We flew from a Colombo, Sri Lanka, to Jakarta on Singapore Airlines. We had to connect through Singapore, but it was the only real option that wasn’t a red eye. Besides, we like both Singapore Airlines and the airport, with its gardens.We got into Jakarta before midnight. Our luggage popped right out, but not so quickly that the photographer couldn’t snap a shot of the arrival area’s long moss wall. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt, which sits right on Bundaran HI. Bundaran means roundabout, and HI stands for Hotel Indonesia. HI was built on the wide central boulevard Jalan M.H. Thamrin for the 1962 Asian Games, to show the modern face of Indonesia to the world.With its central fountain, the roundabout has become the epicenter of modern Jakarta living. On Sundays, the boulevard and surrounding streets are closed to cars, and locals throng to the music and food carts that pop up.About a mile north of of Bundarin HI, the boulevard runs through the official center of Jakarta. There, at the center of a 200 acre park, stands the National Monument, a 433 foot obelisk commemorating Indonesia’s 1950 independence from Holland.We walked the park and enjoyed the open space – which is in short supply in the city.Central Jakarta is served by several double boulevards with wide park-like gardens that separate the lanes moving in opposite directions. They make the traffic look lighter than it is. Throw a roundabout in, and you have 24 lanes connecting into and out of just three. It can take 10 minutes to make the equivalent of a left turn.Across one such set of avenues from the National Monument is the Jakarta National Museum. With over 140,000 pieces in its collection, it is considered one of the finest museums in Southeast Asia. It has been preserving Indonesia’s heritage for two centuries. We wandered through all of the halls. Though prehistory is covered quite well, including Sundaland and the recent finding of Homo Floresiensis, there was much on the cultural history of the archipelago. Like this 1,200 year old stone image of Ganesha.And from more recent times, the trappings of royalty. Gold crowns …And over-the-top headdresses. One of the blogger’s favorites was a playing field for cricket matches, hugely popular in 1800s Java. Not to be confused with the modern game of cricket, these were used for fighting actual crickets.To get around, we used Gojek, an Indonesian ride-hailing app. We usually prefer to use at least some public transit, but the MRT light rail doesn’t yet serve the central corridor. Instead they use dedicated bus lanes and bus stations that work much like MRT stations – tap your card when you enter and again when you leave your final station. The result is kind of like an MRT running on rubber. Brilliant.For meals, we ate at one of the many restaurants in the area or in Plaza Indonesia, adjacent to the Grand Hyatt. At Noesaka, we had Nandi Champur Tumis Bunga Pepaya (banana flower with shredded fish), Rendang Daging, Red Rice …Turmeric & Tamarind with Soda, Lime & Ginger with Soda …And Cendol for dessert. This is one of our favorites, and no two restaurants make it the same. This one had the standard green rice flour jelly worms, fermented cassava sugar palm, fresh coconut, boba pearls, and black grass jelly on shaved ice. It also had avocado and poppy seeds. It was served with cocopandan syrup (sweet coconut milk and pandan leaves) and sweet condensed milk. Since we usually go to the gym before breakfast, we seek out grocery stores for morning snacks, like cereal bars, yoghurt, or orange juice. Fortunately, Plaza Indonesia has a nice one in its basement. On another day, we headed to Old Town Jakarta, with its Dutch architecture. The Dutch governed Indonesia from Jakarta (then called Batavia) for 300 years, give or take brief incursions by the British and Japanese. Taman Fatahillah, or Fatahillah Square, dates to the early 1600s, when it was a smaller Dutch market square and sat next to one of the larger rivers, which has since been shifted.Now the square is a fun place to rent a bike and a colorful hat and ride around (and around) the square. Parents take their kids on bike rides, and others just ride around and be colorful.We stood in the same place for too long. A group of boys accosted us with homework assignments to practice their English on, presumably, tourists. They read a series of questions and recorded our answers. A mass photo session ensued, and a random US tourist from Tennessee offered to take a group photo. He then whipped out his phone and started showing us pictures of all the countries he’s visited, and shared some pretty interesting conspiracy theories. We were held captive long enough to attract yet another group of boys with the same list of questions and then three girls who wanted pictures with us. Eventually we got free.From the square, we walked less picturesque streets, dodged sidewalk commerce and traffic, and ducked under building overhangs (below).We made it to Chinatown …And the sidewalks were packed with tented vendors selling all things red in preparation for the upcoming Lunar New Year. It was hot and humid. The only thing thicker than the air were the crowds. We ducked into a Chinese grocery store to escape the crush and bought some sweet dried ginger to snack on. Deeper into Chinatown are market alleys, where fresh produce competes with steaming woks for attention. The photographer was captivated by the different roots on offer. We eventually made it to the corner of a street wide enough for cars, hailed a Gojek, and crossed our fingers. It took about 15 minutes for our driver to wind through the streets and pick us up. Working his way back out, he lost an argument with a detour sign, then got stuck in a line of cars trying to merge onto a busy street. Fortunately, one of the wandering, entrepreneurial, self-appointed traffic marshals stepped in and quickly got things moving. Each of the stuck drivers handed over a small tip as they exited the alley. We saw this system at work all over Jakarta. Here is one, standing in traffic, checking his earnings.It took us 35 minutes to be driven the four miles from Chinatown to the Hyatt, giving us plenty of time to take random pictures out the window (above and below). The ride cost 55,000 rupiah, or about $3.30, for what amounted to nearly an hour of the driver’s time in a more than decent Toyota. We tipped.A large number of rivers drain the Jakarta Basin, and they’ve all been rearranged to suit. But one must keep one’s eye on them.About half of our meals were Indonesian dishes. The other half were not. Here we are at Gion Sushi. The photographer admires the sushi she ordered while the blogger waits patiently for his Misoyaki Black Cod and Ebi Tempura.Jakarta is not without its problems, but it is a vibrant city. What really won us over, though, is the people. Universally friendly and open. Soldiers guarding a ministry building invited us into a pavilion to get us out of a drizzle while hailing a ride. Pedestrians offered to run block for us when crossing busy streets (crosswalks are extra-point zones for motorbikes). If someone didn’t speak English, they’d buttonhole some stranger who did. We were so impressed.
