Jakarta Start

Back in August I was itching to book some travel. I asked RobO if I could pull the trigger on the next cheap deal that lit me up and hoped it would be somewhere in Asia. The very next day a seat sale to Indonesia came up and I pounced.

Having travelled as much as we have, we have strong preferences on the types and timings of the flights that we book, so I was less than enthusiastic when United made some major changes to our booking. We ended up with an overnight layover in Houston, which is a great excuse to visit our cousin Byron and hit up our favourite Tex-Mex place, Manny’s. This time we also got to meet one of Byron’s friends Troy, who travels a lot for work. As luck would have it, Troy had expiring United points and upgraded our first flight to business class. Total game changer.

Our schedule change also gave us a couple of days in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. I wasn’t all that jazzed about time in a sprawling Asian capital city and it delivered as anticipated.
We stayed in Glodok, which is the Chinatown area. The sights and smells were like any Chinatown market we’ve visited around the world.

We reacquainted ourselves with the terrifying act of crossing a busy street. The key is to start walking and without changing pace as the drivers accommodate. To me every time feels like it will be my last street crossing and I have to strongly resist the urge to sprint to safety.

We visited the Old Town area which has Dutch colonial architecture. I could imagine how beautiful it would have been in it’s prime.

We were struck by the genuine helpfulness of some Indonesian people including:

• a bus driver who drove us to another place, got out of the bus to show us how to buy tickets and where to catch the correct bus.
• a guy who came sprinting across the subway station with bills to change our money to the ones that would go in the ticket machines.
• many smiling and welcoming faces.

After 2 days in the city we were thrilled to fly to paradise. Here’s a sneak peak.