Jakarta, May 6-8, 2010

Jakarta which means Victory City has a population of thirteen million people.  Except for a four year period when Jogjakarta was made the capital by the ruling Dutch, Jakarta has been and is again the capital of Indonesia. The nation's history is rich with the impact of the countries, including the Dutch and Japanese, that have ruled over it.

Although very beautiful, it is immediately evident this is a poor country.  Their money has suffered with inflation and is worth very little.  It was difficult to figure out prices when you are talking in the millions of rupiah.  Most of the people use motor scooters or motor bikes, it was not unusual to see families of four on one bike!  The amount of baggage one can balance on a bike was amazing, we saw one woman on a motor bike balancing a tray on her head that had a bottle of Tobasco sauce standing on it!!!  People are always selling things, and although they were polite they could be persistent.

We stayed in a very beautiful hotel called Hotel Grand Melia.  It had a pretty good fitness centre, lots of shops, restaurants and an art gallery.  We were very proud when we saw the gallery was featuring a Canadian artist Ken Pattern.  We bought a number of 2011 desk calenders called Jakarta on the River which will make wonderful gifts for our friends. 

We toured the Taman Mini Indonesia Cultural Park which featuring Indonesian history, Dutch colonial architecture and home styles from each of Indonesia's 27 provinces.  It was a very hot day 34 degrees celsius and 94 % humidity.

This was our guide, a very pleasant young man with a good sense of humour.

The Komodo dragon is the most poisonous and deadly species on earth.  It's mouth carries millions of deadly germs.

Sunsets are very short in Indonesia, but Al was very quick to have captured this.  Our stay in Jakarta was also short but pleasant.  Our next stop is Jogjakarta.