Jakarta Exploration

The hotel where I was staying had a buffet breakfast every day (in addition to having a concierge – but it still wasn’t expensive). The buffet had a combination of Indonesian and Western food. I had always wondered about the buffets at luxury hotels in America, where the Japanese breakfast looked like dinner. Now that I know there’s no breakfast food per se in Asia, I had noodles every morning. Well, fruit too. Good way to start the day!



Friday was my Jakarta Day. First, I walked around the old Dutch quarter of Kota, which had colonial buildings dating to the 1600s. There were several museums around the main square. I went to the Wayang Museum, where I saw the elaborate carved-out-of-buffalo-hide flat puppets that are used for shadow plays. When my father lived in St. Maarten, there was an Indonesian restaurant called The Wayang Doll, and we always went there for a rijstaffel. So I had to buy Wayang dolls for my sister and for myself a Tree of Life, which had all sorts of wonderful symbols. On to the Fine Art Museum – some interesting ancient ceramics and even more interesting paintings by Indonesian artists – lots of rich, dark colors. Then to the History Museum, where I saw prehistoric Java relics (after all, Java Man was one of the first hominids) as well as furniture from the colonial period.



Then I walked to the harbor, also an important part of the history of Jakarta. A guide came up to me and offered me a tour – it was good to be with a guide, because I got a lot of stares. We walked past old ships that are still in use and got rowed across the harbor to a fishing village that was fascinating to walk around. A good tour, and it ended right near my hotel!




I wondered if anyone could tell me where Obama lived when he lived in Jakarta, and when I went down to the front desk to ask, a guest who was checking out said that she grew up right in that neighborhood and knew the place (although she didn’t know him). I had a driver take me there – both he and the people nearby thought it was amusing that I wanted to go there, but it was clear that I wasn’t the first person to do so (and I won’t be the last). Thus, the Obama Stalker Tour that ended at the White House began! It’s a modest house but I felt filled with pride that someone with a multi-cultural background (and an Illinois and Princeton connection as well!) was now the President.


Going to Obama’s house gave me the opportunity to see more of the city, too, and I had the driver stop at the center, where I saw the big mosque and the big cathedral and a big park and more Dutch buildings. There are some other museums too that looked interesting, but they were already closed. Then it was back to the Café Batavia and getting ready for an early airport pickup the next day.



The Canadian fellow I had shared the taxi with was the head of a school and he told me there was a lot of money to be made teaching English in Indonesia; everyone wants to learn it. I told him I didn’t know how to teach (I was glad nobody had asked me to teach in Morocco) and he said, “you speak English, you breathe, you can teach English.” Something to keep in mind, I suppose.