Jakarta City Tour

Today, we will review about the Jakarta City. You could say, I want to share my exploration of Jakarta. I have been lived in here since I was born, and I want to show you, travelers, the greatness of my hometown. Ah, and also my sister's friends from Saudi Arabia came to Jakarta, so we tried to be a temporary guide that show them around this city. For you travelers, who want to ask anything about this city, you could contact me, I'll answer anything that I knew.

1. Monas (National Monument)

The first place that you could think when visit Jakarta is Monumen Nasional (Monas), this place is Jakarta's trade mark. Inside the building is historical museum of Indonesia that's tell a lot about independent day of this country and our patriots. 

Tugu Monas

This is our patriot statues that was located in the yard. You could tell from the sculpture form that brought our flag. 

Monas has a very large yard, so there are many cozy garden that's good for relax or hangout. You could also workout in the yard, some people jogging, cycling, or playing badminton and football here. Especially on the morning and late afternoon, of course this place is crowded at saturday and sunday. 

The museum is open from 08.30 until 14.30, the fare is Rp. 10.000,- / person. But if you want to go to the top you will pay Rp. 15.000,- and only open until 10.00 am. You have to get up early if you want to see the top of Monas. 

Jakarta city view from above, it's not really good right ? there are so many pollution here.  -_-'

View from the top of Monas

Here is the space to view the scenery at the top of Monas. 

Actually there is the the second level before we go to the top. As you can see, there are many sculpture that tells about Indonesian people, culture, and our daily life. 

The sculpture view from close range. 

In the evening, monas light up so the view is really beautiful. Of course I'll guide around our guest to visit the scenery. This place is really crowded at night, especially on saturday night. There are night market here, you can try to visit it. Ah sometimes, there are many event or exhibition at this place that makes it more interesting.  

Monas night's view

As you know, this place is really huge so if you feels tired to walk around it you should rent a bicycle here. It cost around Rp. 20.000,- / hour. 

2. Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII)

Taman Mini or Beautiful Indonesia Miniature Park is culture-based recreational park that was located in east jakarta. There are cultured house from 26 province (1975), with many museum inside about our traditional an daily life about each province.  I don't know much about public transportation to go there even though I live here, because my daily transportation is my own motorcycle. I think you should try to rent a car or use a taxi to go there. 

Inside the area, there are many transportation to go around the taman mini, such as sky lift (gondola), Aeromovel Indonesia, mini train, roving bus, or rent a bicycle. After we arrived, we go straight to gondola to view taman mini from above, and see Indonesian Archipelago lake. 

Inside Gondola

It took around 15 minutes, after that we go to one of the museum, sorry I forgot the name of it. But fortunately I have the picture here.  Here is the building. 

Taman Mini Museum 

Map of Indonesia

Inside there are many culture clothes from all of our province in Indonesia. As you can see, below is a traditional clothes from Bali. We highly value our culture and custom from our tribes. We have so many different tribes, with different language and different culture and custom. Even though most young people right now can speak Bahasa, but usually they speak their own tribe language. 

Bali Traditional Clothes

Below is the wedding gown from east java. Indonesian wedding has many different style, we usually follow our tribes style, so you can see we have different wedding ceremonial, clothes, wedding theme for each tribes or province. And that's make Indonesia more interesting.

East Java Wedding Gown

Since old time, there is a traditional performance that was really famous among japanese people. That's is the puppet show, we call it "Wayang". The performance always using the traditional music instrument from java, such as gamelan, gambang, suling, etc. Try hear the music sound using automatic speaker that was captured in the right side of he picture. 

Below is the infamous game between girls in Indonesia. It's name is Congklak, until now we still play it. There are seven hole for each side, and you should put 7 congklak seeds for each hole.  But don't put the seeds at each corner. After that, you share the seed in each hole. The one who didn't have seeds or have less seeds then the other will lose. My mother really good at this game. I rarely beat her. (hiks...hiks..hikss)

Congklak

Here is my photo in front of the museum, the building looks like a traditional bali house. You can take many picture here, cause the view is really beautiful. 

There are many traditional house from each province in Taman Mini, we didn't took picture for each house, but I think I'll share you two of our traditional house. These two houses from Sumatera Island, I forgot the province though. (sorry)

Traditional House

The other one, stilt house. 

3. Kota Tua (Old Town)

Kota tua is the famous hangout place for many people, especially on the weekend. It located in west jakarta, near the Jakarta Kota Station. There are many old building from the colonial period here, that's why we call it old town. I visit this place at the night time, but you can came here at noon. This place is open for 24 hours, but if you want to visit the museum, you should came at noon. 

At noon you can rent an old bicycle here, It's around Rp. 15.000,- , ah there are a pantomime attraction here, or people who disguise as a ghost. You can take many picture with them, but you should give them some tip money. Well, you can give them for Rp. 2000,- after that you can take many picture as you want. 

Old City

As I told you before, here is Indonesian Ghost. It name is "Pocong".  We took a picture together. 

One of the infamous ghost in Indonesia, it's name is "suster ngesot".  The suster ngesot is a ghost who can't walk. Our guest took a picture with it. 

Here is in front of the old building in this place. We didn't go here at the weekend, so the place not too crowded.

At the night, there is a night market here. Of course with a cheap deal. My guest is interested in the engraving name artist that we passed. We make some for ourself too.

There is a fortune telling too , of course it is "ala Indonesia". Our family didn't trust about that kind of thing, but my sister curious about the stuff so she tried it. 

4. Bundaran Hotel Indonesia

One of the hangout spot that only open at night is this place, it's name is Bunderan Hotel Indonesia. The spot is the fountain in front of Hotel of Indonesia. 

Of course we didn't forget to take many picture here. Many young people gather here only to hangout, or take some picture. There are many pitchman here, so you can buy drinks as you like. 

6. Taman Impian Jaya Ancol

One of the most favorite for weekend getaway is Ancol, that was the biggest park site in Jakarta. There are many attraction inside such us pool, theme park, beach, cafes, restaurant, etc. It's late afternoon when we arrive at Ancol, so we only visit the beach here. There are many people relaxing in the beach, so usually they rent a mat to sitting around the beach. 

There is a bridge that connect from the beach to ocean, so we walking around it and taking many picture there. Indonesian people really like to hang out only for chatting and drinking (coffee, tea, or beer for non muslim), and the bridge is the best place to do it so it will be crowded especially on weekend. 

Actually there are many places inside Taman Impian Jaya Ancol that I want to share, I'll do it next time. 

7.  Tanah Abang - Blok A

For you shopping lover, don't forget to visit the biggest and cheapest market for clothing in Asia, Tanah Abang. Many shop here sell their clothes more cheaper if you buy it dozens, so you will need to bid to have a good price. 

8.  Pasar Baru

If Tanah Abang is a clothing paradise, then Pasar Baru is a paradise for shoes and sandal.  You can buy many cheap shoes and sandals with a good quality. 

I'll introduce you to Roti Unyil, the infamous little bread from Bogor. They opened their branch in Pasar Baru, so you wouldn't need to go to Bogor to try it. The Price for each bread is Rp. 2.000,-

The bread are very cute, but beware of your weight when you eat the bread, since you can't stop eating after one try. 

Roti Unyil

and here is my other favorite food in Pasar Baru, they sell guava pickles that really fresh and yummy. Don't forget to try it.

Thousand Island, Visit Paradise in Jakarta

Jakarta is the special capital region of Indonesia, and the most populous place in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. There are many attraction that you can find in there but mostly is museum, hangout place, night market, mall, etc. And today we will talk about ''The Thousand Island", one of the nature attraction near Jakarta. The Thousand Island consisting of almost 128 small island, including residence, resort, private, and empty island. There are two ways to go to thousand island, the first is using feri from Muara Angke port, and the second is speed boat from Marina, Ancol port with more expensive rate.

Nowadays, many small tour offer sharing package with cheap rate to explore Indonesia. One of the most visited destination is the thousand island. For the cheap rate, try visit the Pramuka Island, Tidung Island, Harapan / Kelapa Island, Pari Island. And for resort you should try Putri Island and Spa Island. I have visited these two islands a few years ago, and for this time I'll visit Harapan / Kelapa Island.

The trip took 3 1/2 hours from Jakarta with feri, after reached Harapan Island port, I use small boat to reach the home stay. Ah for today trip I use the Nugrozz Tour Indonesia package, the rate is Rp. 330.000 including home stay with air conditioner, meal, transport, snorkeling, bbq. I think the package is the cheapest one that I can found.  ^_^

They are the participants of this trip, two of them is my friends. We are lucky, this trip's participant only 7 peoples, so the home stay and the boat not crowded.

I took the picture with our guide, his name is Eko. He is really outgoing person, and he tell us many information about each island that we visit today and his stories when become tour guide. 

We arrived at home stay around 12 am, we rest a bit to have a lunch and pray time, after that we prepare to go snorkeling. For today, I use my muslim swimming suit. I prefer to use the swimming suit than t-shirt when we do snorkeling.

Ah, here is my friend. Her name is Oktriyani. She is one of my friends in senior high school that still been in contact with me. We plan this trip together for our golden week holiday. 

We reach the snorkeling spot in half an hour, it's time to getting ready for having fun. I use the life jacket cause I don't have any experience to swim in the sea,  well if you can swimming and diving, I think you wouldn't need to use it. 

Took some picture when we are in open sea, this is my first time snorkeling, so I am still not used to it. I drink many sea water here.  -_-'

This my under water picture, the water is very clear. 

Pose with starfish that was taken from under the sea.

We snorkeling for around one hour, but after that most of all the first timer become dizzy and nausea. I don't know why though. The below picture looks like dried fish. Ha..ha...ha...

The next stop is this island, but I forgot the name. This an empty island, but they used it as meeting place for a small boat, and food and drink vendor tent. 

To relieve my nausea,  I buy a hot coffee with fried bakwan and tofu. You can buy coconut too here.

We took a lot of picture here. If you want to continue the snorkeling you can do it in this island, but I didn't.

There are only two water sport in this place, well this is only a small empty island. There is a banana boat and donut boat. Cause I am using contact lens, I prefer the donut boat. They usually charge you for Rp.  35.000,- but we got a discount for only Rp. 30.000,- . 

This sport is fun enough, I think we ride this for around 15-20 minutes.

After this, the next stop is the white island. Do you know why the call it white ?
Because the island only with white sand and without a single tree. And do you know, this place is only arise from morning until afternoon, our guide said, it's around 9 am - 5 pm. After that this island will sink back.



We took a picture together with our travel banner.



This is my friends, we took our picture together.



After this spot, the next place we should go is Perak Island, but when we arrived, the island really crowded for tourists, that's why we go straightly to Bira Island for watching the sunset.

Hmmm....I just hope I can own this kind of ship. Amin.  

Ah, I forgot to introduce you all, below is the owner of our home stay. He assist our tour guide to take many picture of our trip. He share a lot of stories of many island, since he was raised in this place, one of them is the ghost island. (hii....I am really afraid of the ghost story) 

And he said, he often found corpses. He said if they found corpse without identity, they will immediately bury the corpses but if they found the identity, they will return the corpses to their family. 

Pose with sunset.

This is my first time seeing the sun sinking into the sea. (haa...ha...ha....)

After the sun was set, we go back to our home stay. Actually we should have a bbq together, and walking around the island, but we were really tired. We just fall a sleep after dinner, but they woke us up for eating the fish that they prepared for bbq. 

The next day, we woke up around 4.30 am to watch the sunrise. We walk around 15 minutes from our home stay to the spot but the weather is cloudy, it's a pity we can't see the sun rise. 

A beautiful sun that always shine our live everyday.



After watching the sunrise we walking around the village for a bit, and took some picture. Below is my picture in the welcome gate.

Another pics again.......

We arrived at home stay around 7 am, and have a breakfast together. At 9 am, we depart to visit turtle breeding ground , I didn't take a picture though. Below is the mangrove tree that growing around the breeding area.

We come to the Harapan port around 11 am, but our ship haven't come yet, so we decided to sitting around the food mart area in the island. And you know, as we sitting around the gazebo, I meet my senior high school friend that has holiday in this island too. It's really coincidence, we haven't meet each other for around 8-9 years. I am really happy, we can meet again after so long, of course we don't forget to took a picture together.

Around 1 pm, our ship come. We really lucky to have a seat at captain room, thanks to our guide though. ^_^

With this, my holiday is finished. See you in my next trip project.