The last destination – Indonesia

This post has been in my mind for a long time, but I have been completely discouraged to complete it by the terrible quality of internet in Indonesia. The photos just wouldn’t upload and I thought the text without photos would not make much sense. Since all the photos are on Facebook now, I can write about my time in Indonesia.

Jakarta

Jakarta is a massive capital city of Indonesia. Although spending there almost a week... I don’t have many pictures of it. And if they are, they are inside cafes, restaurants or houses. It is because I have never seen such a difficulty of getting around the town as I have experienced in Jakarta. The population of this capital is almost 10 million, but including suburbs where from most people make their way to work in Jakarta every morning, the number rises to around 18 million (comparing to London with around 15 million people, including suburbs).

The problem with Jakarta is that there is no underground, trains, subway or any other public transport (apart from buses) that would make people move around the city therefore every family in Jakarta owns on average two cars (some have motorbikes) and as you can imagine it creates continuous, ever-present and unbelievable traffic jam on every road, pretty much at any time of the day.

The traffic is bad to the point that when people finish their work, they go to the closest shopping mall to hang out with work colleagues for the next few hours, just so the traffic can go down and they can go home in 20 min instead 2 hours time. It really is unthinkable to me.

I was very lucky that I stayed at Stefanie’s and I had her and her brother taking me in their car with them, so the hours and hours spend stuck in the traffic were actually not that bad. Its accurate to say that if you live in Jakarta you get old in your car (that you spend your life there).

Additionally, the traffic makes the city incredibly dirty and polluted and even more to that – there is no park or any green area that people would just walk to and relax. For that reason the social life happens in countless shopping malls around the city. 

What I found very interesting about the place, is that everywhere you can see random people directing the traffic and/or helping drivers to join the main road when they come from the side road or leave your parking space by standing in the middle of the street (like policeman when the traffic lights are broken, except that they are no officials) stopping other cars so you can pull out your car from the parking space. It is a great win-win situation where drivers get much needed help to navigate in a very tight traffic and 'street helpers' get the tip from every driver they help.

I genuinely feel sorry for all the citizens of the city like Jakarta, it must be really hard to find a balance of work and relax and healthy life in there. I'm so glad I had Stefanie and her brother there, because if I didn't, just for the city itself, I probably could say that I will never be back.