Goodbye Jakarta, Hello Surabaya

The rest of yesterday was not much more than a boring blur, as the minutes stretched into hours and they slowly gave way to night through hours of watching television, movies and trying in vain to get anything online sorted out.

I did manage to backup to disc the rest of my photos for Decemeber and January and then after receiving word form my sister, delete the photos from the first three months which has freed up a lot of space on my hard drive, but as for venturing outside the hotel or even feeling 100% I must say that it was not so much of a success.

Not that I would have been able to see much had I tried to venture outside as the weather turned to cloud and fog with occasional downpours from as early as 4pm and with it getting dark around 6pm I would have spend more time in taxi's and trafic jam than I would have actually visiting places.

Jakarta is one of those places that is too big to see or find you way around without a few maps, knowledge of the local bs routes and plenty of research to find out where you want to visit and how best to get there.

I have heard through various sources that the begging in Jakarta can be as bad as that in places like India or Egypt, but from my experience it was not on the same leve, or at least the bus station, hotel, streets and airport were not as bad, which amounts to pretty much the same thing.

For my last meal in Jakarta I decided to go to the restaurant instead of ordering room service yet again, but was sadly let down by the service which was slow and not as attentive or as friendly as it had been the day before and the prices made no real sense.

I have always been a hater of illogical prices, so it was extra frustrating to order a fruit tart that said it was 20,000 to then receive a bill of 25,000 plus a further 2,500 as tax on top. I mean, what is the point of showing a price if what you pay bares no similarity to it, you may as well just make a price off your head. Its like those stupid offers in superstore windows offering up to 60% off, only to find that everything you actually want is only with a lousy 10% discount and the "up to 60%" only applies if you are an OAP who comes after 4pm on the third Sunday in the month and wants the smallest oldest cut of the meat, just bloody frustrating and a waste of time.

I have never been a fan of advertiement people, feeling that they lie as much as politicians, and if I had my way then the lot of them would be rounded up and publically flogged to within an inch of their lives and told never to ply their deceptions arts again.

I went to sleep around 10pm, not having to wake til around 7am, but due to a slight hitch back in the UK I was up part of the night on the phone, all in the name of a worth cause though so its ok, and having had a boring and dull day I wasn't really that tired anyway.

Waking up on time, I decided against delaying my departure to have breakfast even though it was free, and instead I just sorted myself out, settled my bill and left. One surprising thing about the bill, again to do with price, was the varying cost of a can of fizzy drink. In the bar downstairs a poured glass of coke from a 2 litre bottle cost me 31, 000, when I had it as part of a room service meal it was 25,000 yet when I took a can from the poorly stocked minibar it was only 12,000. Why the three prices for the same drink in the same hotel I have no idea, but then its all just fun and games really.

I think that I should have picked up my rucksack and walked across the road before I got in a taxi to take me to the train station as the location of the hotel on a main highway meant that by the time it reached a place where it could turn around and come back the metered fare was already up to 12,000 and it had only taken me 15,000 to get here in the first place. By the time I reached the trainstation I had to pay 25,000 and a further 280,000 for a executive class train ticket to Surabaya.

If I could have spoke better indonesian I guess I could have asked for a cheaper seat, but at only 20,000 difference and the quality of seats and service is much reduced so for the 10 hour train tide it wasn't worth saving the £1. The train was almost a half hour late in leaving and the station staff rudely demanded a tip for showing me to my seat, but he got far less than the 40,000 he was asking, the nerve of it. I only really even followed because I made the mistake of allowing a local to strike up a conversation with me and he in turn told the guard to show me to my seat, at which point i was sort of commited, though I didnt realise that he was going to try and ask for a tip for such a small favour.

My other mistake was having my 1,000 notes all wrapped up in 5,000 notes as I only intended on giving him 2,000 but when the 5,000s came out I couldnt really take them back, though the way he almost broke my rucksack into two by cramming it in the overhead storage space was almost enough to make my blood boil.

The rain was back with a vengence and by the time the train got half an hour along the tracks it looked dark enough to be almost night and the rain was pounding the windows plenty. The train company were sly in sending around a pretty young female to take purchase orders of food barely half an hour before they brough round the standard tray of light refreshments, much like airline food, though to be honest hte prices were reasonable and a can of coke on here was only 7,000 - barely half of even the cheapest of the prices that the hotel had charged me.

The seat that I was allocated was faulty in that you couldnt sit in it and not have it fall into the full reclining position, which made comfortable watching the ontrain entertainment impossible though once I saw the poor quality of what was being shown and the fact that they kept interrupting it for advert breaks it was almost a blessing.

What did surprise me in a good way, was that all the seats in executive class have twin power sockets next to them just below the window tables and so I was able to plug in my laptop and watch the couple of dvd's that I bought in Singapore which were far better quality than the run of the mill gore fest military action flick where everything explodes when its hit by a bullet.

After the two movies I did a bit of blogging updating and then as I had plenty of time left to kill I chose to watch on the films a second time, especially as although I was told that it arrives at 7:58pm it was running so late that it didnt come in til 9:25pm.

My contact in Surabaya did the familiar "oh my god, your really here, i never thought you would, I ... er ... actually I'm not all that comfortable to meet you right now, sorry, I was just being polite. I hope you enjoy your time in my city but I'm afraid I am not able to meet you at the train station, or your hotel, or at all even. But I hope we can still keep in touch as friends!!!" bollocks, so I had to make my own way from the station to my hotel.

Needless to say that this latest bit of news did not go down too well with me, especially as I had been sending emails and texts to them on a regular basis over and moreso recently to make sure that everything was still on so to get this news as my train pulled up in the station was about the biggest kick in the balls I could have got.

The hotel was nice, with a big billiard table and it would have been better if it was straight and not lopsided. I played a few games, for 5,000 an hour which suddenly jumped to "no, no 25,000 an hour, sorry you must have misheard me" which is still not a lot but its 5 times more than I was expecting and I would have done something more about the wabble and played longer if i had of known.

Around midnigth I went to sleep.

A couple of days in Jakarta, Indonesia

This morning I woke and had plenty of time to sample the hotels breakfast menu before they closed the kitchen. Sadly they didnt have a full english breakfast or cornflakes, but there was plenty of rolls, cakes, fruit, bacon, eggs and the sausages so it was almost the same.

After breakfast I asked the hotel reception if there was any maps or tourist information on offer to a lonely traveller, however although they had a map all they could suggest was for me to hire a taxi for the day and go see some places that I already knew existed.

Of course I don't know where to visit and so much of today will be spent just searching the internet for places that I might visit tomorrow, seing as I had already lost much of the morning and the weather outside was both muggy and showery.

At one stage I did actually try go for a short stroll around my hotel, much to the disapporoval of the hotel doorman who strongly suggested that I take taxi. At first I thought this was a usual trick, that they are in cahoots with the taxi firms, and so do not want any traveller bucking the trend and going off walking on their own, but soon I came to another theory.

It is not so much safety from being mugged or anything, but from the many cars and motorcycles that sped through the town, not so much as speeding but certianly constant, relentless and taking up every available bit of road there is.

The pavement is no better, as if it is not packed with parked motorcycles, stalls for food, and pimping taxi drivers who eyes would veritably jump out of their sockets when they saw me approach, all thinking the same thing "lone tourist, new to city, must need to get somewhere = money, money, money". It came as a shock to some that I just smiled, shook my head and continued on my way, not sure exactly where I was going but I was sure that I wanted to at least try and get a feel of the place.

I hadn't gone more than five minutes down the road when I started to get a vaguely familiar sensatoin, one of nausia and sickness. Much like I had experienced many years ago when I was invited to spend a few hours working in a carpark, the resultant mix of car fumes began to build up inside my head giving me a headache and upset stomuch, making me believe that not many of the cars here are fitted with catalitic converters.

I managed to reach a a bank, retrieve some cash and make it back to my hotel before the headache came on and that pretty much ended the day for me before it even began. The internet in the hotel is terribly erratic and disfunctional meaning that surfing the web was nigh on impossible and the movies on the box today were not exactly inspiring today either, so I just pretty much slept and ate my way through the day.

The next morning it was a similar routine as although the headache went immediately following breakfast I got a very upset stomuch and this sent me back to bed for an hour or two to try and make it go away.

I did ask the hotel how much it would be to hire a taxi for the day, and was told that it would be IDR 400,000 to hire a car for the day and so to get a taxi it would be as much if not more.

Leaving Singapore and arriving in Jakarta on the island of Java, Indonesia

I woke a little later than I had planned and so by the time I was packed and ready to go I had missed the free breakfast in the hostel and also had no chance to visit anywhere else in the city as I had to check out by 10am and this would then mean carrying around my rucksack with me, not the best idea in the world.

Luckily the MRT station is close by and only a few stops away from Changi Airport, so the journey was very quick. So quick in fact that I arrived shortly before the checkin desk was open for my flight and thus I had a little time to spare to eat breakfast and utilise the free wifi in the airport. As I rechecked my tickets I had a heart wrenching moment when I saw that the time for my flight was originally posted at 11am and not 1:35pm and unable to find an email to say why the chance it was a nervous hour that went by before I was able to head on over to the check in desk and thankfully I had not missed it and was one of the first to check in and so I chose a window seat.

The rest of my stop is Changi Airport was relaxed as I had time enough to change over money, have breakfast and do a bit of internet surfing. The Indonesian Rupiah is one of those currencies that I hate, as it has far too many zero's for common sense, making quick and accurate currency conversions in my head a nightmare. For instance a bar or chocolate costs 25,000, a taxi fare cost between 15,000 and 150,000 depending on if its a few miuntes of almost an hour, but what is a good price and how much should a person haggle.

The actual conversion rate, at todays value, is £1 = IDR 16,466.29 so for an extremely rough guide I was thinking to myself that a IDR 50,000 note is approximately £5 ( I know, its actually a lot closer to £3 ) and it also meant that if I tipped anyone a with a IDR 1,000 note it really isn't giving them all that much.

I almost thought that I was going to board the plane without my hand luggage being screen checked but then I noticed that the scanners were right inside the gate departure lounge entrances, which is better I guess. There was no huge sign or tanoy announcement for the inital boarding of my flight and so I assumed that there must have been some minor delay and continued surfing the web til I heard my name called out as one of the final chances to board the flight and realised my error.

On the one hand it was nice to hear my name called out at an airport but then it also meant that I was being a pain and delaying the pre-flight check procedure so I don't plan on making it a habit.

Flying over we were given out imigration and visa cards to fill in, but I had heard form D' that I would probably have to pay for a visa too, which luckily you can buy at the airport at the same price as you can at the embassy, US $25 for a 30 day visa or US $10 for up to 7 days. I was planning to stay for around 10 days so I had to plump for the full 30 days, but then its not all that much money really.

Arriving to the island of Java I could not help but see how much of the land by the shoreline was flooded and as it was so much I thought that it must be organised somehow, as in like the rice paddies and such.

Just before you reach the immigration desk in the aiport off to my left side was an office kiosk where you had to go to one booth to pay for your entry visa and then at another to have it authorised, mindless time consuming in my opinion but there you go.

I am not sure if it is a government law, like paying taxes, or a natural law, like gravity, but the aiport shuttle coaches leaving do not seem to be allowed to leave until they are full. The cost was a mere 20,000 IDR so it is not expensive, but the fact that the coach would only move about 20 yards before stopping and waiting for more passengers was enough to get me pissed off, especially as it took over half an hour just to leave the terminal complex. I could have taken a taxi I guess but that would have been more like 150,000 and judging for the look of them it would not have been any more safe or confortable.

When we finally were able to leave the airport terminal we drove towards the downtown area and I could not help but notice how poor and broken down the place looked. It was like a flooded version of some of the desert towns of South America. Field upon field was flooded by the ocea waters, deep enough for it to be unsafe for people to walk safely and yet by the edges on raised mud banks I saw countless locals fishing with rods or casting nets, yet I am not entirely sure if I would want to eat anything they caught in those waters.

With floods and stagnant waters would also mean that there must be plenty of mosquitos around too, not my favourite of insects and I wonder if Dangay fever was becoming an epidemic here like it is threatening to break out in parts of Australia or Singapore. Signs like "If they Breed you will Bleed"got the message over pretty loud and clear.

Fare from being surprised or uspet the locals seemed to take it all in their stride and I wonder if parts of the town are deliberately allowed to flood in order to save other parts of the city and of course also to help the locals to feed themselves.

After what seemed like ages we finally managed to reach the coach station where my instructions were to then get a taxi to the hostel cottage and I was only hoping that when I reached there it was not one of the properties floating or on stilts like I had seen along the motorway.

My internet booking also told me that the fare should be around 20,000 to 25,000 for the taxi fare at the other end, but when I asked a taxi driver he quoted me 45,000 and I am not really sure that he even knew where I was going. I decided to play him at his own game and waving my hostel booking prinout around loudly I argued that it should be no more than 15,000, desite that being the outdated price for a tuk-tuk and not a modern taxi. He didnt exactly fall for it, but on the end we settled on a 4,000 tax receipt and a minimum fare of 20,000 which was still 5,000 more than the meter showed when we finally reache our destination though I have no doubts in my mind that if I had just told him to put the meter on he would have taken me all around the houses and clocked up at least 35,000 if not more.

The sad thing is that even if it had reached 50,000 that would still have been only about £3 for me, but its the haggling and not letting them get away with overcharing and ripping off tourists that was why I was making my stand, not for the sake of saving £1 ... I am not that hard up, yet.

The taxi driver did finally manage to find the hostel only he had no change from my 50,000 note and so he waited for me to go into the hostel and hopefully they could help me out. Only thing was, no one was hone or answering the phone and so not only could I not given him his change, but I could also not check in. There was a bank across the road but they were closed to the public, despite being only about 4pm, so in the end I had to go to the stationers next door and finally get change to give the taxi driver.

By this time I was nervous about the flooding, the mosquitos, the money, the sky that was threatening to rain down yet again and now being unable to check in thus I was in effect stranded in a foreign country where they do not speak much Engilsh and I was rapidly losing the good mood that I had started the day off with.

Not having the phone number of my friend here in Jakarta, I decided to just find the nearest hotel and checkin and then try to contact her via email and see if she could meet me that night and pretty soon I found a hotel called the Acacia which looked like a nice but inexpensive 3 or 4 star, possibly even a very cheap 5 star who knows. The price was around US $66 for a night and this seemed reasonable considering how big it was and how desperate I was feeling, so I agreed and checked in for 2 nights, unsure what I would do fo the third til I had got to speak to my friend.

Much like Brazil, I soon realised that Jakarta was a place that really needs a lot of time to explore properly and also a traveller would do well to research it before, as being the worlds 11th largest metropolis in the world it can be very daunting, overpowering and of course large enough to have it very good and very bad parts in equal measure.

The hotel did not have much in the way of tourist informatoin on offer, but perhaps if I spoke Indonesian I could get some more information or find out if there was a tourist office nearby.

To continue treating myself and unwind I chose to have a basking hot bath and was amused and happily soaked myself while through the in hotel radio system someone played a piano melody of the immortal classic "singing in the rain", which pretty much summed up my mood at that moment, in fact I even managed to drag up most of the lyrics from memory.

After a movie, a room service meal of fish and chips ( hopefully not 'freshly' caught from the flooded fields less than five minutes away ) and a shave I felt good enough to try the hotel karioke lounge, only to find that it had five pretty singers all sitting around the bar bored and no actual singing going on. Apparently you could emply one or more of the girls for free to sing with you, if you hired out one of the private rooms and of course paid for their drinks as well as your own while you were up there.

With not hearing from my friend all day, I sat and chatted to the singers for a bit before heading on back to my room and treating myself to a relaxing inroom massage for the princely price of IDR 145,000 or £9 ... unbelievable.

Tomorrow is a new day, and although the predicted rain and lack of tourist information will mean that I doubt I will get up to too much tomorrow, but for these prices I could almost hire a taxi driver for the day and have him act as my guide for the day and still spend less than I would have if I took a organised tour in another country.