Jakarta in the Fast Lane

Jakarta is definitely a city on the move in many senses of the word; from the fast moving four lane highways to the huge five star hotels being built all over town. So much so that there is a sense that the city is struggling to keep up with its own huge ambitions. Rush hour in Jakarta is anything but - no one can rush anywhere! As we discovered during an hour-long rush hour bus ride, there is plenty of waiting, queuing, inching, squeezing, squashing and sweating - but no rushing. All of this, in our case, to cover about three miles.

Our arrival into a new city, and for that matter part of the world, was made that much more enjoyable by staying with our friend Adinda, our old colleague from UNICEF. Adinda made us feel very welcome, showed us around some of her favourite places in the city, and usefully armed us with some good Bahasa phrases.

A particular highlight of our stay in Jakarta was a culinary outing with Adinda and her auntie to some backstreet food stalls; called warung. We were introduced to some delicious dishes that we will be looking out for on the rest of the trip, including tempe in kecap manis (a fried soya bean dish in a sweet soy sauce) and ayum sate (chicken satay - 100 times better than any satay we have ever eaten before). This was all washed down with kelapa kopyor (a deliciously refreshing young coconut juice).

Its been an exciting and fast paced start to the trip. After a seven hour train journey, our next stop will be Yogyakarta, in central Java.