Jakarta

Just recently, I was on a business trip to Jakarta. It was my first overseas work assignment and I felt somewhat afraid - afraid of how unsafe Jakarta is. Regardless, I went and returned, and the feeling of being overseas for work and for play is completely different, I must say.

I was stuck in the office most of the time. The times when I was out was for meals or to return to the hotel. The hosts were great and I think I must have put on some weight because every meal was extremely satisfying.

View from my hotel room - Jakarta's CBD area juxtaposed with shophouses.

My glimpses of Jakarta came mainly from the sight-seeing I do in the car. It is a rather interesting place. Its cityscape is very much similar to Singapore, but those little nooks and crannies about the city are what really attract me.

The street stalls selling snacks I was told never to risk my life trying; the ragged three-wheeled vehicles running alongside big cars on the road; the winding back alleys which the street-smart will use as jalan tikus (shortcut) to avoid the horrid traffic jams. These and more would be worth exploring if only I had the time.

Jakarta is perhaps very famous for its unending traffic jams. In order to appreciate how badly jammed the roads are in Jakarta, one has to be on the road itself. It took 20 minutes for a cab stuck in a jam to get from a spot about 10-15 metres away from the office building. My boss and I could have done better walking, but lugging our luggages there would pose a greater problem.

At the Jakarta-Soekarno International waiting gate.

It was bad enough to have jams that lasted from 9am till 9pm. Floods were the last thing we wanted on our itinerary. Stories of how rains can flood the highways to the airport make me tremble. On our last day, heavy rains fell. But it did not affect our journey to the airport, thank goodness!

These many little inconveniences did not dampen my first visit to Jakarta. Because they made my otherwise dull working trip, slightly more adventurous.