Advertisement
Published: June 22nd 2023
Head can be heated, but the heart must stay cool… ~ Indonesian Proverb
HE SAID... Today we were continuing to explore the bustling city of
Jakarta.
Wide awake at 5:30am and feeling completely refreshed, we immediately jumped into the day. We may have been a bit too eager. When we arrived at Yello Harmoni Hotel’s expansive dining area for breakfast at 6am, the place was devoid of front-of-house staff. However, food dishes were trickling in (thanks to the kitchen staff), so we decided to settle at a table with city views and help ourselves to the meagre buffet offerings. I went for a simple option – cornflakes and sultanas, along with hot tea. We had a long day of walking ahead, and we were heading out into Jakarta’s morning humidity at 8:30am, so we didn’t have time to sample every dish as it emerged from the kitchen.
We clambered into a minibus and headed three kilometres northwards to Jakarta’s Chinatown, stopping briefly at Canda Naya along the way. Canda Naya, an 18th century Chinese mansion and shining example of Peranakan architecture, holds an interesting back story. Acquired by a wealthy developer in 1993, the historic mansion was destined for demolition to make way for a ‘superblock’ of offices and apartments.
The demolition process began in 1995, and was only stopped by the vocal protests of heritage conservation groups. Despite being partially dismantled, some of the structures were reassembled in 2012, and Canda Naya now acts as a token lobby for the superblock (aka Green Central City) which was literally built over the top of the old mansion.
I know this is a great example of grassroots campaigning. It’s a textbook ‘David and Goliath’ battle, where a small community group altered the progress of a large corporate development. Yet as I stood before the reception hall (the last remaining original structure of Canda Naya) and looked up, the hideous superblock seemed to be laughing back at me. It overshadows Canda Naya like a gargantuan robotic transformer, with huge concrete supports (feet) that split the mansion’s ancillary buildings in half. Was this really a victory for David, or just a pesky work-around for Goliath?
While I enjoyed our short visit to Canda Naya, I felt oppressed by the dark corporate shadow cast by Green Central City. The superblock not only dominates the skyline; it has devalued the role of Canda Naya. The mansion is nothing more than a pseudo lobby
with heritage information panels. If only the historic building had been sympathetically adapted and re-purposed.
Anyway, enough of my ramblings. We navigated the city’s bustling streets and narrow paths on foot until we found ourselves standing beneath the ornate Chinatown Gate in Glodok – the official entry point to Jakarta’s Chinatown. The mid-morning humidity was intense, and we were feeling its wrath.
We wandered the market area for a while, and it was slow going, as the narrow lanes were crowded with motor bikes, people and fresh produce. Poverty was evident, living conditions were poor and the class divide was deeply entrenched. A well-dressed woman yelled at a young street urchin in a convenience store. I can only assume she suspected him of stealing. It was confronting to witness.
We seemed to be the only foreigners wandering the narrow market lanes, and our difference was very apparent. Young children looked at us quizzically, while old women looked at us cautiously. Everyone greeted us with a smile. On our slow snaking journey, we stopped briefly at Vihara Dharma Bakti, Jakarta’s oldest Chinese temple. Young women with very young children pleaded for help near the temple entrance. The lustrous
bronze ornaments, bright red lanterns and sweet-smelling incense seemed to belie the hardship and adversity that surrounded this atmospheric old Buddhist temple.
We emerged from the busy market and navigated our way through Jakarta’s beautiful old town area, which is still called ‘Old Batavia’ by locals and tourists alike. Batavia was the capital of the Dutch East Indies, a former colony that broke free of Dutch rule following World War II. The Dutch East Indies is now known as Indonesia, and the old town of Batavia roughly corresponds to the old town area of present-day Jakarta.
The old town of Batavia had an added interest for me. It is mentioned by Conrad in his second novel
An Outcast of the Islands as the main trading port in the Indonesian archipelago. We visited the Sunda Kelapa Port (where the Dutch first landed in Indonesia), and it was intensely hot. The port was chaotic, with little to no order or oversight, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the working conditions had changed much since Conrad was sailing through this region in the 1880s. Crumbling old wooden fishing boats seemed to be trapped in time, decaying in the port’s shallow
waters beside rudimentary levees covered in old white tarpaulins. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Conrad himself scrambled down a rickety wooden gangplank from one of the old boats and greeted us.
Anyway, I’ve drifted more than 130 years in time. I need to get back to the present! As we wandered Jakarta’s picturesque and charming old town, we turned a nondescript corner and found ourselves in the spacious and expansive Fatahillah Square. This square is located in the very heart of Jakarta’s old town area, and is considered its historical centre. Indonesia’s Dutch colonial heritage is more than apparent here. The vast cobblestone plaza is surrounded by colonial architecture, and my eyes were immediately drawn to the old town hall with its resplendent bell tower.
It was late morning, and our lunch destination (Café Batavia) was located in one of the old buildings on the northern edge of the square. This historic restaurant was reminiscent (to me) of the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Phnom Phen. Celebrity photos on the walls, risqué photos in the toilets, dark wooden furniture, deep red carpet and long heavy drapes. This grand old building would have borne witness to many beguiling human
interactions over the years. If only the walls could talk.
We settled at a large round table and ordered drinks. I opted for a Bintang (despite the early hour), as Jakarta’s morning heat and humidity had taken its toll. It was my first taste of this highly popular Indonesian beer, and I’m sure I’ll be sampling a few more over the coming weeks. It was refreshing, but I would have welcomed anything cold at that point. Ren opted for an iced Pandan latte (Pandan ginger milk with espresso coffee), and it was very tasty.
Now to lunch. We had arrived at Café Batavia a little earlier than expected, and food wasn’t really on our radar. We could have continued exploring the old town area, but we didn’t. I’m not entirely sure why. Our guide seemed to have miscalculated the time we needed to wander the old market lanes. It wasn’t even midday, yet here we were – sitting at a table with menus in our hands. We decided to eat, as it seemed the most convenient option. We ordered the following:
>
sate ayam Madura (char-grilled chicken satay served with peanut sauce, Indonesian sweet soy sauce and rice
cakes)
>
gado-gado Batavia (raw and cooked vegetables with tofu, soybean cake and peanut sauce).
The
sate ayam was amazing. The chicken (served on wooden skewers) was succulent, and the peanut sauce was extraordinary. The
gado-gado, however, was a deconstructed mess that didn’t impress anyone. I’d been looking forward to sampling authentic
gado-gado dishes in Indonesia, and I struggled to hide my disappointment. The
gado-gado from Little Bali in Hobart was so much tastier, but I didn’t want to be one of those tiresome tourists who suggest the Indonesian food in Australia is better than the Indonesian food in Indonesia. So I said nothing. Besides, it was the first
gado-gado dish I’d sampled since arriving in the country, and I knew I’d be sampling many more.
After lunch we piled into our minibus and headed to Sunda Kelapa Port (which I’ve described above), then travelled southwards back to Central Jakarta, where we parked in a large underground carpark. On emerging into the daylight, we found ourselves between two imposing structures – the Jakarta Cathedral (a towering neo-gothic church dedicated to the Virgin Mary) and the Masjid Istiqlal Mosque (the largest mosque in Southeast Asia). Apparently, the proximity of
these two places of worship was planned by Indonesia’s first president (Soekarno), who decided to build the mosque with a clear line of sight to the Catholic church in a deliberate attempt to symbolise ‘unity in diversity’ (i.e. where all religions co-exist in peace and harmony). While this all sounds wonderful, I’m not convinced. There’s nothing quite like building an enormous new mosque just over the road from an old church to send a clear message to the masses. But maybe that’s just me being cynical.
The mosque was closed to visitors when we arrived, as prayers were in progress. With this in mind, we decided to visit the cathedral first. The long narrow structure is characterised by its tall wrought iron spires, which stretch skyward like elaborate telecommunication towers from another era. They almost seem detached from the old church, possibly due to the brightness of their white hue against the dull grey tinge of the cathedral’s outer surface.
We stepped inside the church momentarily, and the high ceilings above the nave were spectacular. However, it was the grounds outside the church that held the greatest fascination for me. A covered area extends from the church’s northern
portal, and this seems to act as an overflow seating area for larger liturgical services. On the edge of the covered area, we found a life-size cardboard cut-out of the Pope beside a small red plastic chair. By sitting in the chair and looking up at the Pope’s face, you can capture a photo of yourself having a casual conversation with the Bishop of Rome himself. I couldn’t help myself, and neither could Ren. 😊
I was bemused. How can Indonesia’s Catholic fraternity allow an image of the Pope to be used in such a frivolous way, especially in the very grounds of the country’s main cathedral? Yet the more I thought about it, the more sense it started to make. It may be an engagement strategy on the part of the church. It may be making faith more appealing and fun for Jakarta’s younger generations.
Anyway, after having our photo with the Pope, we crossed the bustling Jl Katedral and walked a very short distance to Masjid Istiqlal. Prayers were still in progress, so we had to wait on the grounds outside. The first thing you notice about the mosque is its size. It is colossal. It
also has a calm ambience, despite the number of people milling around the complex.
Eventually, a young bloke (Yusuf) was available to take us on a guided tour of the mosque. This bloke was very friendly and affable, and I was immediately drawn to his candour. We initially walked into the administration area of the mosque, where I had to don a silk robe to hide my bare knees, while Ren donned a full-length silk robe because she wanted to. We both looked very fetching. 😊
As always, I found access to (and acceptance within) the mosque to be relaxed and welcoming. We were, after all, non-believers in an important place of worship, and Yusuf was more than aware of that. However, he spoke of tolerance, acceptance and integration. In contrast, no one was available to talk with us or guide us through the Jakarta Cathedral.
Once inside, we were mesmerised by the sheer immensity of the structure, especially the main prayer hall and main courtyard. Devoid of imagery and glitter, the mosque has been pragmatically designed for maximum worshipper capacity. The outside courtyard has even been paved in small rectangles to guide worshippers during prayer (i.e.
worshippers must remain within the border of their allotted rectangle as they stand and kneel). I love functional design!
The clouds were looking ominous and rain had been forecast, so it was time to leave. We walked back to the carpark, jumped into our minibus and slowly crawled through Jakarta’s late afternoon traffic back to Yello Harmoni Hotel. After refreshing briefly in our room, we walked to Ayam Ancur (a tiny local eatery) for dinner. The walk was challenging, as the footpaths were in poor repair and the street lights were few and far between. We navigated fractured concrete in dim lighting for most of the journey. It wasn’t overly difficult. It was just surprising for a capital city.
On arriving at Ayam Ancuur, we were a little taken aback. The place was very local. ‘Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ local, in fact. We almost walked straight past the place. It was also very basic. However, the surrounds were incidental. The food, which was prepared in a small area on the street frontage, was exceptional. We ordered and shared the following two dishes:
>
ayam goreng ancuur (smashed chicken)
>
tongseng ayam (chicken curry).
The smashed chicken was the house speciality,
and it was amazing. Served on a bamboo plate with fried tempeh and a small bowl of green chilli sambal, I was amazed by the flavour they had managed to pack into the deep-fried (then smashed) chicken. The sambal was ‘blow-your head-off’ strong, but in a very good way. The smashed chicken was such a great dish, as was the chicken curry. They were both absolutely delicious.
We hydrated with
es jeruk (iced orange juice), which offset the heat of the green chilli sambal. It wasn’t fresh orange juice, but it was cold, and that’s all that mattered. I would have loved a beer, but this was a Muslim eatery. We felt incredibly welcome, despite being the only foreigners. A few local families were laughing and feasting at other tables in the eatery, which added so much to the congenial atmosphere. I absolutely loved this place.
We wandered back to the hotel along narrow broken footpaths in the warm balmy night haze. When the footpaths vanished (which they often did), we walked on the busy road. The cars and motorbikes simply made way for us. We stopped at a local supermarket close to our hotel to grab a
few snacks, and the staff members were so incredibly friendly: We picked up the following:
> cassava chips (barbeque)
> lemonia coconut biscuits
> Bali Hai draft lager.
When we eventually arrived at the hotel, we fought through travel fatigue to catch up on our travel notes (in dot point form). We also organised our packs, as we were leaving Jakarta the following day. Then we simply collapsed into bed.
SHE SAID... I woke bright and early at 4:30am again! Having learnt my lesson the day before, I didn’t bother trying to get back to sleep. I used the time to catch up on some travel notes from our previous day in
Jakarta. I knew that once we started travelling around Java our writing time would decrease dramatically, so we had to keep on top of things. Sunrise was at about 5:40am, and unfortunately it looked like it would be another hazy grey day.
We wandered down to Yello Harmoni Hotel’s breakfast room when it opened at 6am, but they weren’t ready. While the hotel was nice and we loved our room, there were many efficiencies lacking in the service areas. Especially on that breakfast
shift. There were lots of staff members, but they were very ineffectively directed.
After having taken stock of most of the offerings at the breakfast buffet the morning before, I started with
bubur ayam (Indonesian chicken congee/rice porridge). It’s usually served in a rice cooker and surrounded by a variety of condiments. I have tried
congee in various Asian countries, and the only time I loved it was in Laos when our group leader suggested which condiments I should try. This morning I guessed the various unmarked condiments… and I got some right, but some not so right. The congee itself was very lovely and silky, and I can see how this is comfort food for those who’ve grown up with it.
Next I tried the
gado-gado (raw and steamed vegetables with tofu and tempeh, served with a peanut sauce dressing). I was drawn to this because the peanut sauce was freshly made and smelled divine. But sadly, that’s the only good thing I can say about it. The green beans tasted like they’d just been pulled out of the fridge; all the other vegetables were limp and tasteless; and the tempeh had a whiff of old socks.
For the second time that morning I pushed the plate aside. Tempeh is a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans, and while I usually like it (and have many fond memories of loving it on my last trip to Jakarta), it’s a naturally cultured food and I decided I didn’t need to tempt fate on the day of a walking tour!
I gave up on the savoury food and moved to the pastry section. I had loved the small traditional doughnuts the day before, but they had been replaced with large American-type cinnamon doughnuts. They were still tasty, so a couple of doughnuts and a few tiny bananas later, I was done. It was such a different food consumption rate to the morning before! 😄
We were facing another 32-degree day with 80% humidity. However, by the time we returned from breakfast, the vista from our room was less hazy than the day before. We were very surprised to realise that we could see the Java Sea from our room! There were many boats and ships anchored out on the horizon that had been engulfed in haze the day before.
Not much later, at 8:30am, we
met the group for our city walking tour. Susi (our group leader) wrangled us into a minibus to take us to our starting point in Glodok (Chinatown). Glodok was north of us, but our hotel was on the south running side of the main road. It took us 15 or so minutes of driving in the wrong direction in order to turn around and drive in the northerly direction. As I said in our last blog – I’m DEFINTIELY not a fan of one-way roads in densely populated cities.
We were dropped off at our first stop in Glodok, which was a Chinese mansion called Candra Naya. We walked between a Starbucks and the Novotel Hotel entrance and came upon an ornate Chinese style building nestled very weirdly at the feet of a number of multistorey buildings. This 18th-century building was part of a complex that was the home of the last Chinese mayor of Batavia (Jakarta’s Old Town).
Despite being protected by heritage building laws, in 1995 its new owners (the family had sold the complex to a construction group) were set to demolish the mansion complex to build high-rise buildings. It was only due to insistent
protests from heritage groups that the main building was eventually spared. The construction group has built what I can only call functional (but very ugly) buildings right up against and over the old building. To say it felt claustrophobic would be an understatement.
For some weird reason, the use of our cameras was forbidden inside the mansion, and only phone photography was allowed. Luckily, most of the best photos were of the shell of the building anyway. The inside of the mansion felt unloved and very peculiar. There was an internal pond that was surrounded by pot plants, and we soon realised that while the fish in the pond were real enough, all the pot plants were plastic! One of the smaller outbuildings had a shrine in it, but the rest of them were empty or used for storage.
I know this could come across as a romantic David and Goliath story, where the small old mansion ultimately won against the new giants of construction; but the reality is that the family sold their ancestral home to builders who were certainly going to knock it down. It could also come across as a blatant case of heritage laws
finally winning over big construction money; but in reality, the shell of the mansion that remains is mostly unusable, and you have to question if the city isn’t better off with the apartment block, food court and other amenities of Green Central City that have been built around this building. It begs the bigger question how city planners manage heritage and new building ventures in such a highly populated city. In this case I don’t think it’s a clear cut ‘heritage = good / new buildings = bad’ situation. Had everyone concerned managed the situation better from the very start, this perfunctory mess wouldn’t forever be a reminder of the many failures to do the right thing.
After that very curious experience, we walked back onto the hot, busy and dusty throughfare of Jalan Gajah Mada which connects the Harmoni Junction area (where our hotel was located) with the Glodok and Kota Tua neighbourhoods. After navigating a couple of blocks of broken pavements, low hanging electricity wires, and stalls and parked motorbikes that blocked the pavement… we came upon the Pantjoran Tea House at the official ‘Welcome to Chinatown’ gate to the Glodok neighbourhood.
Like the Candra Naya
mansion, the Tea House also felt like it was being swallowed up whole by a modern city. Although in this case, the building had been beautifully renovated, and I think it was the nearby building work for an underground metro tunnel that made it look so very forlorn. Hopefully once the metro is built, the Tea House can go back to looking glorious on its triangular street frontage. The Pantjoran Tea House is an example of beautiful old Peranakan architecture (a mix of both Chinese and European architectural styles) that we’ve loved seeing in the old towns of Singapore, Malaysia, Southern Thailand and Vietnam.
As I mentioned earlier, Glodok is the Chinatown of Jakarta. Chinese people have migrated across Southeast Asia for centuries, and Chinese Indonesians apparently make up only 1.2% of the population. We had now entered a microcosm of Chinese culture within the chiefly Muslim space of Jakarta (and indeed Java and Indonesia).
We walked to Petak Sembilan, a very very local street market full of all manner of fresh food. The market is named for the nine small blocks it spans (‘sembilan’ means ‘nine’ in Bahasa Indonesia). We are used to Asian wet markets, but
I have to admit to feeling a bit confronted when I saw a pile of skinned headless frogs in a bowl. I’m not sure why it shocked me, because in reality it’s no different to the piles of plucked chickens or freshly gutted fish. The only other ‘odd’ commodity (for me) were the sea cucumbers. I’ve heard of them and I’ve even seen them cooked, but I’ve never seen them fresh. These ones sitting in rows in a watery bath looked like inflated brown slugs. I found it a bit icky.
The rest of the market stalls was mostly full of fruit, vegetables, local herbs, salted eggs and blocks of tofu. Market visits are great for not only getting to know local ingredients, but also helps to show what’s in season. It looked like petai (stinky beans) were in season, as there were piles of the twisted long beans in many stalls. There were men sitting cross legged and shelling the bright green seeds from their pods, and they found great pleasure in offering us the stinky seeds to try. I’ve only ever had petai as a deep-fried snack, and smothered in salt and garlic (which masked the horrendous
rotten egg smell). I had absolutely no intention of trying it raw! 😊
As for fruits in season, the news wasn’t good. The avocadoes and mangoes were still too green, and the guavas looked overripe. The only luscious looking fruit were dragon fruit, pineapple, custard apples and soursop. And I’m very excited to try them all!
As expected of a Chinatown, there were a few Chinese Buddhist temples in the vicinity. We visited Vihara Dharma Bhakti, which was built in 1650 and is one of Jakarta’s oldest Chinese temples. Some of the temple’s old wooden ornamental work and statues had been destroyed in a fire a few years ago, but from the outside it still looked impressive with colourful shrines, masses of red lanterns, huge metal incense burners and tall red candles.
As interesting as the temple was, this was our first encounter in Jakarta of people begging. Small families seemed to have camped at the temple to appeal to the temple goers. Susi chose this temple to give us an overview of the history of Chinatown and the cultural and economic issues faced by the Chinese migrants over the years. It was all very interesting, but
I found it difficult to absorb everything she was saying… it was not only hot, but I had a woman standing at my elbow constantly asking for money.
We have a policy of supporting grassroots charity organisations instead of giving money to people (especially when children are involved). This also aligns very strongly with Intrepid Travel’s position on responsible travel. However, it’s very difficult to look away when a small child is being pushed forward by a mother to ask for money. Susi was relieved that everyone in the group stayed strong and didn’t give money to the kids.
We walked back along the market street and got another look at the skinned frogs in a bowl. I noted that I averted my eyes for the second time. This was a very authentic market experience, and we were the only tourists in the area until we got further into the Glodok neighbourhood. The main street was bustling, and even though we constantly kept getting in the way of shoppers and motorbikes, no one seemed to mind that much.
The market extended into quieter narrow alleyways that had more local stalls. This maze of little alleys was barely
wide enough for two people, let alone allowing space for a motorbike to pass. The alleys had old school shophouses on both sides, and it was so narrow that the canopies from the houses met in the middle and made the lane weather proof! But it also made it somewhat dark and dingy.
The lanes were overflowing with trinkets, incense, herbal medicine and various cooked foods. Susi explained that this was one of the few places you could buy non-halal food like pork, but I noticed that many of the stalls displayed ‘halal’ banners (cooked with ingredients that are permissible in Islam).
On one of those small lanes called Kalimati Alley, Susi bought us some Chinese cakes from a famous stall called Pia Lao Beijing. The small round pia cakes have a flaky Chinese dough and are filled with a variety of fillings. Susi opted for the traditional mung bean filling, which I was very pleased about. I had been somewhat nervous she was going to make us try the durian one!
Not long after we exited the dark alley and blinked in the bright light, we stopped at a minimart to buy some cold drinks before
continuing our walk towards Kota Tua. Back on a main road, we mostly walked in the shade of derelict Peranakan shophouses. Shophouses are old school mixed-use buildings – a shop with street frontage downstairs and a house upstairs. Even though these shophouses were all boarded up and looking very run-down… a range of artists and peddlers of all manner of small antique items added some life into the area by selling their wares all along the shaded walkway.
Walking through parts of Glodok and this part of town wasn’t for the faint-hearted. The streets were dusty and grungy, some of the narrow alleys had unsavoury drain smells, and the run-down buildings weren’t exactly picturesque. Despite this, I still firmly maintain that the best way to get to know a city is to walk its streets.
We were now entering Kota Tua, which is Jakarta’s Old Town and was once called Batavia (and still is by some people). We walked through the old banking district, and it was immediately apparent that the area was rich with colonial architecture. When we were standing at a corner near the Bank Mandiri building and the Jakarta Kota Train Station, Susi told us
that this marked the end of new Jakarta and the start of old Batavia.
There was apparently a time when Batavia had the most expensive and sort after property, but the old sewage and plumbing systems couldn’t sustain the large numbers that flocked there, and it caused widespread flooding. This was a pivotal point in Jakarta’s urban landscape, as it created a shift when South Jakarta emerged as the new sort-after neighbourhood to live in.
Old Batavia slowly deteriorated, and in recent years the government has been trying to rejuvenate the area by restoring and repurposing the heritage buildings. For the most part I’d say the rejuvenation plan is working. All the major buildings look stunning, and are clearly enjoying their new lives as museums. At one point we were encircled by the art deco beauties of the Jakarta Kota Train Station and Bank Mandiri Museum, as well as the very grand classical styled Bank of Indonesia Museum. After the neglected shophouses of Glodok, these big white buildings felt almost too grand. This theme of grandeur continued as we entered Taman Fatahillah (Fatahillah Square).
The large cobblestone square is fully surrounded by old Dutch colonial buildings. Almost
one entire side is taken up by the old Town Hall, which is now the Jakarta History Museum. Adjacent to it is the old Court of Justice, which is now the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum. The other two sides have smaller but no less grand colonial buildings that house more museums, restaurants and cafes. We were drawn to the array of cannons in the square, but Susi wanted to explain the significance of a particular one called Si Jagur – an old Portuguese cannon that has been ornately decorated. On closer inspection it revealed a very ‘interesting’ hand gesture (a fist with the thumb protruding between the index and middle finger) that doubles as a knob. This is an antiquated obscene gesture of a sexual nature; and I just can’t figure out why anyone would think this is a significant piece of cultural history to be put on displayed.
Speaking of colonial heritage, I should mention that apart from the colonial buildings, another visible legacy left by the Dutch are the many canals that run through the old parts of Jakarta. Some of the canals are well maintained and look rather lovely with greenery and small bridges over
them; but sadly, others are full of rubbish and ponged of stagnant water.
Back at Fatahillah Square… while we were standing in front of the beautiful building that houses Café Batavia, Susi informed us that this was our lunch destination. We were all a bit baffled because it was only 11:30am and we weren’t being picked up by our minibus until after 1:30pm. There were a few restless mutterings in the ranks, but given it was only the first day, I don’t think anyone felt brave enough to say anything.
So… we sat upstairs in Café Batavia’s gorgeous dining room and ordered drinks to while away the time. I ordered the very interesting sounding Pandan latte – palm sugar, pandan leaf and ginger infused milk with a shot of espresso… and it was delicious! I really love fusion flavours like this. Andrew had his first Bintang beer and proclaimed that it was just the thing after our hot morning walk. As confused as we were about why we were ‘wasting’ so much time in a cafe, at least it was a very beautiful and comfortable space to do so in.
We eventually ordered lunch. Our platter of
sate ayam Madura (chicken satay) was delicious! The peanut sauce and the sticks of satay coated in sticky kecap manis (a sweet and spicy soy sauce) were absolute perfection. It was served with interesting tasting
lontong rice cakes (rice steamed in banana leaves) and sides of a hot sambal, pickled vegetables and more kecap manis. This was an excellent dish, and it’s a great pity we can’t say the same about the other dish we ordered. Due to the dismal failure of the
gado-gado dish I’d tried at breakfast, Andrew thought he’d give the dish another try. Well… although the peanut sauce was excellent, the dish comprised of insipid vegetables and dry tasteless tempeh and tofu. We both agreed that we should give
gado-gado a break for a while.
After our unexpectedly long lunch, we gathered ourselves to venture back into the sun. However, I want to make one last note before we left the old town – Batavia isn’t just about Dutch history and architecture, it’s also where the name for the ethic group indigenous to Jakarta – the Betawi – comes from.
We were picked up by our minibus and driven a kilometre or so to
the Sunda Kelapa Port on the estuarine of the Ciliwung River. The port is famous for the fact that it’s where the Dutch first landed, but even more importantly, it’s still a very busy port and is still full of old ships. The port was hot and uninviting in the sense that it was very much a working port. We had to dodge trucks, porters with delivery-trolleys, and pulley systems loading crates into the big wooden ships which sat on the other side of a levee.
We climbed rickety metal stairs pushed up against the levee to get a better look at the large wooden Makassar schooners, and to also get out of the way of the trucks. I have to admit that I wasn’t a big fan of walking along the very uneven levee, but there’s no denying that the view of the big hulking ships was quite a spectacle.
The Makassar schooners (also called ‘pinisi’) are traditional two-masted wooden sailing ships that were built in South Sulawesi by villagers who were considered master shipbuilders and superb seafarers. These big old things once travelled as far as northern Australia, but are now mostly used for cargo transport
between Indonesian islands.
Susi explained that a unique feature of these old boats is that they build an exoskeleton structure of the ship first and then the internal bones. A few of the old ships were being repaired, and I could see how much work goes into keeping these ships seaworthy. The men were sanding, painting and seemingly sealing leaks, and every single one of them had a cigarette dangling from their mouths. They were tough and weather-beaten men who seemed fairly curious about us… I suppose in much the same way as we were curious about their ships.
Even though Sunda Kelapa Port is mentioned in places like the Lonely Planet guide, I was very surprised to see that there wasn’t another tourist in sight – local or foreign. It was no doubt a hot and dusty place, and not an ‘easy’ tourist location… but I loved seeing a sight that’s said to look exactly as it did a hundred years ago!
We got back into our minibus and were driven south to Masjid Istiqlal. Interestingly, this mosque allows non-Muslims to enter on guided tours with a mosque guide. This was Jakarta’s biggest mosque, and we
got a sense of its size from the gigantic underground carpark our minibus parked in. When we walked upstairs and started approaching the mosque, the guards called out to Susi and told her that the mosque had just closed to non-Muslims because the 3pm prayer time was about to begin. We were all very surprised… not at the prayer time (which is the same everyday), but because we’d just lounged at Café Batavia for a few hours having drinks and a long lunch… which had no doubt impacted the timing of this visit.
Anyway. We were supposed to visit Jakarta Cathedral after the mosque, and seeing as it was just across the road, we thought we’d kill some time there. Happily, the cathedral was open even though it was a Monday (normally it’s only open to the public on Sundays). We felt rather lucky to have a look inside the church with its soaring ceiling and stained glass. However, after admiring the external neo-gothic architecture, with its striking (yet somehow incongruent) white metal spires; the interior felt very subdued.
We wandered around the outside of the church and came upon an undercover side space that is used as
an overflow area during the bigger Masses. While Susi talked about religion and its place in Indonesian life, we couldn’t help but notice there were two ‘meet and greet’ cardboard cut-outs near us – one was of the Bishop of Jakarta and one was of Pope Francis. The aim was that you could ‘sit with the Pope’ and have your photo taken. This was an opportunity Andrew and I weren’t going to miss…especially as there was a cute little kitten playing with the Pope too! 😄
By the time we wandered back to Susi, she was telling the group that it was a requirement that Indonesians have their religion stated on their ID cards. This was a shocking concept to many of us who came from countries where your religion (or lack thereof) is a private affair. It set the scene for how we should view religion in the context of the country we were about to start exploring.
It was only after I left the cathedral that I realised I would have visited it once before. This was where my Mum went for Mass every Sunday while she lived in Jakarta, and it would most likely have
been where we went for Christmas Mass during our holiday. I genuinely had no memory of any of it.
The Masjid Istiqlal was still closed to us, as there were people still praying. I really admired that they put their worshipers before tourists, even though sitting around waiting (for the second time that day) wasn’t much fun. However, this gave us a chance to have a good look at the exterior of the mosque. The contemporary design wasn’t really to my liking. I’ve always loved the strong sense of symmetry and beautifully balanced colour and design in old Islamic architecture – but in this case, I felt beautiful design had been trumped by a big and sprawling build. There was also what I thought was a moat around the mosque, but soon realised it was a tributary of the Ciliwung River. Given the river feeds the many old Dutch canals in the area, it also had flood gates.
While we were waiting, one of the group members jokingly tried to stage a mutiny… he suggested that we skip the mosque. But the general consensus was given we’d waited this long; we might as well wait a bit longer.
And we were very glad we did!
We were eventually greeted by Yusuf, a very affable volunteer who was going to guide us around the mosque and ensure we didn’t get in the way of anyone praying. We took our shoes off and walked to a small office in one of the hallways of this huge mosque. We left our shoes and bags in the office, and Yusuf made an assessment of who needed robes to cover knees and shoulders. The full-length flowing green silk robes for women were so cute that I asked for one even though I didn’t need one. I especially liked that it had a hood. 😊
After the blokes posed for a few photos in their shorter kimono-style brown robes, Yusuf led us upstairs to a viewing balcony that looked over the central prayer hall. It was a stunningly huge space with a massive sparkly blue dome and 12 large pillars. He explained that the Istiqlal Mosque was named after the Arabic word for ‘Independence’. To commemorate this, the internal architecture had features tied to the date of Indonesia’s independence from the Dutch (August 1945) – the diameter of the smaller of its
two domes was 8m, and the main dome was 45m. The architecture had more religious symbolism too. As an example, the five levels of the mosque represented the five pillars of Islam. Other nuggets of interesting information were that the central prayer hall can hold 100,000 worshipers and the outside courtyard can hold another 100,000; it’s the biggest mosque in Southeast Asia in size and capacity, and the third biggest in the world by capacity; and the tiling of the courtyard simulates the carpet squares that one person could stand and pray on.
Yusuf then took us downstairs, where we walked along one of the arcades that connected the main hall to the open-air prayer courtyard. We stood at a vantage point where we could see the mosque’s very tall minaret on one side, its massive dome on another, and the spires of the cathedral across the road. Yusuf kept stressing the point that Indonesians are proud of their religious tolerance, and noted that the mosque was built in the vicinity of the cathedral as a show of this unity.
I can think of alternative explanations for building a supersized religious house on the doorstep of another religious
house… especially when the latter is the religion of the recently booted-out colonial masters. But I really liked Yusuf and his genuine welcoming nature, and I was happy to accept his explanation at face value.
After this lovely end to our city explorations, we piled into our minibus for the last time and returned to our hotel just before the afternoon rainstorm. While we’d been exploring the city, the skies had been constantly changing. The morning had off hazy grey but gradually showed hints of sunny blue, but then while waiting at the mosque the swollen rain clouds rolled in. We were very lucky to make it back to the hotel before the storm hit.
We didn’t have long to relax in our room before a few of us met downstairs for dinner. I’ve mentioned the surprisingly late sunrises in Jakarta, but I haven’t yet mentioned the surprisingly early sunsets (at 5:30pm). By the time we left for dinner at 6pm the streets were dark, and the broken and sometimes absent pavements were a little hazardous. Thankfully the rain had stopped, but the wet ground made things even harder.
Susi had heard good things about a very
local restaurant called Ayam Ancuur, a small family run place about 15 minutes’ walk from our hotel. Regardless of how a place looks, if it’s packed with locals, we know we are in good hands. And this place was clearly much loved by local families! It was so local that the menu was only in Bahasa Indonesia. We were very thankful that we had Susi to read and explain the menu to us. Andrew had the special deep-fried and ‘smashed’ chicken dish the shop is named for –
ayam ancuur – which was served with a delicious hot green chilli sauce that was pretty intense! I had the
tongseng ayam which was a sort of cross between a chicken curry and a stew – with cabbage, tomatoes, coconut milk and kecap manis. It was served with rice, and it was seriously delicious!
We walked back to the hotel via the Rezeki supermarket to buy some snacks for our long train trip the next day. I love trying new flavours of biscuits and chips (crisps) when we travel, and I was very happy to get packets of local coconut biscuits and cassava chips (a favourite of ours). But to be
honest, I wasn’t sure if they’d last the night! Andrew was pleasantly surprised to see a fridge with beer near the checkout area… so we were now well armed with snacks and drinks for a session of writing travel notes that night. 😊
Well, our time in Jakarta had come to an end. A capital city is by no means a representation of the whole country, but it does give a solid starting point from which to understand a country.
Jakarta is one of those Asian capitals that isn’t rated highly, and I can kind of understand why… it’s not an easy place to get to know; there are horrible traffic jams; the public transport isn’t great; there are very few green spaces; and the alternating heat and floods aren’t kind to those living in less than adequate housing. But if the expanding art scene, somewhat pretentious coffee houses, and western style fast food outlets are anything to go by, I’d say it points to a growing middle class. Which is never a bad thing.
It’s easy to perceive Jakarta as a bland concrete jungle with no big-ticket tourist items like other cities — but I’m so
happy we gave ourselves some time to look beneath the surface and discover its many hidden gems. After our time in Jakarta, I’m a bit wiser about Indonesia’s colonial history, its endeavours to create a national identity, its diverse religions and its local people. And I’m now very eager to experience the rest of Java.
Next we travel southeast to Pangandaran, a coastal village in West Java.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.125s; Tpl: 0.025s; cc: 16; qc: 34; dbt: 0.0268s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Jasmin Baker
non-member comment
Beautiful photos
I really enjoy the photos in your posts. They make me feel almost like I’m there in Jakarta 🙂