Jakarta - a real cultural experience

Our first official day in Jakarta was quite uneventful. We were all a bit tired from our travels and our last few nights in Bintan so we spent more of the day sleeping and eating in an attempt to recharge our battery. As it turned out we needed our batteries to be more charged than we had anticipated because what we did the next 2 days involved little to know sleep. If you look up Jakarta in the Lonely Planet you will find that it is described as having the best night/club scene in all of Asia. Although it also talks a bit about some touristy things to do (which we did one afternoon) most of the description is about how clubbing in Jakarta is a must. We have trusted our LP thus far and we were not about to give up on it with that advice.

The day after we arrived we got up late, got a bit to eat (we found a place where you could get all you can eat rice for 40 cents so we all felt extremely sick after stuffing ourselves) and then went and checked out some sites around the city. We didn't last too long with this because it was unbearably hot out but we gave it the old college try. That night after it had cooled down a bit (meaning it was still unbearably hot) we headed to a park we had passed on walk earlier that day where there were little soccer fields and basketball courts. We quickly found ourselves involved in a basketball game and once that was finished we moved on to soccer. Whenever we join into games it is always a scene and we end up getting quite an audience because the locals think it is funny to watch a bunch of tall, lanky foreigners run around. By the time we finished up at the park it was close to 8 PM so we headed back to our hotel, cleaned up a bit and then went for food before getting the night officially started.

We did actually get to the club until around 1 AM. The clubs in Jakarta are open from Thursday till Sunday...literally they stay open for 4 straight days and they are filled the entire time. When we got there we were blown away and it was like nothing we were expecting. I thought places like that only existed in the movies but apparently not. Also we somehow got into the VIP entrance (meaning we got rushed right in and didn't have to pay) because Jesus met some rich Chinese man outside before entering that told us to come with him and that he would take care of us..not a bad start to the night. It is hard to describe the scene inside of this place but basically it was dark, smoky, loud, and extremely crowded. We danced our way straight through the night and into the morning. When we finally left it was 8:30 AM. Walking out of the place was a strange experience in itself because being in there we had totally lost track of time and when we came out the day was well underway and people were going about there business. What we couldn't believe was how many people were still in the club when we left and also how many people were just arriving. Who goes clubbing at 8:30 AM?? We were all in a bit of a daze but very happy with the night (and morning) we had just had. For some reason when we got back to the hotel I still couldn't fall asleep so I did some exploring around the local market area and some of the others went off to get food. Needless to say that day was fairly uneventful considering we ended up sleeping from about noon (I couldn't sleep until after 2) until around 7 PM. Now, after a night like that it would be expected that we would have a very laid back and relaxing night and this is what the majority of the group wanted to do. However, Will and I somehow got our second wind and after some major convincing we found ourselves right back on the dance floor of the same club that very night. Again we arrived around 1:30 AM and we didn't leave until just about 7:30 AM.

So as you can see we really did a lot of cultural exploration during our time in Jakarta...

After spending one more night in Jakarta (no round 3) we left the next day for Bali and that is where we are currently. We got in this afternoon around 3 (we found a cheap flight and decided to jump on that rather than do 2 day overland/ferry route) and crashed once we found our hotel. From the little we have seen on Bali so far it seems to be a party town with a lot of surfer bros which is just about the last thing all of us want to experience right now. We plan to hit the beach tomorrow (perhaps try our luck at surfing) and just spend a relaxing day trying to recharge our depleted batteries. That is all for now....goodnight.

-RBC