Indonesia - Jakarta

We arrived in Jakarta the capital of Indonesia on the island of Java late and headed straight to the transit hotel we had booked in advance. It was very dingy and full of mosquitoes but for one night we figured it was fine. The next morning we got a taxi into the centre of Jakarta (paying the same price for an hours journey as we had for a 5 minute one the night before!!) to a much nicer and very homely B&B. Our main aim of being in Jakarta was to try and find an underwater case for Mike’s camera so we could take it diving etc. Now I’m not one to believe in superstition at all but the next day was Friday the 13^th and literally everything seemed to go wrong. In the morning when we tried to book our onward flights online our foreign credit cards wouldn’t work so we had to search for an ATM to do a transfer…and that didn’t work either. We decided to check out of the B&B and head to the north of the city to the electronics mall. Lugging our bags around in the sweltering heat we wondered around for almost an hour before we found a taxi that was willing to take us to the mall. The traffic was ridiculous and the journey took ages but when we finally arrived, the shopping complex was huge and had so many camera shops that things were starting to look a little hopeful. Unfortunately however several malls and about 5 hours later we still hadn’t found what we were looking for and had nothing to show for the whole day spent traipsing round with our backpacks!

One of Jakarta's many electronic mega malls!

We decided to give up looking for the camera and instead start looking for an internet café to try and look up somewhere to stay. Once again a fruitless search as no one seemed to understand the words internet or wifi and after another hour we were getting really fed up. Finally we asked someone who did know of an internet café and luckily for us the guy who ran the internet café (for a small fee) could also book our flights!!Thing were finally looking up and we decided to book a slightly nicer than normal hotel to make up for the horrendous day. Unfortunately between the original search page, booking and then paying for the hotel the date changed and we managed to book a non transferable, non refundable deal for the following night when thanks to our newly booked flights we would no longer be in Jakarta!! Having wasted our money we booked another (this time cheap) hotel for the night and headed outside very tired and very frustrated to grab a taxi. We waited for about 30 minutes before we found a taxi that would take us to the hotel…everyone said the traffic was too bad or they didn’t know where it was, in the end a policeman had to help us. Unfortunately after an hour of driving it became apparent that actually our taxi driver didn’t know where the hotel was either! He didn’t speak any English and so it was difficult to try and establish whether after an hour and a half in the taxi he wanted us to get out and find another taxi or whether he was going to ask yet another person for directions. One thing that did become clear however, when we decided to cut our losses and find another cab, was that he was expecting us to pay the full amount for our 90 minute metered taxi ride. After the day we’d had I was at my limit and when he wouldn’t accept a reduced payment I went slightly crazy and started hysterically shouting at him about how there was no way we were paying for the journey when we’d wasted an hour and a half and were still no closer to our hotel. The scene attracted one of the security guards from a nearby hotel and the hotel manager ushered us into the hotel lobby to see if he could calm me down and settle the disagreement. Eventually we got some proper directions and at 10pm (!) we finally arrived at the hotel (a mere 3km down the road from the original mall!). The taxi driver avoided all eye contact with me after my outburst and would only speak to Mike to whom he apologized profusely but neither of us cared by that point… finally the day was over!