Last night we hopped over the equator with a short two-hour flight from Johor Bahru to Jakarta. Having arrived in Jakarta late last night, today was our first taste of Indonesia. This morning we hailed a cab to take us to the Maritime Museum. I thought it would be a good place to begin to understand the city, since it got its start as a port (known as Sunda Kelapa in the old days, Batavia under the Dutch, and Jayakarta under the British). The cab ride was sweltering. It was only around eleven in the morning, but it was unbelievably hot. Phuket was so humid, sometimes it felt like we were breathing water. Then Malacca and Singapore were just plain hot. But Jakarta seems the worst of both worlds- super humid and crazy hot. Not only was it unbearably hot, but the traffic was just gridlocked. The six kilometer ride took over twenty minutes in the congested polluted streets. Tons of exhaust, no order on the roads, and large pools and puddles settled on the low-lying parts of the road.

We made it to the old watch-tower which used to direct traffic over the old harbor. The tower was closed, but it was cool to see. The tower is surrounded by a small stone square complete with cannons still in place, but it just overlooks a polluted canal and tons of traffic these days. We walked over the Maritime Museum, but it was also closed. I got a few photos of the old building though, which was some consolation. We checked out a nearby market which was kind of disappointing. Chinatown was next on our list of things to see/do. We would’ve walked but didn’t want to walk through the flooded areas we had to drive through, so we took another cab. The cab driver didn’t know exactly where we wanted to go, so he dropped us where we thought was close. After wandering around a bit in the heat, we stopped for some drinks. Nobody had a clue where the two Chinese temples our guidebook mentioned were. Leaving the café, we decided to just go back to our guesthouse. It was hot, nobody (including us) knew where we were, and Joylani and I were both getting irritable. But as we were leaving, I asked an older man sitting on the steps of the café if he knew of the temples and he did! He pointed us in the right direction. We had actually passed it a couple times in our wanderings, but had missed it since it consisted of just a small road set back behind some small alleyways from the main road. We didn’t go in the temples as they were mostly filled with homeless. Walking around Chinatown was interesting though. It was run down and there weren’t a ton of Chinese people everywhere. Joylani said it was the least amount of Chinese people in a Chinatown she’d been to, adding that it was quite a contrast to the sterilized Singapore Chinatown. At least we got to see what Chinese people here eat, which is always exciting. We saw bowls of small turtles, a table of skinned frogs (next to the table of live frogs), but I couldn’t find the monkey meat I’d heard about. Aside from what we saw, anti-Chinese sentiment is incredibly strong in Indonesia (especially Jakarta) and I will write more about this and the other violent events of Jakarta’s recent past in tomorrow’s post.

mmmmm….skinned frogs

After Chinatown, we headed over to the National Monument, which is actually just a large square with an incredibly huge tower in the middle of it. It is joked to be Soeharto’s “final erection” referring to the dictator’s last accomplishment before being forced out of office. We took an elevator up to the top which afforded awesome views of Jakarta’s skyline and endless urban sprawl. I should add smoggy to that description as well, as it was some of the worst smog we’ve seen.

me holding Soeharto’s “final erection”

watching the Jakarta police practice dealing with mock protesters for the upcoming Olympic Torch relay (from the top of the tower) was mildly interesting…nothing like watching a bunch of police peel off from their column to disable a terrorist food cart.

Below the monument is a simple museum chronicling Indonesia’s history through dozens of dioramas. It was a pretty weak and propagandized museum, but it was interesting nonetheless. By this time we were pooped and we took a rickshaw back to our guesthouse. We crashed for a few hours before venturing out again for some dinner later. First impressions of Jakarta/Indonesia: hot, crazy, good food, cheap, and interesting.