15 december

The trainride to the old part of Jakarta called Kota (former Batavia) together with three affable germans whom I met at the hostel is easy and quick enough but walking around takes some effort. That's because of the traffic jam outside the station which we somehow manage to cross, motorcycles riding on the sidewalks and the heat in combination with the humidity...

Kota has some well maintained buildings (the former city hall, the bank of Indonesia and the Batavia cafe being three of them) and some that are dilapidated and in desparate need of either demolition or urgent renovation. All are recogniseable in style. It's mostly the 'Amsterdamse school' of which Berlage was a proponent, mixed with a huge dash of colonial chic and practicality (all buildings whitewashed, shutters everywhere and thick walls). The chicken market drawbridge across one of the chronically smelly and extremely dirty canals is a weird sight, it looks like Amsterdam's 'magere brug' but where that is still in use, this one is treated as sort of a monument.

The old harbour is a 20 minute stroll from here and when we arrive it's like looking at something unchanged for centuries (details like stinky trucks, diesel powered cranes and bags of cement aside): It's full of big wooden pinisi's, wooden coastal craft. Sail powered before but diesel powered now, all are still being loaded by hand and the narrow planks leading from shore to ship seem frightfully narrow considering the loads being carried across... How many guys would have fallen off of those? Safety gear consists mainly of flipflops and a cloth to cover the head from the sun. We walk the length of the dock and back and by the time we're back at the entrance gate we're about ready for some shade. We sit in the shadow of a tree and after having recovered continue back to Kota and cafe Batavia...

Cafe Batavia is a beauty. Colonial in style with hard woord floors and furniture. It's a dream in art deco. We repair for a beer or two and lunch (Chicken Sate in my case) and after having looked around it and having lollygagged for an our on one of the couches, it's time to move on to the monumen national...

It's closed. It has been since 16:00... The park around it is nice enough though and around dusk it's vibrant with hawkers, salesmen, runners (a sikh in this case) street performes and charlatans. There are also people renting out electric scooters. the four of us decide to rent one for cruising or racing each other around a small part of it. They are way to small for us and we crack the locals up no end.

Bwe follow the railway lline back to the hostel and discover a whole world of people (young men and grandmothers) living underneath it in tents and shacks or underneath cardboard. They all have telephones and I even see a tv or two (not forgetting rats of course) After coming back to the hostel we decide to go to the backpackers' ghetto. That was a mistake... No one there and hardly anything open. Is it because it's monday? We don't know. After having been refused by at least 5 taxi drivers (upon hearing our destination) we manage to get into 2 tuktuks and are back to the hostel in no-time. After dinnner and few beers we say our goodbyes (the germans are leaving tomorrow) and go to sleep.