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Asia » Indonesia » Java » Jakarta
April 22nd 2010
Published: April 22nd 2010
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I decided to separate Jakarta...
After Bali the cousins and I flew back to Jakarta.
Jakarta to me felt like an undefinable city...Parhaps its character is its lack of definition...Like many Southeast Asian cities, it has beautiful colonial era buildings (Dutch), especially in the Batavia neighborhood, but there seems, and I could be completely wrong, a tremendous neglect...The city, minus the small Golden Triangle area, is very delapitated. The museums have great collection, but they are not maintained or coherent...The old and the new are not coordinated or conscious of each other, they are just adjacent to each other...It is intense and merciless...The traffic is horrendous and in my opnion supercedes any other Asian city..Beside the Batavia Neighborhood and too far from it, the ship docks lined with colorful, large wooden boats is quite interesting and a great location for the photography intusiast (I will add the exact name of the place later). In Jakarta I felt a period of prosperity that was abruptly halted.
I spent some time at the Batavia Cafe. The food and drinks were quite good. The building is an old colonial building, updated and renovated. I felt really comfortable there and for some reasons had a hard time leaving it. I could have st on one of its lounge chairs and had a chat with a stranger for hours...
I spent One day visiting Istighlal Mosque, Independence monument, and the puppet museums. The museum building is quite beautiful, the collection is quite impressive, but the exhibition is quite poorly done.
If you are ever in Jakarta, you should also check out Pasar Seni, where basically all of Indonesia's Artifacts are sold at this shopping/entertainment village. Artist have Kiosk where they exhibit and sell their work. Some of the work is quite interesting. The concept of the village is quite interesting.
So there you go for an undefinable city, I should try to explain and define it. Next to Yogyakarta.
M
p.s. When in Jakarta visit the Senda Kelapa Harbor, with its magnificent, large, wooden boats. I ook some pictures with cousin S's camera. so, hopefully, if and when I get a hold of them, I will upload the pictures...
M again



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