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6. Jakarta: the city made for cars and those with bolt cutters!

  • Writer: Pip Andrews
    Pip Andrews
  • Apr 15
  • 11 min read

Having written the last blog and set it to upload and publish (a lengthy process), I trotted off along the beach to get a tea. Stopping and chatting to those off diving revealed that they were off to the site we hadn’t been able to dive earlier in the week, which I’d really wanted to dive.


Five minutes later, I had all my freshly rinsed and drying kit set back up, swimwear on and was joining the boat for a final, final day of diving. Fortunately, we were able to dive ‘Christmas Rock’ site and another near by and had a fabulous day - with another borrowed camera to play with it! I was out of the water and finished at 12.10pm with my flight due to take off the next day at 12.25pm so leaving me with a 24hr window still that must be left between diving and flying! For the evening of our final day, we had a fab beach dinner buffet, which was a treat - then personalised breakfast plates for our final morning. I’d have preferred they spent more time cooking my eggs without breaking the yolk as a priority but there you go!



Our boat trip back to the main island went smoothly and we piled into cars that were waiting to drive us to the airport. The dashboard decoration that the driver had was fairly reflective of his driving style. We started out chatting and commenting on scenery as we passed through the villages. The Indonesians have right hand drive cars, like the UK, and they drive largely on the left… By the time our driver had pulled out to overtake a lorry, into the right hand lane on a blind bend then got pushed right over as the lorry had to swing out to manage the bend and we’d been edged over onto the grassy verge and still on the wrong side of the road, we’d all quietened down, started gripping our seats and ensured our seat belts were securely fastened. Fortunately, our driver pulled back over and waited for a later opportunity to overtake when there were only a few scooter drivers weaving about on both sides of the road. As seems to be the case with the rest of Asia, scooters are family transport vehicles. A surprising number of the drivers did seem to have helmets on, but never the passengers - which could include 1-2 other people, some of whom were gripping infants from toddlers down to seemingly quite new born babies. None of them need helmets because it’s only the driver who’s vulnerable in the event of a crash, obviously.


For the flight from Kaimana to Sorong, it was a lengthy checkin process - mainly slowed by the fact that there was only one check in desk open that many staff stood around looking at while the girl checking us all in took frequent breaks to apparently just do a bit of scrolling on her mobile - presumably her job isn’t demanding enough or her social media really is? There was a slightly alarming minute or two at the airport. It’s a very small site so you all sit in the same little greenhouse next to the tarmac and they just open the door periodically and call your flight. When one man in high vis (obviously of some status in the hierarchy of airport workers) opened the door and yelled ‘fuck-fuck’ across the room, we all politely looked away and shared a few worried glances between us. A few minutes, when a second person repeated the call, after a little quiet conversation and clarification between us, it became clear, we realised, that rather than an interesting case of contagious Tourettes, they were in fact calling for passengers flying to the tiny island of Fak Fak and order was restored!


I successfully got onto the right plane on my first attempt this time and off our little propeller plane went. It felt like the pilot might have been a bit of learner - he seems to be at the stage in his training where he’s pretty good at take off and cruising but still needing a little more practice at landing. It all felt slightly rushed - rather than a gradual descent he went for more of a ‘drop out of the sky’ approach to the run way. Once we’d landed, the breaking was quite severe then went into full emergency stop and hand break turn off the end of the run way before we taxied to the stand. My self, the Texan Americans and the Swiss contingent were all on the same plane and then all staying at the same hotel in Sorong. Once we’d all made our way to the  hotel, we dumped bags and all headed off to a pizza place that had been recommended, which was a shady wooden cottage type place that orchids attached to the trees to grow; they seem to require considerably less care than the ones people have as pot plants in the UK!


During a quick trip to the local convenience shop for milk, I stopped to watch a very noisy police car and police bikes with sirens steam down the road doing some kind of enterage type escort. Behind it just seemed to be hundreds of scooters beeping away then final a little car, with ribbons tied to it. I must have looked a bit puzzled as the woman on the pavement (really more the side of the road that less scooters drive down) turned to me as said ‘is a wedding’ then did a big smile and charade of what I assume was a bride wearing a huge dress. I responded as appropriately as I could although I felt even more puzzled by the police escort and sirens and lights that a wedding here apparently demands!



My 11.05 late morning flight from Sorong to Jakarta meant I had time to indulge in the breakfast buffet with a view across the pool. Over looking the pool from the other side was the gym. Being subjected to watching the terribly healthy people who’d forgone the breakfast pastries and were instead sweating it out on the treadmill was a little unnecessary I felt. On arrival to the airport, I discovered there was no 11.05 flight to Jakarta - but there was one at 10.45 with only a slightly changed flight number and with the same airline. The checkin desk lady seemed remarkably uninterested in my enquiry and checked me into the 10.45 flight and off I went. Another good reason for always allowing extra arrival to the airport time! Fortunately, security was quick and since I wasn’t carrying any lighters, scissors or plastic spoons, I was waved on through! I still had time to peruse the souvenir stands and buy a magnet.


My final stop is on the coast just on the outskirts of Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. My little place is in Bahama Tower on floor 12 overlooking the pool and the sea alongside part of the city. The lift can take you to floor 36 and the pent house above that. However, there are only actually 33 floors total as the number 4 is considered unlucky in Indonesia because it’s pronounced in almost the same way the word ‘death’ is pronounced (makes you wonder they picked that when they were making up the language). Therefor there aren't floors 4,14 or 24 and also no floor 13 to ensure the westerners don’t encounter any bad luck either. My first afternoon here, I ventured out to find a shop for supplies and some dinner. Everything I needed seemed to be on the other side of a dual carriageway that I couldn’t see how to get across … until I saw a local man about to attempt it and trotted along in his wake watching how he just spotted a small gap in traffic, held out his hand for cars to stop and made his way across, lane by lane.


Having eaten Indonesian (fish/meat, rice and veggies in various sauces or broths) for the past 3 weeks, I googled other food options and selected what claimed to be an ‘authentic Indonesian noodles and pasta’ place. It was definitely the Indonesian branch of Pizza Express but it was nice - and pasta and a drink cost me around 100,000 rupiah, which is just under £5 and seems to be what absolutely everything you ever buy here tends to come to! While making my way for my authentic pasta dinner, I crossed through a mall where it seemed initially that there was a huge queue to get in, complete with security guards and a barrier queuing system. I followed the stream of people not joining the mega queue to see if I could walk through and soon found the queue was for a highly anticipated ‘grand opening’ of an Asian, famous instagram, shop called ‘Chagee’, which it turns out is a milk tea place. To be clear, that’s not a hot tea with milk (an excitement I’d understand) but what they call milk tea which is a range of cold milk drinks. I considered rushing home, making a proper tea in my flask and bringing it to back to the queue to educate them on proper tea but given the massive queues and endless streams zombies walking past clutching there multicoloured iced drinks, I realised these mindless influenced were already way beyond help.



On my first full day, I decided to go off and see some of the sights of Jakarta. Quite a lot of googling and research quickly informed me that there really isn’t much of culture or beauty to see in Jakarta. It’s a rapidly spreading concrete jungle surrounded by local shops and narrow streets around the edges with increasing poverty with the metal shack houses and pour sanitation. To start my day, I dropped off a bag of almost all my clothes to a nice man in the local laundry. (He spoke as much English as I do Indonesian so we got by through a game of charades and pointing. I believe we’ve agreed that my washing will be done on express so ready for collection in 24 hrs. I’m also fairly sure that he’s told me he doesn’t separate colours / whites and so my white shirt will likely be dyed blue / grey through colour running. I’ve told him it’s fine and just wash the lot. I’ll take the shirt round to my mum once I’m home as she’s ever so good at sorting laundry troubles like that!!). Next I summoned a cab on my handy Asian taxi app and headed into the centre of the capital (about a 40 minute journey - cost around 100,000 rupiah, of course). We went via the ‘highway’ - designed as a three lane motorway with a narrow hard shoulder (and a toll equivalent to 40p to use). The locals clearly know this is not well designed or how it should be so they have collectively decided to squeeze up and use the full width of the road for 5 lanes. Occasionally, when some one has broken down or got a flat tyre, everyone just further squeezes up so the outer lane can go round. Seems a sensible adjustment to me - and much like how the locals of Portsmouth treat the often incorrectly designed road layouts and markings we’ve got too, so I’m told by non-locals who hate dislike in my city! My plan was get to dropped off as the big park and National monument for a look around then walk down one of the main commercial streets taking in a couple of other monuments and end at the Mall of Indonesia - apparently it’s worth seeing & browsing!


Turns out, despite all my research, the monument park is closed today so I walked round the outside and got the odd glimpse until a policeman opened the gate for me to view from a far and take a photo. He told me the park is closed on Mondays for saving money. Given the vast amount of police and and security guards they’re paying to sit about in large groups, smoking, while they turn away unsuspecting tourists, I’m very surprised there is any cost saving involved. I don’t think it was a huge loss as it was really just an uninspiring ‘park’ with a fairly impressive monument statue in the middle.


I did my walk round rather than through the park, with the odd glimpse of the monument over the fencing then commenced the walk down the central street where it quickly became abundantly obvious that Jakarta has not been made for pedestrians. There are pavements but whenever they need them for parking on, riding scooters down, generally digging holes and construction, sitting I large groups smoking, or using to cone off to change road layouts for more cars, you have to go round via the road. There are zebra crossing but as with any other country in the world aside from the UK, they serve as little more than decoration. Occasionally there are even traffic lights and red man / green man for pedestrians- but when the man is green, it means only one half of the traffic is stopped. The half coming the other way or turning into the road, is continuing to pass at full speed. Midway along my high-risk traffic strewn walk, I spotted a Starbucks and knowing there would be the blessed relief of some super air con, I attempted a detour for a cool down and refreshment stop. Further proof that pedestrians are really not planned for came with the full walk round the entire perimeter, which was marked with fencing topped with barbed wire. I had get to the car entrance to the parking and gain access to the building that way. They seem to quite like barbed / razor wire here - sometimes as a deterrent, sometimes as a full barrier but it’s certainly having what I presume is the desired effect of putting off anyone not willing to use a car to get around the city! Or perhaps necessitating the use of bolt cutters to get through?


I eventually made it to the mall - with another of the ‘top things to do in Jakarta’ next to it … a round about with a monument and fountain on. You can’t get to it or do anything more than peer over the numerous lanes of traffic to look at it. I’m not convinced they’ve entirely got it down with tourist attractions - it’s the second roundabout I saw with a nice centrepiece on. I looked round the mall briefly … it’s just a big shopping mall of designer named shops and certainly not any less expensive than Britain. Attempts at seeing the city sights complete, I briefly looked at if I could work out how to get a bus home. Ironically, the buses are electric … they are surrounded by a city build exclusively for millions of cars, super air con in most buildings, endless electronic screens and flashing adverts and lighting lighting and single use plastic everywhere. Still, Starbucks have paper straws and the buses are electric. Every little helps ….. Anyway, it was going to take me two buses and a journey time of over two hours so I admitted defeat and summoned myself another taxi (100,000 rupiah of course) and made my way back to my place where I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and reading by the pool and eating pad Thai for dinner!



For the final days here, I plan to spend my time at the pool, relaxing in my little apartment and doing nothing more taxing than cheating death to cross the motorway and collect my laundry. I don’t know why anyone worries about the extreme sport I like to fill my free time with under the sea in amongst the Titan trigger monsters, unpredictable and mega currents and all the potential risks divers work hard to avoid. It’s crossing roads that is the real worry! 25 days away from home, over 88 hours of which were / will be spent flying, in airports or travelling to and from airports, 4 new parts of Indonesia visited, 41 more dives completed - taking my total to 327, plenty of ‘not seen those before’ species added to my list of ‘dived with’ including whale sharks and dolphins and the only casualty was, sadly, my camera - and possibly my ‘this used to be white’ shirt that I expect I’ll have to give Mum to fix once the laundry man has popped it in the colours wash! Another excellent and successful adventure.


 
 
 

1 kommentar


saraandrews0
16. apr.

excellent photos (although maybe a bit smaller than with the other camera. Have a safe trip home. X

Synes godt om
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