Jakarta nightmares

Our very first stop (for an extended period) in Asia happened to be Indonesia, of which we knew nothing about prior to arrival.  I'll admit, we did everything wrong from the very beginning.

We flew in to Jakarta around midnight from Singapore.  As soon as the plane landed I knew it was going to be a crazy country....the moment all the wheels of the plane were on the ground, people started standing up to get their bags and push themselves to the front of the plane.   The pilots had to make continual announcements to get people to sit down again...all I could think was...where are we going?

A view of Jakarta from its National History Museum (taken the next day)

So there we were in Jakarta...with no hotel reservation, no plan for transportation....at midnight.
The lonely planet said that the cheapest way was to take the bus....so on belief that the lonely planet could do no wrong (did I mention it was our first stop?) I paraded my way thru hoards of desperate taxi drivers to the bus stop, where we were pushed on to a bus by very loud, short men....and then waited for 2 hours....from there, after 2 more stops at other airports and more waiting, we were dropped off at the train station at 2am, covered in sweat, in a rain storm, terrified and hungry, with mosquitos swarming us in darkness.   We had no idea which direction to go and were terrified of looking it up in the sacred book of answers and having someone 'know' we didn't know what we were doing....looking back...our idiocy was pretty obvious!  Could we have had a better experience?  Most definitely...will I go back to try it all over again?  Absolutely not!

Our second meal in Jakarta - found in the basement of a mall downtown,
(right next to a basement mall grocery store)
Not bad food in retrospect, but as my first toasty whole fish, a bit terrifying

We eventually meandered our way to the "L.P. recommended" mosquito infested hostel (there were smears of blood covering the walls from previous guests swatting the gigantic mosquito bodies against the white windowless cell like walls) and found some food down the street to the screeching melody of old, drunk, expat Australian men.  The one major achievement that evening?  The discovery of super large sized Indonesian Bintang beers for $1 each!  After a few of those while waiting the required hour it takes to get food in Indonesia (pretty sure they had to go find and kill a chicken for every meal we ate there), the rest didn't seem quite so bad...the large, hairy Australian men seemed more like friendly accomplices and our hostel room was...cozy at 4 in the morning.

The next day we discovered the side walk we had walked along in the dark the night before with our oversized paks and looks of terror had sporadic 2 foot gaping holes here and there that you had to leap over or risk breaking a leg.  All of the decaying sidewalks in Jakarta have a deep and wide gutter system underneath them, which keeps the entire city from flooding and terrifies pedestrians...we were the only people walking the streets....it's almost impossible to cross the 5 car wide streets in some parts of the city.  Most people take taxis!

'walking' downtown Jakarta
This photo was taken on an overpass we fortunately found to walk over  the 'normal' street

Also, because we had no idea what we were doing, we had booked a flight out of Sumatra for 3 weeks later, so we decided to set up a plan with a travel office to get to Medan.  When we told the women we wanted to find a ferry to Sumatra, she simply looked at us a bit stunned and said....that's not possible.  A first of many surprising transportation realizations in Indonesia.  So.  We paid for two first class train tickets (which let's you have a little fan throw air towards you and has a little towel on your head rest) to Yogyakarta Indonesia...and would eventually fly out of Bali....

waiting for hours at the train station to leave Jakarta!
We ended up having to pay a man who grabbed our bags at the very last moment and demanded money

The real story of anger and complete despair lies in the next leg of our journey from Yogyakarta to Bali.....the part we really wish we'd known more about in our lack of research for the trip.  I will save that lovely story for another next blog!

All that being said....I will never return to Jakarta.  Worst place we visited on our entire trip by far!
Dirtier then the long dusty bus rides in Africa.  Hotter then the sun filled blistering days of Thailand....
Yup.  Just as there are beautiful places I'm dying to return to....there are places I would rather not see again.  Jakarta is one of them.  It did teach a lot of important lessons on the do's and don'ts of first days flying into new places  -

DON'T arrive late at night!
DON'T hand your bags over to ANYONE and not expect them to want money seconds later.
DO book a room before arrival for your first night in a new city!
DO make sure to plan how you're going to get there!
DO enjoy and have fun trying out the local foods and beverages!
Mistakes we didn't make again after that!

But to end on a good note...the best coffee I've ever had?  1 block away from our jail cell hostel at a hole in the wall restaurant:

Coffee Jakarta style - strong with the grounds still in with sweetened condensed milk on the bottom.
NUM!

Learning From Them

Columbia - Ciudad Perdida - Friendly guard

I get asked by a lot of people, "Why do you travel?"

Traveling can be done for many different reasons. Each person or situation warrants a different reason and results in a different experience. You may want to relax; you may want to learn about History; you may want to hike every mountain in the world; you may want to dive every coral reef. Of course, I want to do it all. 

Above all, I have always been curious about how other people live. I travel to LEARN. Whether they are in the million dollar apartments in Paris or the slums of Mumbai, I want to see it. More than that, I want to experience it. This is not to say I necessarily want to sleep amongst the fleas in Mumbai, but I do want to see it all and, if possible, I want to understand it a little. Don’t get me wrong, I am not some bleeding heart liberal who wants to give food and money to every poor person in the world. But I am interested in the logistics of life in other countries.

What I have learned is this: 

In some of the poorest countries, they seem the happiest. I have gone to festivals in Bolivia or in Malawi where people are enjoying themselves fully. They are dancing and singing and clapping. They don’t need an expensive band and fancy food. They have each other and their mood creates the party. In a couple instances, I joined them, and it was so delightful. 

This Korean guy gave us booze!

People are generous. I have had people at bus stops with nothing more than the clothes on their backs offer me food. In Albania, where nobody spoke English, they gave us mandarin oranges. In Egypt, where nobody spoke English, they gave us bread. Me, with my backpack that costs more than a years salary. They gave ME food! This taught me to be a little more generous, even if it was only crackers or bread or fruit. 

People are helpful. You may go into your journey with the stereotype that Italians are loud or French people are snobby or Germans are abrupt, but really, when you get down to it, people are very helpful (and mostly very nice). When we were wandering around in circles with our backpacks looking for our hotel in Paris, we didn’t have to even stop anyone. They stopped and asked US if we needed directions. When I was looking for my hostel in Rome in the middle of the night in an unsavory neighborhood, people were helpful, even the unsavory looking ones. When I arrived in Salvadore in the wee hours of the morning, a homeless looking guy walked me home. I am not saying to completely let down your guard, but we, and especially the “we” who live in bigger cities, sometimes forget to help our fellow man. 

Crowded subway in Beijing

People get close to you: This is something we (in the US) don’t deal with very much, but people in many other countries have absolutely NO personal space. They will stand right on top of you with their sweaty armpit right near your face. It’s okay. Get used to it. Next time, it will be your sweaty armpit in their face. 

People make do with what they have: We saw outdoor “churches” in Africa, because they didn’t have a building big enough to house everyone.  They sang hallelujah to the skies and it was beautiful. I am not a religious person, but I wanted to join them. 

So, I learned a little about the logistics of life in other countries. I still have a lot to learn. But the main point I have taken from traveling so far is that people are good. Yes, there are wars and strife and fighting. There is starvation and pain and hate. But the evildoers are the minority. You cannot judge a country (ours included) by its leader or its government. You need to meet the people. The people are the key. 

 

And the people are wonderful. 

So go, plan that trip to _____ that you have always wanted to take. Don't be afraid. Go to the market there and talk to the locals, even if you don’t speak the same language. Taste their strange food and ride too close to them on a strange vehicle. 

Live their life for a minute. Do what they do. And learn from them. 

What have you learned from traveling? What stereotypes do you think people have about your state or your country before going there? Do you think they find it to be true?