gobbledonk Posted January 5, 2004 Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 Money The currency in Indonesia is the Rupiah (Rp), and I'll try to keep all numbers in Rp unless otherwise stated. At the time of my visit, the Aussie peso was buying over 6300 Rp, so I should have been very happy. Sadly, I spent too much time counting my currency and too little simply enjoying the moment, so my advice to you is this : set yourself a daily limit, multiply it by 1.5 and then just do what you want until the Rupiah run out. You should still have enough to catch a cab back to your hotel The other thing is that most ATMs dispense only 50K notes : try to get someone in your hotel to change at least one of these into 10's or 20's (the smaller, the better). This seems to be the Indo equivalent of a hundred-dollar bill, and people are reluctant to take them unless you are spending more than 20K on something - its particularly awkward with cab drivers. When you get 1K notes and 500Rp coins, dont laugh : hang onto them like grim death. They might represent only a few pence in your native land, but they are the stuff of everyday transactions for many Indonesians - 50K notes arent. Transport If you have spent any time in Bangkok, Jakarta's traffic will seem like 'business as usual'. I was fortunate : Jakarta was relatively 'deserted' over the Xmas/NY period, but I still found myself mired in the whole 'blazing sun / blaring horns / why arent we moving ?' nightmare that we've all been through. The area around Kota is particularly bad, and we made the mistake of taking a Microlet (sp?). Its the local version of the baht bus, and allows one to enjoy the exhaust fumes in their totality, whilst losing a few pounds via heat stress. Fantastic stuff. My worst traffic experience actually started surprising well. We hired a cab to take us to the zoo, a considerable distance from the hotel, and it was all going swimmingly until we reached the freeway we needed to cross to reach said zoo. BI had deployed the Indonesian Police to close the road, diverting us from a relatively uncrowded tributary onto a major nightmare. Completely pissed off, I told the driver to take us to the hotel. Almost an hour later, and 100k poorer, I staggered from the cab. If youneed to be at a given destination by a certain time, allow plenty of time to get there - enough said. If you can endure the Indo version of the baht bus or squeeze into a bicak (sp ?), go for it. The truly suicidal can even rent a bike or a car. For the rest of us, cabs are the only way to go. As has been mentioned before, stick to the BlueBird group. They have the drivers details displayed on the dash, are aircon and you can trust the driver to use the meter. Everyone else seems to demand an amount which they deem to be fair - in the worst case, I paid 100K to extricate myself and my IG from the flooded carpark of the Hard Rock Cafe. The little bastard drove off laughing, but at least we didnt cop a mouthful of that floodwater: I cant imagine the cost of the medical bills for that one .... Cabs are cheap - I paid around 8-10K for most trips, but I was fortunate in that the traffic was mostly light (by Jakarta standards). The hour-long marathon when I tried to go to the zoo still only came to 100K : it really is one of the best bargains on offer in Jakarta. As in other parts of Asia, the pedestrian is the lowest form of life. Be prepared to have to struggle for every square inch of 'footpath' that you can manage, whilst dodging street stalls, other pedestrians and fun-loving motorocyclists who seem to feel that the footpath is a valid thoroughfare. I also enjoyed the dickheads who seem to feel that parking their Honda on the busiest section of footpath is the best way to meet chicks. Language If you do intend to visit Indonesia, I strongly recommend that you spend time with an Indonesian before embarking on the trip - try to get a feel for Bahasa and minimise your dependance on English. The English language may be taught in schools, it may be on billboards and shops all around you, but the spoken variant is more like 'Pidgin' English than that practised by the Queen of England, and I personally found Indonesians very difficult to understand. They freely mix Bahasa and English, and their pronunciation of certain syllables is unlike anything I've ever heard ('Chinnertown' for 'Chinatown' - WTF ??). Add to that a fetish for stringing words together and you've got a whole new language - 'Inglese', I call it. If you can imagine a Mexican using a Spanish-English phrasebook whilst on speed, you'll be close. Thais and Filipinas do a much better job with spoken English, IMO. Food and Drink There is plenty of food in Jakarta, from every culinary origin, and the majority is very reasonably priced. The fact that my room service meal was the best value on my hotel bill should illustrate that, but *be warned* that it can cost a bomb to eat in a place with the right 'atmosphere' : try 295K for a lobster sandwich in Cafe Batavia. A complete fucking ripoff, IMO, but I'm happy to hear otherwise from someone who has the fiscal resources to try one My personal favourites were some of the goodies I had from street stalls - roasted corn-on-th-cob and various dumpling jobbies. I also enjoyed the Goreng in various malls, be it ever so humble, and the seafood at one particularly crowded restaurant in Glodok was sensational. My advice is to throw caution to the wind - if you are worried about the hygiene of the vendor, just cover your food in chilli sauce Alcohol, as in most of Asia, is dirt cheap. Bintang is readily available almost everywhere, and you'll only pay 'Western' prices in the clubs (particularly those which are part of 5-star hotels) and trendy restaurants. I paid around 16K for large bottles of Bintang in most places, but that rose sharply in the clubs. If you drink in one of the non-aircon places on Jalan Jaksa, I think its even cheaper (I'm thinking 11K, but that seems ridiculously cheap ...). Nitelife As I have already descibed my only P4P adventure in a separate thread (How NOT to get laid in Jakarta), I'll ask that you PM one of the Indo regulars if you intend partaking in that scene. I did manage to visit several of the locations described in earlier posts - JJ's / Tanamur, Tiga Puluh, Hard Rock Cafe and Planet Hollywood. I also made the mistake of venturing into 'The Avenue', formerly 'The Pitstop', at my GIG's request : total crap, and expensive to boot. The Hard Rock was the only place that I really enjoyed - the crowd were OK, and I enjoyed the live bands enthusiasm, even if there keyboard player seemed to have the synthesiser from hell. Some Bule to be seen in here, and I had a chat with an Aussie who enjoyed living and working in Jakarta - good for him. The tried to presell us 200K tickets for the NY Eve bash - no thanks, dude :: The band at Tiga Puluh were also good, but I didnt enjoy the house that they played between sets and the place was just a little too dark and smokey for my liking. Saw more Bule in here than I think I saw in the remainder of my trip, bar the airport, and most of them had a Javanese gal attached to their wallet, er, hip ! Very happy vibe, but I was tired and somewhat unhappy with the drink prices, so we left at 1AM. I also took a look around Jalan Jaksa - a *huge* disappointment. I'm sure there must be more to this narrow lane than meets the eye, but it was d-e-a-d. Timing is everything, and I guess it could really take off at the right time of year, but there was barely a backpacker or any form of expat to be seen - just a few bored working girls in a bar. Khao San Road it aint. The one place I did want to visit was Cinna Bar, located in the Mega Bank building opposite the Mandarin Oriental. Sadly, BI had seen to it that the place was closed for renovations and would be re-opening on Jan 2nd, the day of my departure. Thanks again, c*nts. Oh, and thanks for seeing to it that the lift at Monas was out-of-order in time for my visit. Fuckers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli13 Posted January 6, 2004 Report Share Posted January 6, 2004 nice observations - can't wait for the sanuk details later :hubba: on the inglish issue I never really found indo's particular bad compared to say thais, but hey it all depends who one meets I suppose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted January 6, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2004 Hi ib13, I was suprised, too - the Indonesians that I have met in Oz all had excellent English skills, and my IG was also a good communicator. I believe that the issue is simply exposure to native English speakers : if I was taught Mandarin by an Aussie who had, in turn, been taught by an Aussie with minimal exposure to native speakers, one would expect my Mandarin to be more than a little flawed. As I said, the answer lies in learning enough Bahasa to get by - BI saw to it that my Bahasa phrasebook disappeared a few days prior to my departure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli13 Posted January 6, 2004 Report Share Posted January 6, 2004 sure - like anywhere knowing some local lingo will always make everything a little bit easier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted January 7, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 7, 2004 If I can add a footnote to the Money section, dont forget to keep about 200K for the airport - you will have to pay 100K departure tax (ouch !) before they will hand you your boarding pass, and the rest is handy for food (still cheap, if pretty ordinary ...). Not sure how much money the dutyfree and souvenir places inside the departure area make, but I thought their prices were exorbitant. Finally, a point on tipping. Aussies are notoriously bad tippers (read: we DONT tip..), so I made it a point to tip hotel staff a few thousand when they did things for me. Not sure if it was a bright move, as word seemed to spread, and I soon had housekeeping knocking on my door at 10pm wanting to know if I'd like my covers turned down .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli13 Posted January 7, 2004 Report Share Posted January 7, 2004 sure airport tax is payable all over asia incl. LOS, phil & indo. as for tipping I'm getting more generous with age, but I still think 'fixed' tipping where no good service is there is mad just like tipping B10 for say a B50 drink in a gogo is outragegous even expected these days :: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted January 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2004 I agree ib, and I get really pissed off with barstaff who look at you as though you are some kind of lowlife because you havent augmented their earnings. I know that hospitality staff in places like the US rely on tips to make anything above minimum wage, but it should still be regarded as something extra, not expected as part of the bill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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