Jan Fiala: JAKARTA, Indonesia

My next stop after amazing 5 days in Kuala Lumpur and Melaka was Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. I was full of excitement to discover this huge and densely populated city as most travellers go to Indonesia only because of Bali or Lombok without a visitation of Jakarta. In hindsight I´m so grateful and thankful for my classmate Nadin, who lives in Jakarta and guided me everywhere and all the time!

I thought I can´t be more lucky....You will read and see why!

DAY 1

The first day was kinda relaxed as I asked Nadin for undemanding program for the beginning. She was respectful as she got to know the content of my journey so far. She could not believe...But still, the weather was my biggest enemy again. We had to wake up earlier every day to do some activity and to enjoy the normal weather as it was unstandable from 11am till 6pm. Temperature was around 35 degrees every day.

Her family was very nice and apperently high-class society in comparison with Jakarta´s standard. They owned big family house, had private driver, house maid, two nice cars....I apreciated so much!! Especially very comfortable and big bed, home-made meals from her mom, big bathroom and I could even let my clothes be washed and ironed!

After having a meal in her family house, we went to city city center to walk down the streets (it was "Day with no cars" that day), to explore the downtown, skyscrapers, street food markets etc...Dinner was the bets part of the first day. Nadine invited me to very luxury restaurant located on the top of one of those skyscrapers in city centre of Jakarta. I felt like a rich and valuable person :D Besides delicious food and coctails, the best thing was the 360view from the skyscraper on whole Jakarta!

As a dessert we ordered a local speciality - sheep with rice!

Sheep with rice - a local speciality

DAY 2

We spent all day in Indonesian national historical museum. But it was not typical museum as we are used to. It was natural museum under the open sky. Its size was just unbelievable. I would compare it to the size of vast village. In order to be understandable for you, the museum consisted of many seperate areas. Every area dedicated to some certain time in the history and every part of the museum had its own village, traditional houses, services, program for the visitors etc. All the museum and its parts were connected by roads so visitors can smoothly get to every single part by their cars/bicycley/on foot. Worth mentioning, that the whole area had plenty of refreshments centres, parking slots, aquapark, aquarium, beach, cinema, zoo, harbour, and even cableway across whe whole area! There was even a lake and many islands inside the lake representing real islands!! It was just awesome area and we spent there whole day. The most I liked the possibility to explore by myself the difference between Indonesian tradional houses and habbits from different geographical locations. As known, Indonesia consists of hundreds of big and small islands (Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Jawa, Sumatra, Bali, Lombok...). When I was there I even forgot im In Jakarta, because I felt there like in real Indonesia countryside. As I mentioned, there was a zoo with rare species, and animals from those local areas. Guess what?! I have seen Varan Komodo. I just learnt about this biggest lizard in grammar school and now I could see it! But it was not the end of surprises that day. Few minutes after I was offered (for some money for sure) to hold and touch an alligator. Although I was pretty afraid, I could not resist the temptation. Everything went smooth, just once an alligator wanted to get out of my hands, luckily the staff helped me. Here are all pics and videos from that days :)

A lake representing all Indonesian islands!

BUT THE BEST OF MY STAY IN JAKARTA WAS STILL ABOUT TO COME!!

DAY 3

As known, tourists travel to Indonesia because of astonishing islands such a Lombok or Bali. So logically I could not leave Indonesia without trying to get to some of the closest islands near Jakarta. Nadin told me, that there is a possiblity. As I mentioned there was a harbour and boats going to those small islands...It wasnt actually on our list, but I was beging Nadin to go there very much as I really dreamed of exploring Indonesian islands. Im so thankful to Nadin and her family, they appropriated whole day for my and we went by boat to a special are of islands, called "Thousands islands". This are in the sea is charakterized by uncountable small as well as big islands, that are nearly untouched by people and tourist. Some of them have never been discovered, some of them are owned by billionaires, some of theme are as small as a room. Along with Saipan, these beaches of different small island neaa Jakarta were the most beautiful places I´ve ever been on!

The cruise was around 1,5-2 hours long. Just to mention, we bought tickets to the furthest possible island, meaning the best one! We arrived to the island, but there was actually no beach to swim on. So we rented a private driver and his boat and he took us to totally untouched islands in the middle of the sea!!
I simply could not wait for swimming on those beaches, without any tourists, no ruch and noises, just the small tropical island, tropical vegetation and the endless blue sea. And it was exactly as I dreamed of! I felt like the happiest person under the sun! You can not imagine the environment! Our first stop with a private boat was on a private island owned by some billionaire (as we heard from the driver). Anyway, he was so kind to stop by and allowed us to spent there couple of minutes. Indescribable place...you will see below....
The next stop was few hundreds metres far from the private island and was much bigger, untouched, though. You know, the way from one island to another was just breathtaking. Small islands all around you! Just as far as your eyes can see! Eeverywhere islands, calmness, fresh breeze, blue sea. Unbelievable place on our planet! Islands like small points on the endless blue place mat. No moer words needed. Let´s enjoy this beauty!