With the excitement of moving onto another country, we left behind us the beautiful island of Sri Lanka. A short flight landed us in the centre of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on the Java island. Having fought passed the airport touts, we eventually found ourselves a means of transport to Kemang, where we would later be greeted by one of our own. Upon arrival to Kemang, with mansions all around, it became more apparent that we may have been in for a treat. As we paid our fare, a familiar pale face appeared with a big grin from cheek to cheek. "Boooooys!" The one and only Benjamin Marten. He lead us along the peaceful residential street, to the home which he'd been residing for the previous six weeks. This palace of a home (which belonged to his relatives) had everything. Tables tennis, pool, Internet, swimming pool, air con and clean sheets! Suddenly 48 hours in Jakarta didn't seem enough. We spent the night at the poolside exchanging stories and generally catching up.
After hearing mixed feedback about what to do in Jakarta we decided to venture out for only a few hours whilst Ben slogged away behind a desk somewhere in the vast city. We began at the harbour in search for fish markets, the canal and a flavour of the typical local way of life. In stead we found several offerings for massage, a few fish here and there, and an oily landfill of a river. As expected the scenes were pretty grim, yet the locals, as always, seemed happy as could be. The next stop came at the national museum. Another shocker. Unsurprisingly the summary of the day was that Jakarta is a city full of standstill traffic and few tourist attractions. We couldn't wait to get back to the palace, chill out, and sink a few beers.
After a top notch spread of barbequed foods we headed out on a bar crawl of sorts. During the night we saw the vast array of bars that Kemang had to offer. We strolled from Irish bars to open street bars to seedy bars with blanked out windows and low key red lighting. Oh yes, the 'Star Delhi' was an interesting one.
The following day saw us move eastwards to Cianjur to do a homestay programme. To our surprise we had company. Having seen as little of Indonesia as we had, Ben decided to tag along. After 4 hours inside a bus incapable of withstanding rainfall, we arrived in the hilltop town an hour delayed and a lot wetter than planned. After a quick meal we were taken to our bamboo house surrounded by rice fields and mosques! The latter kindly provided us with alarm calls, several times a day. My personal favourite was 4:30am. Mosques weren't something new to us, but here we found ourselves in the middle of competition. Five times a day we could hear several different prayer calls coming from various speakers spread around the village. It was like the x factor of the religious world. To this day I'm still not sure which one got my vote.
During our stay here we visited rural villages, floating villages and waterfalls. We always left for the day well fed, and the sun was inevitably shining high in the sky. During our first trip we roamed around Cianjur in the back of a pick up truck - which seemed a great idea at first. Suddenly we saw the harsher side of this mode of transport. Countless potholes sent shooting pains through our bodies whilst the thunder storm bucketed down intermittently. On the way home we sat in silence, drenched through to the core, helplessly trying to recollect the novelty we first saw in it. Despite the rough ride, we very much enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with local guides and villagers in their various habitats. A highlight had to be our time spent on the floating village, which was held up by concrete, polystyrene and bamboo. Here we were lucky enough to receive a fish pedicure, canoe around the various fish farms, feed the ornamental fish and do a little fishing of our own to finish off the day. Much of the day's entertainment came from my appalling attempts to manoeuvre across the bamboo shoots to get from A to B. The others seemed to be having a great time, cameras at the ready to capture my likely failure. Unfortunately, to the boy's disappointment and against all odds, I remained above water.
After a few days it became time for us to move on, and Ben to return to the office. We headed east for Bali whilst Ben boarded the coach for Jakarta (raincoat at the ready). Going our separate ways was made easier with the prospect of catching each other in south east Asia a little further down the line. See ya Java!
Rhys
After hearing mixed feedback about what to do in Jakarta we decided to venture out for only a few hours whilst Ben slogged away behind a desk somewhere in the vast city. We began at the harbour in search for fish markets, the canal and a flavour of the typical local way of life. In stead we found several offerings for massage, a few fish here and there, and an oily landfill of a river. As expected the scenes were pretty grim, yet the locals, as always, seemed happy as could be. The next stop came at the national museum. Another shocker. Unsurprisingly the summary of the day was that Jakarta is a city full of standstill traffic and few tourist attractions. We couldn't wait to get back to the palace, chill out, and sink a few beers.
After a top notch spread of barbequed foods we headed out on a bar crawl of sorts. During the night we saw the vast array of bars that Kemang had to offer. We strolled from Irish bars to open street bars to seedy bars with blanked out windows and low key red lighting. Oh yes, the 'Star Delhi' was an interesting one.
The following day saw us move eastwards to Cianjur to do a homestay programme. To our surprise we had company. Having seen as little of Indonesia as we had, Ben decided to tag along. After 4 hours inside a bus incapable of withstanding rainfall, we arrived in the hilltop town an hour delayed and a lot wetter than planned. After a quick meal we were taken to our bamboo house surrounded by rice fields and mosques! The latter kindly provided us with alarm calls, several times a day. My personal favourite was 4:30am. Mosques weren't something new to us, but here we found ourselves in the middle of competition. Five times a day we could hear several different prayer calls coming from various speakers spread around the village. It was like the x factor of the religious world. To this day I'm still not sure which one got my vote.
During our stay here we visited rural villages, floating villages and waterfalls. We always left for the day well fed, and the sun was inevitably shining high in the sky. During our first trip we roamed around Cianjur in the back of a pick up truck - which seemed a great idea at first. Suddenly we saw the harsher side of this mode of transport. Countless potholes sent shooting pains through our bodies whilst the thunder storm bucketed down intermittently. On the way home we sat in silence, drenched through to the core, helplessly trying to recollect the novelty we first saw in it. Despite the rough ride, we very much enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with local guides and villagers in their various habitats. A highlight had to be our time spent on the floating village, which was held up by concrete, polystyrene and bamboo. Here we were lucky enough to receive a fish pedicure, canoe around the various fish farms, feed the ornamental fish and do a little fishing of our own to finish off the day. Much of the day's entertainment came from my appalling attempts to manoeuvre across the bamboo shoots to get from A to B. The others seemed to be having a great time, cameras at the ready to capture my likely failure. Unfortunately, to the boy's disappointment and against all odds, I remained above water.
After a few days it became time for us to move on, and Ben to return to the office. We headed east for Bali whilst Ben boarded the coach for Jakarta (raincoat at the ready). Going our separate ways was made easier with the prospect of catching each other in south east Asia a little further down the line. See ya Java!
Rhys
Sounds like Ben provided a more salubrious environment..
ReplyDelete