Jakarta

We learnt throughout the trip that one day in a new city really puts the pressure on when it comes to trying to get a sense of the place. As a result, we booked a tour for our one day in Jakarta, to hit the highlights without having to think too much. Our guide, Enok, picked us up at 9.15, and we set out to see the cherry-picked attractions of Indonesia's capital.

First stop was the Mini Indonesia Museum (Taman Mini Indonesia Indah), which is not quite like what the name might suggest. This is a museum with an area dedicated to each of the 38 provinces of Indonesia, with the idea of giving a flavour of the diversity of the country in one place. It is quite impressively done, and the 2 hours allocated could easily have been stretched to the whole day. We visited the indoor museum first, with samples of fabric and traditional dress and artworks from across the country, including a big "tree of life" sculpture, which took us back to the start of our trip where we saw a similar concept in Karkhoum, Mongolia. 

We progressed to visit traditional Sumatran and Papuan houses (interrupting a Papuan birthday party along the way - Gillian wouldn't let James accept the offer of cake). Enok was open to us going to the places of personal interest and discovered this was a mistake when James saw the sign to the Komodo reptile house, which has a collection of (among other thing) Komodo dragons. We decided that this was going to be an addition to the tour, and proceeded to spend an hour there, seeing lots of interesting creatures in addition to the dragons. They included a poison dart tree frog, a fluorescent blue snake and a reticulated python. This was of particular interest, as they are one of the apex predators in Borneo, where they hunt baby orangutans and other monkeys. They have also been known to kill and eat humans, with several relatively recent incidents where they killed middle aged women foraging in the jungle. Gillian is not a fan.

Having successfully subverted the timetable of the day we moved on to lunch, ordered for us by Enok at an Indonesian restaurant. When the food arrived, it was clear that she seemed to have mistaken us for 4 people, with an enormous variety (and quantity) of dishes landing on the table. Despite heroic efforts, there was no prospect of finishing it all, despite it being very tasty.

After lunch, we drove by the Istiqlal Grand Mosque and the Jakarta Cathedral, sitting across the road from each other in an intentional show of Indonesian religious tolerance. They are connected by a tunnel under the road, opened for special occasions, such as the Pope's visit in 2024. It's a powerful show of the acceptance of diversity in a majority Muslim country. We went from there to the national monument - according to Enok, a visit to the Mini Museum and the Monument (the two "must see" sights) meant that we could now officially claim to have visited Jakarta.

We drove through Chinatowm, and after a brief stop at a puppet making workshop we arrived in old Batavia, the administrative heart of the city from Dutch colonisation. It was a striking contrast to everywhere else, with a clear European tone, that extended to an old canal system. It is now a popular recreation spot, with a band setting up in the late afternoon as the sun was starting to fade and the square was filling up with kids finished with school for the day. 

As we headed home it started to get dark, with ominous clouds rolling in. It turns out we timed things perfectly as the wet season rain came belting down about half an hour after we got to our apartment, probably the heaviest rain we had seen on the whole trip. We were glad not to have to worry about going out for dinner, after our excessive lunch!