Jakarta - Capital of Indonesia (and traffic jams)

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We arrived in Jakarta on the 29th of November at around midday and took a Damri bus to the train station of Gambir - probably the easiest way to get into the city centre. After the comfortable 45 minutes bus ride we refused to take a taxi or a bajaj and walked to JL Jaksa, the "backpacking district" of Jakarta. I expected it to be a bit like Khao San Road in Bangkok but I was completely wrong. It is a very narrow street with loads of traffic and it took us quite a while to find a nice, low budget accomodation. We were really relieved once we had found one and after a nice refreshing shower we started exploring the area around JL Jaksa. It was grey, dirty and noisy. The traffic in Jakarta is absolutely insane and I'm pleased that we both survived and didn't get run over.

In the evening we went for a couple of cold beers. We sat down in front of a little supermarket and every 5 minutes a guitar player came and played a song. They wouldn't leave without getting money. After a while we got quite fed up and decided not to give anyone money anymore. The first guy thanked us very politely with "f**k you".

As we hadn't slept properly the last couple of nights we decided to call it an early night and we fell asleep at 10 pm. It was quite a good night and after a quick breakfast the next morning we were off to Kota, the heart of Jakarta. We strolled around there for a little while and enjoyed the Dutch architecture. We also went into a little museum to learn a bit more about the Indonesian history. It was quite interesting. Afterwards we took the Transjakarta bus (a bus network that covers entire Jakarta and the busses go on seperate lanes where no other traffic is allowed what makes it the quickest way to get around) back to where we came from to see the national monument. We queued up for about 30 minutes to take the elevator up to the viewing platform in 132 m height. We had a great view about that massive metropolis, just a shame that it was a very dusty day. We planned to take some nice pictures but it was very hard as we were surrounded by a crowd of Indonesians most of the time who took pictures with and of us. I can't remember one day on which so many pictures of me were taken. I really don't want to be famous as I couldn't handle that every day. I don't really understand their fascination about Westerners either. Afterwards we went to the train station Pasar Senen to purchase our "bisnis" class train tickets to Yogyakarta in the evening. Originally, we had planned to stay one more night in Jaksa but we both didn't particularly like it and so we wanted to leave.

In the evening we were at the station at around 7, had some food and then tried to find the platform from where the train is leaving. Sounds easy, but it isn't even though there are only 4 platforms. No signs telling you where to go and the security guys weren't too sure either. They told us to go to platform 2, 3, 23, 10, 13. At the end we figured out that the train is leaving on platform 3, so we waited there. The train was about 30 minutes late but once we got on we manged to find our seats and off we went. The train ride was a nightmare. It took us about 10 hours to get to Jogja and every two hours we stopped at a station and a whole crowd of people walked through the train and tried to sell their goods. "Pop Mie!!! Pop Mie!! Kopi!!! Kopiiiii!! Aaaaqua!!" The fans in the train weren't working either and so we could only catch a little bit of fresh air through the open windows. At 6 in the morning we finally arrived in Yogyakarta, completely tired and exhausted as we had another almost sleepless night.

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