Mention "Jakarta", and most people will think of a chaotic city with traffic jams, smogs, slums, beggars, touts, floods, riots, and a bunch of other bad things. Thanks to all these negative impressions, Jakarta acquired the nickname "Big Durian", which more or less summarises the characteristics of the city - smelly, thorny, thick-skinned, overwhelming.... Hence, it's not surprisingly that Jakarta is not a popular travel destination. (Most tourists who went to Indonesia probably spent most of their time in Bali... That's why when I visit a bookstore I will normally see a big pile of Bali maps but not a single Jakarta map.) I last visited Jakarta in 1990, when I was only 8 years old. The purpose of that trip was to visit my aunt (my dad's second sister) who was operating a clothes factory
... read more