Jakarta Revisited

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Jakarta in a strange way grows on you.

The city becomes very tropical and is a huge urban metropolis but then the leaves and trees surround you and you see that nature is not far away and the jungle is not completely distanced from you in the city. The speed of the traffic whirls past you. It's dirty, full of cars, hot, steamy, but life is buzzing around.

So let me complain just a bit. My work put me in this corporate apartment and sure it's in the diplomatic quarter with mansions for blocks around. But there is no store within a 20 minute walk. I wanted a bottle of water and had to take a taxi around the city on a 30 minute drive. It's fine for someone with a car and who wants a quiet place to live, but for a traveller who doesn't speak any Indonesian words, this is very isolating and a simple trip to a small shop turns into a major expedition and pain in the ass. And combine that with no taxi that was able to find this place without stopping and asking for directions at least 3 times before making it here. For dinner, you can walk 20-25 minutes to eat in a shopping mall which is packed with like 80,000 people are lined up to eat. Nightmare.

Anyways, there's a Bikram Yoga place in Kemang which is saving me.

Now, I'm thinking alot about my job. This time, it's no one's fault but it ends up that I came here to help out and I'm working about 12 hours a day minimum with only two days off all month. NGOs are all like this: understaffed and always chasing pies in the sky without adequate resources. I am just thinking that this is not the way for someone to live their life. And somehow you feel as though this killing of yourself only feeds the machine but doesn't really mean better lives for people in these countries. So I'm planning ways to not repeat this in the future.

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Photos

Jakarta Airport Duty Free
Not your usual duty free items