Determined to get a glimpse of all the aspects of Indonesia, Tami and I found ourselves mid-January in the over-populated (20 million people living in a city smaller than the ACT), over-polluted and under-public-transport-serviced capital of Indonesia, Jakarta. Having been warned off by numerous people who apparently hold their lung health as a higher priority than we do, we nonetheless decided to spend a couple of days in the city.
Upon discovering that the 'historic old town' was in fact a concrete square surrounded by traffic-choked streets, we realised that the reason Jakarta has so many shopping malls is because they are the only places in the city in which you can simultaneously breathe clean air and walk around (the street footpaths caused us a few problems- they often have bits missing, which means if you're not paying attention you could quite easily fall two metres into a stormwater drain). And so we did as the Romans do and spent a large part of our 48 hours in Jakarta inside Plaza Indonesia, Indonesia Grand Plaza and various other malls with very similar names.
As you may guess, even the national monument required us to embarrass ourselves in order to make the photo of it semi-interesting.
We also went to Glodok, Jakarta's Chinatown, which I can only say was a bit of an experience (standard produce at the market included something that looked like horse penis but was apparently sea cucumber, and live frogs which unfortunately couldn't be mistaken for anything).
In short, Jakarta is pretty disgusting but it's also kind of awesome, and it's safe to say we were glad we went, although we weren't sad to be getting out of there. I realise that's a very ambiguous conclusion to draw about a city, but Jakarta is just that kind of place. This is one of the only nice photos of the old city:
Next stop was Yogyakarta (also known to us as Yogurt Kart), where Tami and I very studiously enrolled ourselves in Indonesian lessons, for the comical price of $8 an hour for a private tutor each, and set about enjoying the much more pleasant city. With a main road that was apparently meant to be named after the Duke of Malborough and ended up sharing the name of a famous cigarette brand, we decided Yogyakarta was a pretty cool place to be. We met up with some Frenchies that we'd first made friends with in Bukit Lawang, went to a really weird but funny Bird Market, visited the historic but boring Sultan's Palace (seriously, the only cool things there were the Indonesian military hats in the gift shop), and best of all saw Borobudur, the most ancient and impressive Hindu temple in all of Indonesia.
Borobudur is located in a valley near Yogya (just near the famous Merapi Volcano, which has recently spewed ash everywhere), and it was all misty and mysterious when we got there early in the morning. It was really very beautiful, and arguably worth the 4.30am wake-up (please appreciate how rare it is for me to find something worth an early wake-up!).
Our last night in Yogya was a really fun one, drinking with the people who ran our hostel (including Tami's new best friend, a really cool Indonesian guy who spoke barely any English but perfect French, obviously) and some friendly people from Melbourne, Meg and Larry. We went out to a bar with a band playing Bob Marley covers (I am of the informed opinion that most Indonesian bands exist solely to play Bob Marley covers), where we had a really good time. The next morning, Tami and I went for our last lesson at 'school' and in the afternoon, we hired scooters with Meg and Larry to visit Prambanan, another impressive temple outside Yogya. After the usual photo shoots with Indonesian tourists and providing of fake names for them to add us on Facebook (it sounds mean, but do you really want a 12-year-old Indonesian kid from Bandung with whom you have nothing in common knowing everything about you?), we set off back to Yogya for Tami and I to then head to the airport to fly back to Bali that night.
I was on the back of Larry's scooter and Tam was on the back of Meg's, and trouble unfortunately struck us when a man came out of a side-street and Larry slammed on the brakes to avoid him, losing control of the scooter and sending us flying off down the road. Tami and Meg arrived moments later, and we were whisked off to a nearby hospital, me in the back of a ute that had handily arrived at the scene, and Larry on the back of a local's motorbike. We were both pretty scraped up and apparently in shock, but luckily had both been wearing helmets and proper shoes (which probably saved my now-broken foot!). Tami saved the day by speaking Indonesian to all the nurses (who were really sweet and helpful but not much chop in English) and then managing to organise a hasty escape for us onto our flight to Bali. Although it wasn't ideal for us to race off onto a plane, we had Tami's lovely villa waiting for us at the far end and the thought of spending a night in some local Indonesian hospital really didn't do it for me. Tami did, however, manage to procure me a wheelchair and a guy to push me around (some kind of poetic justice for mucking around on wheelchairs in the airport in Sulawesi, I thought) and was basically an all-round hero, while I sat about eating jam biscuits that had somehow avoided being crushed in the excitement.
My genius father managed to get my flight home moved forward so that I could come home with Tami, meaning I was lucky enough to spend my last two days in Indonesia sleeping, eating and reading Stieg Larsson, so life could have been a lot worse! On top of that, Miss Tamasin Young (my nurse/assistant/personal shopper) bravely took a list of presents to buy and hit the shops of Seminyak and Kuta, coming back $100 poorer but a lot richer in terms of Bintang products. We eventually made it home to Sydney in one piece, to the great relief of my concerned parents as well as that of Jetstar who no longer needed to look after me. It became very clear to me that travelling with a friend like Tami (ie. smart, funny and generally good-looking) is not only great fun but also near-essential in the case of injury! She managed on one occasion to both carry ALL our luggage (two 18kg backpacks, two smaller backpacks and a handbag) AND get cross at an unhelpful taxi driver in Indonesian, at which point I realised I would now be bringing Tami on all my future travels.
So this brings me to the end of my blog, which I am now writing on my couch at home with my broken foot in the air, wondering what the moral of the story is. Indonesia is a crazy, frustrating place where I was asked whether I had a boyfriend more times than I was asked my name, and where it's impossible to go unnoticed (less fun than it sounds after 8 weeks!) no matter how hard we tried. It is also a place where being tall, blonde and pointy-nosed means I somewhat amusingly fit the generally accepted definition of 'so beautiful', and although most people could do without the locals calling after them down the street, being asked to hold people's babies for good luck is something I would happily do again and again. Above all, it became clear to me that Indonesia is so much more than Bali. Although there are many intelligent and interested travellers who visit Bali, it saddens me that so few make it any further.
I don't know who the several hundred people who have read this blog are, they surely can't all have been relatives, so I hope it was vaguely interesting. So until next Summer (India? New York? Africa?), thank you for reading it!
XXX Iona
