Day 53, March 30, 2013, Krakatau-Jakarta (Indonesia)
We stuffed ourselves with fried rice and eggs, packed up, got on the boat and said goodbye to Krakatau. Back to the first snorkeling spot and then a two hour boat ride back to shore. It was a bit bumpy so I just rested my eyes and nodded in and out of sleep. A fair bit of rain too.
Once we all made it to shore the group showered up near the boat port. Here, Novi, the one who negotiated our coming on the trip, offered for us to go back with them to Jakarta on their chartered bus. YES, YES, YES. Switching between small buses with a bunch of luggage and then navigating public transport into one of the biggest cities in the world is tempting… not. We took up Novi on her offer. We weren’t planning on going to Jakarta for a few days, but to have transport arranged was reason enough to leave that day. Steve and I hustled to Hotel Wira and picked up all our bags. Yes, all of them. Our original plan was to go back, sort our luggage, leave the unwanted items and take a backpack’s worth into Jakarta, but we didn’t want to miss our ride! I grabbed my six bags from the office and then talked with the receptionist who checked us in a day earlier. Apparently, we can’t leave our bikes there while we go to Jakarta. I gave her an earful for telling us otherwise and then she called her boss to see if we could leave them (I heard her say “bule” which is probably the one time it was good). She then told me that we can leave them but we have to pay. I told her that we weren’t paying, we’re leaving our bikes there, and that we asked at check-in if we could leave our bikes while in Jakarta. She agreed and then said we can pay if we want to. Yeah, we’ll see. On our way out we saw that they moved our bikes from in front of our old room. Still locked to the table. We left them like that.
We headed back to the showering spot, washed up and got lunch. It was a few hours drive and we chatted away. On the way, Novi made our life too easy by talking to her roommates and offering for us to stay at her apartment(we were headed to Jakarta, but hadn’t actually sorted accommodation). What luck!
We dropped off some of the group and then took a cab to Novi’s. How weird to be in a cab, going through a clean, modern city. The roads were decently paved, the sidewalks were complete, there was landscaping and traffic lights. Different than what we’d seen throughout Bali and Java. Jogja, and Malang were the most modern, biggest cities we’d been through, but Jakarta had a true, big, business city feel.
We got to Novi’s apartment complex, 18 30-story buildings. Huge! And then we got to her apartment, ahh the comforts of a clean modern home. We were being spoiled, for sure.
After having a proper wash in Novi’s apartment, Novi, Berna (a trip member and Novi’s flatmate), Steve and I got dinner in a nearby mall. It was our first experience in a Jakartan mall. The first of many, as they are littered throughout the city. Literally, all over. All over. It’s my nightmare. We walked through the one across the street to exchange money, and then to the other mall a block away to have dinner. 30k($3) for dinner. Ouch! Modern city=expensive. My wallet won’t like this one. Back at the apartment I unpacked, organized, sorted, and repacked my bags, got on wifi and then hit the hay. Novi slept in Berna’s room and let us stay in her room on her bed and pull out mattress. I’m still shocked by how nice, helpful, kind and giving people have been on this trip. I guess the world’s not too bad of a place..
Oh and Novi’s room was air conditioned and it was awesome. ‘Nuff said.
Day 54, March 31, 2013, Sunday, Jakarta, Taman Rasuna (Indonesia)
Woke up early and used the kids monkey bars as a pull-up station. It’s nice to balance out what muscles I’ve been using. The legs are gaining as the upper half is losing..
Oh yeah, it’s Easter today! Steve and Novi had plans to go to church. I tagged along but I was too tired to stay awake through the sermon. Sorry God. Afterwards we went to a different mall, nearby the church and I bought my own cell phone(Steve was going insane as everyone we met could only communicate with him, not to mention, I had to communicate personal messages through his phone.) I had meant to buy one earlier, but villages didn’t have the best selection. I settled on a Samsung ch@t and am very satisfied. I prefer typing on keyboards and it is fully capable of browsing and data, #traveltip, BUY A DATA PACKAGE or else you will burn through your credit.
Andres, Steve and I reunited for lunch at the mall. Andres got to Jakarta earlier than us to catch the critical mass ride where he met the organizer, Rio(name?) who opened up his house to him.
Afterwards, Steve, Novi and I headed back to her apartment to check her food supplies before our grocery trip. Steve and I wanted to make full use of the kitchen to make a big dinner. Our hearts were set on Lasagna, but Novi said she didn’t have an oven, but wondered “what that thing is under the stove. ” We checked.. Yeah, it’s an oven. We went grocery shopping across the street and then back to take over the kitchen. Cutting, mixing, heating up, measuring, etc. The girls were surprised, ecstatic and inspired. Lasagna with meat bolognese sauce, with a salad and finished off with Steve’s chocolate fondent(sorry, I don’t know how to spell this, its like a souffle). It was a feast and it was soo nice to be back in the kitchen. It had not been since Pangandaran that I cooked a proper meal and not since Thea’s that I was in a kitchen.
Day 55, April 1, 2013, Monday, Taman Rasuna, Jakarta (Indonesia)
I got up early and decided to go to the Immigration office myself and see what the process was for taking care of it without an agent. I hopped on the bus with Novi and continued on beyond her stop to the office. I found the visa process to be straight forward. I can do it myself, the answers were clear, the information complete, and the process is three days. Everyone said the process is a headache, takes a long time and always requires a bribe. Hmm, we’ll see if this actually takes three days. I’m saving about $60, though, by doing it myself. That’s worth it to people whose time is money. I, on the other hand, have all the time in the world to go back and forth to immigration, no job, no school, etc. The only catch was that we needed a sponsor, I texted Novi seeing if she’d support our being in Indonesia and I promised to destroy as much property as possible and break the law(just kidding). I went back to the apartment and typed the example letter word for word(it’s in Indonesian,) and emailed it to Novi.
Steve and I met Novi for lunch and hit up the local food court. Novi passed off the letters. Later, I metAndres at the Immigration office and we started the process. Agents? Ha!
That afternoon I headed out to meet up with Ivonne from the boat trip, to check out a bit of Jakarta and eat good Nasi Pecel. Too bad we picked a terrible time to meet, along a busy route out of the city. I waited for about 45 minutes at the bus station, every bus was packed, PACKED. And if the bus stopped just 4 inches to far forward then your chance to get on was null. About one person per bus out of a crowd of 30 waiting at the station. Finally, A bus came with a empty spot right in position for me to step on. I’m doing it. I boxed out, made sure no one stole my spot on this sardine-can on wheels and plugged in to the empty space. I met up with Ivonne, finally. We got food at a local spot and she took me around to all different places to get some night shots of Jakarta.
Day 56, April 2, 2013, Tuesday, Taman Rasuna, Jakarta (Indonesia)
I slept in, finally! Ate breakfast with Steve, chatted, did internet things and then got lunch with Novi and Steve. Same spot, same great taste.
Then off to another Jakarta mall, Ambassador mall to look for business casual clothing in case I was going to any meeting potential future employers in the city. I searched all over and finally found non baby sized clothing. It was a lil’ slim, but doable. I held off on buying them ‘cause I didn’t have any meeting set up(didn’t end up meeting anyone in Jakarta, thus no buying nice clothes).
Afterward, I took a taxi to Café 8 in Dharmawangsa to pick up my computer from Popo’s friend. I got there and the staff weren’t totally understanding that my computer was supposed to be at that café. After a minute or two, someone approached asking if I was Chris, it happened to be Ozzy, the founder of Bike to Work in Jakarta, a friend of Popo’s(bike shop owner from Purwokerto) and of Café 8’s owner, Santoso. We were planning on meeting up that week, and met per chance that afternoon. I got my computer and we chatted a bit. I did some computer work, while Ozzy had a meeting, then we continued chatting.
I got a taxi home, during rush hour, agh, I wish I had my bike, these taxi rides are adding up to be more than my average living costs!
Day 57, April 3, 2013, Wednesday, Taman Rasuna-Taman Mini, Jakarta (Indonesia)
Used the gym facilities in the morning. Got up to the highest weights they had, was definitely getting the stink-eye again. Tried doing some jumping. Wow, how my legs have much different muscles now. They sure can go in a 12” inch diameter circle thousands of times over…But not much else.
Breakfast, and skype after working out. I’ve been utilizing Novi’s wifi to the fullest, skyping, emailing and facebooking with as many people as possible giving out the updates. Usually, when I travel I drop off the map, but now that I’m doing an extended trip, I’m trying to stay in better contact with people, it’s not like I’ll be back in a week or two to catch people up, let alone a month. It’s like living abroad, kind of, just my home is my bike, and my bike is everywhere.
In the afternoon I set off to stay the night across town with Andres and Diah, his couchsurfing host. I almost abandoned the mission when I ran out of cell-phone minutes, and I would have no way of reaching Andres or Diah once I got there. Novi’s is super comfortable and I wouldn’t mind staying there this night at all. But I’m forcing myself to hop around and get out my my comfort zone. I took this opportunity to figure out how to recharge my phone and then hopped on the bus across town, got off at the transfer station and made sure with a fellow bus rider that I was getting on the right bus. There’s no point in being arrogant and getting the wrong bus miles across Jakarta. I got on the bus and started the journey to the fringes of Jakarta. After 45 minutes I looked out the window at the bus stop and saw (10-9, the first number is the bus and the second is the stop), I looked across the freeway and saw the sign said 9-something. I was supposed to be on bus line 9! I rushed off and started on the overpass over the freeway until I saw that that traffic was going the opposite direction, wah? I looked back and saw that “10-9” was one of three signs one of them being a “line 9” sign I had to wait until the next “9” bus came. A woman noticed I was confused and pointed out which bus to get on, same as hers. We chatted all the way to the Taman mini.
I went to the 7-11 nearest the bus stop as instructed by Diah and met with Andres. Diah came later and we hung out for a bit (7-11 has wifi and tables!) On our way back to Diah’s I had the first barber shop shave of my life. I lost about 5 years. But I felt fresh. And it was 5k rp($.50).\ Diah’s was similar to Peters… a rented room with a bathroom, tight quarters but good people.
We got first dinner, stopped by 7-11, then second dinner down the street, and then headed to Diah’s office. Diah is a journalist for a tabloid in Jakarta. We mooched her wifi for a bit and then returned to 7-11 where we chatted and hung out till the wee hours of the morning. It was hopping! Back home the streets are dead by 12, for sure, but there were tons of people out till 2 am. And it was a weekday! Really weird. We couldn’t outlast the locals on staying up and went back to Diah’s to sleep. I asked what time I needed to get up to avoid traffic and get to Immigration. I wanted to get on the bus at six o’clock, Diah thought that was too early. I was doubtful. But she she said there is a special bus lane. All, right, if that’s the case, I guess she’s right, no need to get to the immigration office two hours before they open.
Day 58, April 4, 2013, Thursday, Taman Mini-Taman Rasuna, Jakarta (Indonesia)
I woke up early, showered and got to the bus at 7:15 or 7:30. Although, I was only at the 2nd stop, the bus was already full, standing room only. Sardine room only, rather. We slowly made our way to each stop and packed more people on. My hunch was right, there was no dedicated bus lane going into the city, it took about 2hrs to go 20 km. I have now fully experienced Jakarta traffic.Honestly, walking might be faster. I cant believe people commute like this every day, 4hrs+ of standing on a bus. 4 hrs! I could go on about how terrible this 2 hrs was, but I’ll save the blog space. Rule for life I’m never going to commute unless its on bike.
I paid for the visas, they’ll be ready for pick up later that day. Easy! Went back to Novi’s to shower, ate lunch and then made the trip back to Immigration to pick up the passports. Filled out a bit more paperwork, took a photo, fingerprints and signed a receipt, done! But they wouldn’t let me pick up Andres visa. Luckily, his hunch was right and he came to the office. Only problem is he wasn’t wearing formal clothing. A security officer stopped him from going upstairs. We went around the corner I gave him my pants and he finished off getting his passport. Then he set off on his bike and I took a taxi to Dharmawangsa to have a chat with the Biking community, at Café 8.
There seems to be some sort of time portal, blackhole, space-time-continuum thing in Dharmawangsa. I wandered around for almost an hour, asking around, being pointed further along to the next block. After a good while of walking, I ended up back where I started and walked in a new direction until I reach a street I recognized from my cab ride a few days prior. I made a few turns around the block and somehow I arrived at Café 8. I swear I should have seen it from where I stopped earlier. Andres had the same problem, he got to the same intersection and I tried to guide him to Café 8. We agreed. Some sort of space warp was around there. We made it here from Bali, but couldn’t make it through this neighborhood!
We waited a while for Ozzy and others to show up. Nico and Diah came to hang out and finally Ozzy and Santoso. What I thought would have been a presentation style talk ended up being diner with the biking group “Pitts” It was really fun, we shared some of our experiences on the bike, met these Jakartan bikers and ended our night by singing Beatles, all together.
Day 59, April 5, 2013, Friday, Taman Rasuna, Jakarta (Indonesia)
Today… I did nothing. It’s been two months and we have been out and about all the time. I felt guilty just staying in Novi’s all day, I’ve been trying to go out and about to not be too invasive, but today I just rested indoors. It was about time.
I typed about 17 pages catching up on my journal, trying to recover what I lost after my computer crash. That’s about it for today.
Day 60, April 6, 2013, Saturday Taman Rasuna, Jakarta (Indonesia)
Got up at 5….Oh how I wanted to sleep in. I had plans to go on a ride with the “Pitts” group, but hadn’t gotten a response from Santoso about picking up his bike. I almost flaked out because things weren’t solidified, but again I wasn’t letting myself poop out on something for a lame excuse. I decided to head to his café, and luckily I heard back as I was getting in a cab to Dharmawangsa. He let me borrow his mountain bike and we set off through Jakarta to meet in the city center. There were tons of bikers! It was so refreshing to see. Points on the board for Jakarta. “Pitts” members, Nico and his fixe friends. Diah, Andres and I set off to go to the old port and then get breakfast. It was a lovely ride through the city, and riding through Jakarta was a hell-of-a lot better than bussing across.
After our ride, Santoso and I headed back to his apartment in Dharmawangsa where I did some laps in his pool and then fell asleep. I napped a bit too long, woke up and rushed off to go to Novi’s, pack, and then go back to Taman Mini so that Diah, Andres and I could go to a waterfall a few hours away in the mountains. I was hesitant, as my guess is that it’s a touristy spot with not too much of hike and you have to pay to get in. But new rule is do everything, don’t get too comfortable, so I headed across the city and walked to Diah’s. The rain started coming down harder and harder. We decided to wait on leaving. Then we heard the traffic out of town was terrible. And then Andres and I decided we just didn’t feel like going on a few hour bus ride to a waterfall far away only to get there at night time. So we had dinner nearby and I hopped on the last bus back to Taman Rasuna.
Day 61, April 7, 2013, Sunday, Taman Rasuna, Jakarta (Indonesia)
Woke up early again, headed over to Santoso’s to borrow his bike and set off to experience Car-free-day. Every Sunday, the main avenue is restricted to just bicycle use for a few hours, and quite a few miles along the main stretch of road. Jakarta gained huge points in my book on this one. Although Jakarta is massive, Car-free-day gave it a community feel, thousands of people were out walking, running and cycling along this main thoroughfare. I rode for a bit and then met up with Toto, the current chairman of Bike-to-work Jakarta. He was volunteering at a “Say no to plastic” campaign and I tagged along, becoming a guest-star. I’m sure there are others out there that deserve way more to be special guests. But when you’re a Bule riding around the world on a bike, I guess you automatically become a special guest. Toto and I chatted it up and went around to replace people’s plastic bags with reusable fold up bags. A lot of people were receptive to the idea of receiving the bag, but something tells me they’ll never get used… I hope I’m wrong.
We wrapped it up at “Say no to Plastic” I chatted with a soccer club from outside the city and then headed back to Dharmwangsa. I got utterly lost, again. Ending up in the same spot where I started by going in a straight line… Go figure. Dropped of the bike and returned to Taman Rasuna, washed up and set out try and meet Steve, Novi and some of the Krakatoa group before hanging out with Ivonne.
To get across the city, this time, I wanted to use “Kopaja”, the cheapest bus line. Novi said I’m guaranteed to get something stolen. I thought otherwise, and decided to take the challenge. Ivonne suggested to act totally calm and not ask any questions or else I’ll appear as a target. I crossed the street, hopped on the bus and went out my ride… I didn’t ask anyone any questions and rode the bus in the wrong direction all the way to the end of the line, waiting for my stop to show up. The bus stopped and the money collector told me the ride was over, what? Damnit! So much for tackling Kopaja. I hopped back on, paid the ticket again and went all the way to the other end of the line to my stop(literally, my stop was the last one in the opposite direction). Ivonne and I grabbed food and chatted for a quite a while and took some photos. Then it was getting on in the evening so I headed back to Taman Rasuna, chatted with Steve and Novi and started packing. Tomorrow, we move on from Jakarta. I wouldn’t say that I like Jakarta, but it was a better place than the traffic filled hell-hole I expected it to be.
Day 62, April 8, 2013, Jakarta-Carita (Indonesia)
Steve and I got up at mid morning, packed up, and said thank you’s to Novi, Berna and Becky. Steve and I went to the nearest malls(across the street and then down the street from the mall across the street) looking for a good host gift. We were unsuccessful, we’ll keep our eyes open.
We grabbed our bags and got a taxi to Toto’s office where we had lunch and talked about the bikes for almost two hours. I picked his brain on organizing such a massive bike community, how to get biking more present as a mode of transport. He countered with questions about our experiences traveling by bike and about the biking movement in our respective towns. It was so interesting and inspiring. If I had a cause for my bike ride, It’s be to promote biking to work.
We took a cab to the bus station across town and then a bus from Jakarta back to Carita. I slept, covering my entire backpack, no pick-pockets are getting into this one! I chatted very briefly with a girl sitting in the seat across the aisle. She asked for a picture, I obliged. And then a story from Novi popped into my head, about how her bule friend has a huge portfolio of pictures with people who ask for pictures with him. That’s hilarious. I figured this will be the first picture I save to start my album, exchanged numbers with Rum, and requested she send me the photo.
Our bus ride ended at a gas station in Labuhan, the town before Carita, where the ticket collector told us the ride was over. Within seconds someone was on the bus, asking if we wanted to go to Carita, offering us a ride on his Ojek(motorbike). Something seems fishy here… We tried to stay on the bus, as we were the only ones getting off and I know theres a bus station in Labuhan. Not too mention, a gas station is not a bus station. And how did this ojek driver know we were going to Carita? We were booted with all our bags and then hounded by this guy offering a ride. We told him we didn’t want a ride, he continued hounding. How are we going to carry 6 bags on a the back of a motor bike? He claimed that Carita is 30 kilometers away, it’s more like 9ish. I will sleep on the street before I ride with this a-hole. So I approached a small truck with an empty truck bed and started trying to ask if we could pay them for a ride to Carita. The ojek driver swooped, likely intimidating the truck driver from considering giving us a ride. I went up to someone else and ask them how far to Carita, 13k, the same Ojek driver approached and ended that conversation as well. Steve and I decided our best bet is to just stay put and not act like we’re moving yet. We went to a small shop, bought a drink and talked through our options. We finally shook off the ojek driver. Now we were negotiating with a angkot driver(angkots are small mini buses with an sliding scale fee, depending on how far you go). He wanted 150k, saying that the angkot rides were over. We called the Carita hostel to get a price check for an angkot at night. 50k. The lowest he would go was 100k. We’re to stubborn to not save $5 between us, so we collected our bags and started walking into Labuhan to find a place to stay for the night (Angkots are 5k during regular hours) We walked about 2km and I was slowing down, I had all my bags which are usually on my steel frame bike. We ducked into a restaurant for dinner. The restaurant folk rebuffed my questions of how much each item was that they put in front of us and just said waved their hands saying “Makan, makan” (eat eat). Nuh’ uh’ I brought them back over and we went over the price of each item. Then Steve and I judged our hunger levels and dove in. It was a bit on the pricey side, but it wasn’t mie goreng(fried noodle), nasi goreng(fried rice) or any of the other items we’ve been choosing from for the past two months, it was squid, fish, fresh veggies and some stir fried veggies. We got into a conversation with the guys the table over, almost got a ride from them, but they wanted 100k, also. We tried to bargain them down, and they wouldn’t budge. Fine, a night in Labuhan it is! We finished up eating and rested at the restaurant and chatted with the staff. After a bit of sitting, the staff approached us and offered to give us a ride to Carita, for 50k. WIN! Points on the board for bule’s across Indonesia!
We got to Carita, dropped off our stuff and walked to Hotel Wira to get our bikes. I think the staff let us keep our bikes there partially because we’d come back and be guests. We hadn’t had the best relation with them, so we walked up to the table in front of our old room, un locked the bikes, nodded to the security guards and rode off. Sianara Hotel Wira. Steve and I hopped on our computers at Hotel Rikata. An Indonesian approached asking if I was Chris. It was Digimon, someone I’d reached out to on cocuhsurfing! He didn’t have a place to stay but recommended I stay here(he works here), kind of cheeky-ish for couchsurfing but he ended up being really nice and gave me the contact information for a friend of his in Krui, Sumatra, the next surfing town along our route. Apparently the surf was good for the past few days but the swell was dying now. DAMNIT. Maybe in Krui I’ll get good surf, I can only hope. I walked to the beach that night and saw that there was definitely swell in the water. Oh well, maybe I’ll get some surf in my dreams tonight.