Arriving in the capital Jakarta we were instantly hit by the tropical heat, even coming from Hanoi's humidity - neither of us have been anywhere this equatorial. The city is a massive 290 square miles and famous for its traffic jams. The old port of Sunda Kelapa was our first stop. It is the home of a magnificent fleet of huge wooden junk ships, the last such working in the world. Their masts and bows loomed over the harbour, which was busy with sailors loading and unloading cargo and cats strolling down gangplanks. It was dusty and noisy; nice to see when so much stuff is just put on for tourists.
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| Jakarta |
It was my birthday while we were in town, so for a celebratory adventure we set off to Taman Mini Indonesia theme park, 18km from the city centre - by public transport. It certainly was an adventure! The well-organised Trans-Jakarta bus systems allowed an easy first 3 transfers, but then we arrived at a huge and hectic terminal full of buses, coaches, taxis and angkots (brightly coloured minivans) everywhere and no clue as to where our next bus (a T-15 mini-metro) was. Dodgy taxi drivers hassled us, we were pointed in 3 different directions and then a tropical thunderstorm broke over us! We sheltered in a noodle stall, wondering if we'd ever make it out of the terminal never mind to the theme park.
The noodle shop people pointed to an angkot and 15 minutes later we found ourselves dropped off at a mall called 'Tamini'. Maybe we got off too early? Another angkot stopped and we asked for 'Taman Mini Indonesia' - but the driver told us we were already there! We went back to the mall looking for some kind of secret back entrance but there was nothing. We must have looked very worried by this point because a passing family took pity on us and invited us to share their taxi. It must have just been the name similarity that was making everyone send us to Tamini mall!
Taman Mini Indonesia, when we finally got there, was amazing. The idea is to showcase the multitude of Indonesian cultures, environments and histories by condensing as much of it as possible into one park. Sounds a bit nuts - which it is - but in the best way. It's fantastically well put together, with full scale representations of island architecture, brilliant museums filled with art and information (all in English too), working temples for each major religion, gardens, cable cars, a Disney-esque castle(!), full costume parades with traditional music and mud-covered dancers, and a huge map of the archipelago terraformed in a lake!
We had a great time exploring, particularly the large dome-roofed exotic bird sanctuary which housed peacocks, owls, hornbills and cranes among hundreds of others. Jon posed with an extremely affable Brahminy Kite, and I tried to take non-blurry pictures of it all, with limited success. We were at the park for 3 hours and didn't see half of it - maybe we can go back sometime.
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| Taman Mini Indonesia |
The next stop after Jakarta was Bogor, the city of afternoon rainstorms (get inside!). Our hostel had dirty sheets, a cold shower and cats fighting the rats for the scraps in the hallway bins. Still, the view of looming volcano Mount Salak's sloping sides was worth it.
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| Bogor - The looming Mount Salak and slow moving traffic |
There is a world famous botanical garden, right in the centre of town, founded in 1811 by unusually forward-thinking British colonial type Stamford Raffles. You can easily spend a day there walking about (which we did). The zoological museum was a surprise - it's got a full blue whale skeleton plus taxidermies of some of the other local wildlife - including leopards, mongooses, bear-cats (?!) and a worrying number of venomous snakes (apparently 'abundant in our rice fields'). The garden itself features over 3000 species of mostly-tropical plants, has an orchidarium - I never knew vanilla was an orchid before - and is home to a colony of flying foxes (a type of big fruit bat) who all roost noisily in one tall tree. Really cool!
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| Bogor Botanical Gardens |
Getting to Mount Salak proved a little challenging - internet information was sketchy to say the least, but with some notes we caught two angkots to a village near Mt Salak, where we popped into a tiny nasi padang place (rice with a buffet style selection of different toppings). The lady there was quiet at first, but then started chatting in broken English. We told her our plans, and she told us we were heading to entirely the wrong village and got us on the correct angkot to the hiking trail. Good job we met her!
From the start of the Mt Salak trail it was easy to find our way past a popular waterfall and towards Kawah Ratu ('Queen's Crater'). The track was steep and slippery at first, climbing through thick forest, but it widened after a kilometre or so. We saw lots of pearly insects but nothing bigger, although after the Bogor museum we were very cautious so as not to step on any leopards.
The path, or stream, started to go downhill and the jungle began to look distinctly primeval. There was the occasional whiff of sulphur on the breeze, but it took us another half hour to reach the crater. There, the jungle suddenly died away leaving a bizarre hole, full of columns of steam and strange blue-ish water from loudly bubbling pits. It was awesome. The smell of sulphur was so strong we started to get headaches, though.
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| The Kawah Ratu, me and a pearly insect |
Moving fast across Java, we caught a night bus to the city of Bandung, caught 4 hours sleep in a dorm, then caught the early morning train to Yogyakarta - unwittingly ending up with first class tickets to enjoy the spectacular mountain scenery.
Yogyakarta is Java's cultural centre and base of operations for many ambitious art students, who cover the walls with elaborate graffiti. Batik is famous here and there are studios and shops down most main roads. We had a go at making some - it involves carefully drawing your design on cloth with wax, using a rather awkward little tool with a tendency to drip hot wax on your arm. The design is then tidied and painted with bright ink, which the wax blocks. The piece is then varnished and washed in boiling water to reveal the bright white lines in the final picture. Fun, but very labour intensive!
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| Learning to Batik and first class scenery |
Yogyakarta also has a lot of music - some traditional, some street performers (particularly on the main shopping and youth hang-out street Malioboro), and some enthusiastic rock cover bands. We saw the latter at Grin Cafe which asks people to draw while they're there and then exhibits the best work. The Malioboro street performers range from buskers playing homemade guitars to groups playing xylophones and full-on bands with drum kits, singers and bamboo percussion. It gets very crowded along there in the evenings, especially with all the rickshaws and horse and cart taxis!
In the heart of the town is the old sultan's palace, the Kraton. We went to see the section called the 'waterkasteel' (the Dutch name for water palace), which is partly ruined but still has two bathing pools filled with water in a strangely Romanesque enclosure (apart from the exotic carvings). Apparently the sultan's concubines used to bathe here while he surveyed them from a tower... *ahem*. Surrounding the waterkasteel is a pleasing array of twisting backstreets with colourful houses and kids playing with kites, which was great to get lost in.
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| Yogyakarta |
A local very odd speciality is a coffee called kopi joss. This is prepared at stalls near the train station, which lay mats down for their customers to sit on the pavement. They put local ground coffee into a glass, top up with hot water and quite a lot of sugar, and then finish by dropping a red-hot ember from the fire into the brew. This creates a dramatic hiss and (as you might expect) a strong smoky flavor - although it's best to remove the ember before drinking! Not quite as refreshing as an Indonesian avocado and coffee smoothie, mind.
- Kath
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| Coal and coffee. Mmmmm. |
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