old city made me really sad, because there is so much potential there. If this part of town was restored, it would be a huge tourist attraction, and would rival the European capitals for its architectural history.

Crumbling facade in the old city.

Many buildings look like they came straight out of Amsterdam.

Kids and homeless people hang out the windows of three-hundred year old buildings in dire need of repair.

Another old Dutch building near collapse in the old town.

Batavia is split in two by a canal, with traditional Dutch buildings lining the sides. The canal is crossed by a beautiful old bridge. But the buildings are falling apart, the bridge is rusting and near collapse, and the canal is filled with human waste and the smell is hard to bear.

Jembatan Kota Intan drawbridge in the old city.

But the old town is also home to a very vibrant scene of merchants, teenagers, families, and tourists all playing together in the streets. There are also a few museums, including one that featured the famous shadow puppets and gamelan, which I got to observe. Gamelan music has an amazing other-worldly sound, and the shadow puppets were fun to watch, though the plot was impossible to follow due to the language barrier.

The museum housing the shadow puppet show.

A picture I took at the shadow puppet show.

Gamelan players at the shadow puppet show.

We also got to eat brunch inside the beautiful Batavia Cafe. The cafe is another remnant of the Dutch colonial era, and being inside of it was exactly like you would expect a tropical colonial club house to be from the movies.

Inside the awesome Batavia Cafe.

Trip to Indonesia, Part 6: The Botanical Gardens at Bogor

We decided to make use of the weekend and experience Indonesia outside of Jakarta, so some of the school's administrators took us out to a city called Bogor. Like everywhere else we go in Indonesia, we were taken their by our dedicated driver. All westerners in Jakarta, and seemingly most middle-class or wealthier individuals here, have their own full time driver, which goes along with the general trend here of having multiple assistants, but I will go into that in a future post.

A rice paddy along the highway.

Bogor is about an hour and a half drive from Jakarta on the highway. Unlike the normal roads in Jakarta, the toll highways are very reminiscent of highways in the western world, with cars travelling fast, and few motorcycles. If it were not for the rice paddies and jungle environment, it would be easy to think you were in the US while driving along them.

Administration building of the botanical gardens.

Map of the gardens, with the presidential palace in the green area.

When we got to Bogor, we hired a tour guide to take us on a tour of the botanical gardens, which is also home to the Indonesian president's palace. The palace grounds are home to a herd of deer, apparently the descendants of a pair of deer gifted to Indonesia by Gandhi. The area immediately around the palace is also home to a collection of replicas of famous statues from Europe.

Replica of the famous Little Mermaid statue from Copenhagen, in front of the presidential palace.

Me in front of the presidential palace, complete with deer in the background.

Replica of a Swedish statue in front of the presidential palace.

Our tour of the gardens took us past a huge collection of exotic trees, flowers, and other plants, including some of the tallest bamboo I have ever seen. The gardens are incredibly beautiful and a world away from the hustle, pollution, and crowds of Jakarta.

A huge, hundred-year-old tree. They call these trees the redwoods of Indonesia because of how big they get.

Gardens in the park.

"Sausage fruit" trees.

The biggest spider I have ever seen, weaving its web. The spider was easily the size of my fist.

Flowers in the garden.

A plant which the locals literally use as umbrellas.

Some local university students who were learning English, politely asked us if they could interview us for a project. We all helped them out, answering their questions about America and which movie stars we liked the best. Not half an hour later, another group of students also approached us, and we gave another interview on camera. In some English class in Bogor, I am going to be famous!

One of the themed gardens at the park.

At the end of our trek around the gardens, we relaxed in a cafe and drank delicious fruit juices. I had an amazing avocado juice, which of course reminded me of avocado milkshakes, my favorite (though hard-to-find) milkshake flavor. Well prepared fruit juices here seem to have the same place in the culture that cocktails do in western culture, probably due to the fact that most Muslims don't drink hard liquor.

Park around the cafe in the botanical gardens.

Real coconut drink that my coworker drank.

My delicious avocado juice with coffee syrup.

Trip to Indonesia, Part 5: Slums of Jakarta

Today, along with a group of students at the school I am here with, I visited Bintaro Lama, a slum in Jakarta. The students learned about how the people there are learning to filter their water to make it drinkable. They also learned how important it is to conserve water. My coworkers and I were invited to join the students and observe. There are multiple international aid agencies working in the slums to teach the residents how to properly dispose of waste, filter their water, and use proper hygiene to reduce the spread of disease.

International aid workers demonstrate how to filter water using special silver-lined ceramic pots.

Rain water is captured from the roof of the latrine, which they later filter for drinking.

They leave plastic bottles in the sun to sterilize their water.

The people in the slum live literally in the middle of a trash dump. There is no official trash collection in Jakarta, so people dump their trash wherever they can. The people there sort through the trash, looking for valuable things and recyclable materials as a (meager) source of income. Trash that doesn't end up here seems to just end up in piles or is just burnt, which accounts for the constant smell of burning trash here in Jakarta.

The students talking with aid workers.

A gas-powered motor pumping water out of the ground, which is later filtered.

The "canal" running through the middle of the slum. Aid workers said the water is so dirty in the canal that they can't even filter it.

A view across the canal.

Though hard to see here, they use old tires to hold down the sheet metal on their roofs.

Behind each latrine is an artificial wetland created by aid workers to help break down the waste.

Trip to Indonesia, Part 4: The Streets of Jakarta

Jakarta has a nickname among foreigners, "The Big Durian," referring to the asian fruit that has a sweet taste, but a not-so-pleasant smell. Jakarta lives up to its nickname well. Everywhere in the city, whether indoors or out, has a distinctive smell that's a mixture of burning trash and exhaust fumes.

Traffic

The pervasive exhaust fume smell is a consequence of the traffic in Jakarta, which is legendary. The city lacks any real mass transit, so motorcycles, bikes, and cars are the only way to get around for most people. There are almost no sidewalks, so walking is almost never an option.

Motorcycles are pervasive on the streets.

Whichever method of travel you choose, it is an adventure. Every type of traffic shares the road, and because there are very few traffic signals, every intersection becomes a free-for-all, though it is surprising how easily the locals navigate the chaos. Pedestrians run across the road, dodging cars and weaving through fast-moving motorcycles. Motorcyclists themselves weave through traffic, driving off the road frequently to pass gridlocked cars.

Pedestrians crossing the road.

One of the auto-rickshaws, called bajaj.

Despite all this, there is a vibrant street life, with vendors everywhere selling fruit, cigarettes, and random goods right along the side of the road. Each vendor seems to be a neighborhood attraction, with people gathered around each one, smoking and chatting.

A video of a common street scene, which I recorded earlier today:

Trip to Indonesia, Part 3: Arrival in Jakarta

After a pleasant airline-funded breakfast at my airline-funded hotel in Singapore, I found out that the ash had cleared away from Jakarta, making it safe to fly again. I called Singapore Airlines, and within a few hours, I was on a short flight to Jakarta.

The area around my hotel

Stepping off the plane, the contrast between Singapore and Jakarta is immediately apparent. Singapore is the model of control, organization, and efficiency. The lines in the airport are well organized in Singapore, while in Jakarta, it is kind of a free-for-all. This seems to apply to almost every aspect of the two cities.

More of the city from my hotel window

From the airport, our client arranged a taxi for me to get to my hotel. The taxi ride took about an hour and a half, and amazingly cost just about $20. Travelling on the road in Jakarta is slightly terrifying. Besides the highways, every road seems to be one and a half lanes wide, and the streets are a mixture of cars, three-wheeled taxis, motorcycles, and pedestrians, all just barely managing not to run into each other. Most buildings are built immediately up against the street, and since there are no sidewalks, pedestrians are forced to walk on the road, fighting with vehicles for their share.

Gardens on the hotel property.

 My hotel is nice, although it is hard to compare with the hotel in Singapore. My room has a kitchen, a small living room with a couch and flat-screen TV, and a comfortable bed, so it has everything I need to be comfortable. On the hotel property is a pool with swim-up bar, and the hotel features three restaurants and a convenience shop.

The hotel pool, with swim-up bar

My hotel room's living area.

My hotel room's sleeping area.

My hotel room's kitchen.

Trip to Indonesia, Part 2: Still in Singapore

The plan was to fly from Singapore to Jakarta this afternoon. All was going according to plan, but then this happened:

Mt. Merapi, Indonesia [picture not by me]

Just like Eyafjällajökull (no joking, I actually remembered how to spell that) shut down travel in Europe a few months ago, clouds of ash from the erupting Mt. Merapi has cancelled flights to and from Jakarta, leaving me and my coworkers stranded in Singapore indefinitely. Singapore Airlines, an airline which I can't say enough good things about, offered to put me up in a hotel in Singapore until the ash above Jakarta literally blows over. Not only that, but they paid for my gourmet dinner at my fancy boutique hotel.

My boutique hotel room in Singapore

The very nice bathroom

After dinner, I wandered around the neighborhood by foot. Singapore is a beautiful city/country. The entire place seems to be the perfect mixture of urban landscape and gardens. Everywhere you look are beautiful flowers, picturesque trees, and well-maintained high-rises. My wanderings were cut short by a sudden downpour that would have left me drenched if I hadn't happened to circle back to the hotel at just the right time.

Singapore from my taxi from the airport

More of Singapore's skyline

Hopefully, the ash will blow over tomorrow and I can get to Jakarta then. If not, I can think of worse places of being stuck than this island paradise.