Travel Day: Jakarta to Yogyakarta

November 7th
Dawn over the City

We took the "executive class" train from Jakarta to Yogyakarta.  Our train, one of three that morning, was 95% empty for the full 8 hours.  The journey was filled with rice fields.  Much of the labor is still done by hand.  November is the very begining of the wet season in Java.  A number of the paddies were being planted with fresh transplant starts, while a few late paddies were just being harvested.

Oh the Humanity!

November 6th Jakarta

In a bussling crowded city with a population of  over 10 million, we were suprised to find so many helpful and engaging people.

(Large street closed Sunday mornings for walking, running and biking.)

After receiving a recommendation from a local on the bus ride from the airport the previous day, we took a long ride on the Transjakarta to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. This park is similar in theory to the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi which we visited in 2008.  The scale of this park is exponentially larger than the museum in Hanoi and, unfortunately, the feel was much more like a theme park.

This park displays traditional homes and compounds from 26 regions of Indonesia, complete with trinket sales. In typical Jakarta style, on this busy Sunday afternoon, the park roads were clogged with cars and scooters going just slower than walking speed.  Families brought picnic lunches and enjoyed some time around the central lake, complete with artificial islands representing the Indonesian archipelago.

We must have been a novetly at this park because we were engaged by several different groups of people who politely asked if they could take photos with us.

We took the bus back to town, purchased our train tickets, had some more sate, and were asleep within 6 minutes.

6 Weeks in South South East Asia

November 4th & 5th Travel Days

We arrived at Soekarno-Hatta international airport after 30 hours of air travel time with relatively short layovers.  We bought our extended visas, and efficiently went through immigration and customs.  We then grabbed a tourist bus map, and caught the Damir airport bus into the city to Gambir train station where we began navigating the Transjakarta bus system. 

Jakarta is notrorius for its traffic clogged streets.  So the semi-express buses with their own dedicated lanes, subway like turnstyles, passcards, and tranfer platforms are a reasonably efficient way to get around the city.  That said,  there is still a learning curve to linking the routes  to other buses.  Each of the Transjakarta buses has not only a driver, but also a door attendant to make sure everyone is clear of the doors and has made the 18 inch step across the 3 foot deep gap.  They are also helpful to  answer passenger questions about the route and stops and transfers.

The hotel we booked was conveniently located next to an alley with 20+ food carts and tables with plastic stools. This fits the bill as precisely our favorite dinning experience. While the large bats flitted about over head, we enjoyed Chicken Skewers (Ayam Sate)   with peanut sauce 25,000Rupiah/$1.92 and fried rice (Nasi Goreng) 20,000RP/$1.52.  After dinner and showers we were both asleep within about 4 minutes.

La Paz, MX

December 10-16, 2015

Last Days in Havana

May 19, 2015

Trinidad

May 16, 2015

Playa Larga & Bahia de Cochinos

May 12, 2015