Jakarta madness

A crazy capital, made of giant buildings that serve as offices and shopping centers, highways on top of each-other and always full of macet (traffic jams) and picturesque districts where citizens from all over Indonesia form communities and make a living from selling food and juice on the streets.

 
Warungs in Menteng

I lived there for 16 weeks, working at the Delegasi Uni Eropa (the EU Delegation to Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam and ASEAN). I failed to visit the main tourists sites, as usually people do when they live somewhere and promise themselves continuously “I will go there, in the week end” but then proceed to spend their Sunday too hungover to get further than Pizza Express. So instead, I visited clubs and bars, restaurants and markets. You can read about these in my other two posts on JKT. Jakarta's Best Pasars describes my two favourite markets of the city, Jakarta: Makanan dan Musik provides an inshight into eating and clubbing practices!

Where to live

If you are looking for a comfortable & convenient flat, and you can handle slow and crowded evalators and crazy heights, I can definitely recommend the building where I lived, Cosmo Mansion Tower. This is because the place has a 50m pool on the 10th floor which is almost always empty, as well as a gym, a bar and a minimarket. It is located on top of Thamrin City shopping center, a fun and hectic place that sells a bunch of cheap batik and Muslim-wear, but also has a Hypermarkt to shop for groceries. In addition, it is situated right in the center of town, a minute walk from the two biggest and most upmarket shopping centers in Indonesia: Plaza Indonesia and Gran Indonesia. Both are horrible in my opinion, but many people like them and I have to admit you can find pretty much anything there. For instance, in the basement of Plaza, at Rose & Co you can find organic Ukraine vodka for 280 K IDR, about 20 Euros, which is a pretty good deal for Jakarta standards.

Inside Thamrin City View of Plaza Indonesia from Grand Indonesia: looking north

If you are interested in living in Cosmo, you can contact my old landlord, AKA the coolest landlord evar: TWIN!

Cosmo is a top home for expats, the amazing friendships I made with my neighbours made my stay even greater.

OUR pool     Photography by ©Juliette Baralon

Of course, for short-term stays, it's more convenient to stay in one of the many homestays or kosts. If you are looking for a such a place, I can say many friends of mine enjoyed the chill Sunrise House and the party Surya Mas Residence, in the picturesque and traditional district of Kebon Kacang, but next door to the above-mentioned shopping centres.

But of course there is an infinity of these places all over the internet!

Getting around Jakarta

is not easy. It’s unpredictable and challenging to your patience skills.

The best way to get around if you are new to the city is by taxi. Only take the recognized lines, the most famous being Blue Bird and Express, and be careful that these are who they saw they and not fakes!

More and more people prefer to take an ojek, especially in hours of intense macet. These are motorbike taxis, offered by all those men sitting on scooters that call you and stick up their index finger. They don’t have bad intentions; they just want to take you for a drive, at a price. If you decide to use this highly dangerous form of transport, be sure to bargain, starting at half the price they ask. They just love ripping off bules. Oh and wear jeans.

After seeingg macet increase tremendously during the few months of my stay, I learned to take the TransJakarta bus. This is by far the cheapest and fastest way to get around, as the buses have their own lane and run every 5 minutes, NORMALLY. The hassle of taking the bus involves getting hot and sticky to get to the stop (up the stairs, over the road, and down again) and being squashed in with people and their belongings. Make sure you stand at the stop with the people of your sex and get on at their door (women usually sit at the front of the bus). This might sound stupid, but it makes others and yourself feel comfortable: Muslims of opposite sex don’t like being squeezed together.