So me and two of my best buds went on a trip to Jakarta in July. There were so many things that I wanted to document in words because I knew I just had to express it so that someday when I look back, I can still remember the trip.
But sadly, here I am, making a post about that trip in September. Yay me. So yeah, I have forgotten bits and pieces of details that I would've loved to share with the one person who still reads my blog, Me. I love you Me.
Lets see, where to even begin.
It was a trip planned on a whim because suddenly my friends told me that Air Asia was having a promotion and I just went along with it. Who can resist cheap tickets?
So we flew to Jakarta on the 27th of July and arrived at 7pm-ish I think. Frankly, the three of us didn't have a clue what to do after landing. Seriously. We looked for hotels on a borrowed map at the airport and just decided to go with one that we thought was close enough from the airport.
Going to the hotel, was another story.
I can't blame our stupidity on jet lag because, come on, who gets jet lag flying from KK to Jakarta? Anyways, we knew we had to get on a Blue Bird taxi because those were the reliable ones, said the internet. But we were so clueless that the minute a guy grabbed our bags and asked where we were going, we followed him all the way to his so called taxi. Now, I'm no good with currency, but we were charged 300,000 rp for the trip. We later found out that we were duped big time cause normally the highest rate will not be over 100,000 rp. Safe to say, it was an awful start for our trip.
There's so many other things that happened that first night, we were already exhausted. The hotel was not what we expected either. First night, and we wanted to go home. Luckily we changed hotel the next day. So much for an exciting first buddies trip. Anyways, I don't wanna dwell too much on the crappy parts so lets move on to happier things.
What I loved about this trip was, we traveled mostly on foot. So, we got to see how the Indonesians live, for real. Not like the ones you see on sinetrons. We passed by so many stalls, so many houses by train tracks, so many ojeks, tuk tuks and what not. I don't know why but I was fascinated by some of the buildings that I saw. There was a sense of, I dunno, history, backstory to it? I kept taking pictures of buildings.
You know when you're in another country, you're bound to feel culture shock? Yea, but I was not shocked by the culture. Instead, I was horrified by the traffic. The traffic in Jakarta is no joke man. Trust me. For someone who's used to organized driving on the road, watching the drivers in Jakarta drive like they owned the road, terrified me. Literally. We were so scared to even cross the road. Don't believe me? Google it.
In terms of language, we had no problem since we spoke Malay and its quite similar to the Indonesian language. But still, there was a difference in slangs and intonation. So, I was surprised that I was actually able to converse in Indonesian quite comfortably. I guess all those years of being forced into watching sinetrons with mumy paid off eventually. And I actually enjoyed it. Felt good to try and speak a different way for a few days.
I suppose there's a lot more that I wanted to say, back when I just came back from the trip, but weeks has passed by due to my super power in procrastinating, so now I've lost the will. I'm just gonna let the pictures speak. Hey, pictures speak a thousand words, and I'm really not in the mood to type that many words, so lets just let the pictures do the talking. Oh and on the next trip, Philippines my buds says, we definitely have to plan in advanced. Especially since we don't speak Tagalog.
