On A Day Off, I Took a Tour of Jakarta....

On Sunday I Visited a Sixteenth Century Town Hall and Drawbridge, Old China Town, and the National Museum……on a local tour that included a young couple from Singapore. Actually, she was originally from Australia and he was from London but they’ve been living in Singapore for several years now. Nice people and fun to do a one-day tour with. Funny thing, but she was blonde and the local children just flocked to her wanting their pictures taken with her—to the point it was sometimes difficult for us to continue the tour.

Today was May 1^st, or May Day, and I’ve noticed that this holiday is much more important in other countries than it is in the U.S. Here, it is considered a major holiday and when you factor in the different political parties, including the old Communist Party, the parades and celebrations are very political and not without tension at times.

The National Museum building is a magnificent old Dutch colonial structure built in 1862 and houses all kinds of ethnic Indonesian objects. As always, the day was hot and muggy, but surprisingly the old ceiling fans on the high ceilings kept the place pleasant.

Indonesia is a country of over 10,000 islands, obviously not all of them inhabited, but I really find Bali and am considering trying to book an overnight tour there next weekend.

While we were there, a really large group of police assembled in the street in front of us and I could kind of sense people in the museum were more than a little interested and even apprehensive.

Pretty soon we started hearing music, loud speakers, and chanting and a huge, really huge crowd of demonstrators started appearing. We were looking out the third story windows of the old colonial building and could see them several blocks away and even as they got closer, I never saw the end of the parade. They were protesting worker’s rights (it was May Day after all) and they were really loud. There was a large ornate metal fence in front of the museum, so people weren’t really scared, but more curious about what was going to happen when the marchers reached the police barricades in front.

When the two groups met in the street, the police basically moved aside and started escorting the group ahead where there was a big park. No violence, no confrontation, basically just a peaceful democratic political demonstration.

Our tour driver got us out a back way because the main street was closed and wound around through the maze of streets to the Old China Town district, called Glodok. I swear every city in the world has a China Town. This particular community is thought to have been founded around 1650 and is obviously very, very old. Today it is mostly a series of very narrow winding streets lined with street vendors and open-air food markets.

We did make a side trip into the Petak Sembilan Chinese temple dedicated to the Buddhist goddess of mercy, or forgiveness and is also thought to have been functioning at this site since 1650. I couldn’t stay inside long due to the heavy fog of incense but it was an interesting side trip.
From there we went to old public square in the Dutch section of the city for lunch. The Dutch influence is still very obvious here. Like Amsterdam, Jakarta has a series of canals running throughout the city, and in this area, called Old Batavia, the tall, narrow buildings along the canals really do look like Amsterdam in places. The Dutch called Jakarta “Batavia,” but after independence the name reverted back to the Bahasian language form.

We ate at the Hotel Batavia which was an interesting experience from the point of experiencing a really old, colonial structure in top condition—but not so much for the food. I had a prawn sandwich that was really overrated, overpriced and underwhelming but we were able to sit above the square below and watch the May Day celebrations below that included costumes, dancing and music. That part of the experience was really neat.

After lunch we walked across the square to the old Batavia city hall which today has been converted into the Fatahillah Museum and features mostly old, colonial furniture with quite a few really negative digs at the influence of the Dutch. As you walk through the front doors, there are three Indonesian mannequins hanging by their necks while a Dutch soldier looks on. I have always heard that the Dutch were particularly cruel colonial administrators and the feeling here is pretty much resentment toward them today. I didn’t notice it as much in Pekanbaru last year, but it is pretty obvious here.

Again, the Australian girl got mobbed by the kids for picture taking. I took one photo of a particularly small girl in a hajib.

I had particularly wanted to visit this museum because of a famous cannon here—called Si Jagar (I know, I’m weird because I like old cannons) but this was a really large one and very ornate.

We wrapped the tour up with a drive along the Sunda Kelapa Harbor—over 500 years old and, again, another vestige of the old Dutch seafaring heritage. Since it was May Day, all the ships were in harbor and it was really a beautiful sight since they are all large wooden ships that provide water taxis and supply goods to the many islands in Indonesia. Each island served has a color designated and the boats that go there are painted that color so what we had in the harbor yesterday was a “calendar-type” setting of beautiful old wooden boats in a veritable cornucopia of color (I had to squeeze that phrase in).

All in all, it was an interesting day. Jakarta has about 13 million people living here so it is a typical Asian overcrowded city but it does have a lot of culture and history. Today is Monday and I’m technically off but may or may not have to meet my translator this morning to set up the training. Since I worked with him four weeks last summer, it’s really not necessary that we meet but I haven’t received word from anybody since I’ve been here so I’ll go do down to the lobby later in case he does come in

Because the Internet is so expensive, I may not post again until later in the week but I am very seriously considering an overnight trip to Bali next weekend……