Deliciously Me

I never have been to Jakarta before but I heard lots things about Jakarta, especially the bad ones. News about people snatching your luggage at the airport, pickpocket, and luggage bags forcefully opened by insider scared me, Not taking any chances (since I don’t want to spend money on buying backpack should mine being cut open), I wrapped my backpack again. Doing so costs me 30.000 Rupiah (RM11).

Though it was RM2 more than the wrapping service I did in LCCT, they sealed my backpack very tightly that I don’t think people would want to waste time opening up my backpack after looking at it. Lol.

We then checked in and paid our departure tax of 25.000 Rupiah (RM9.30) at one of the tax counter, before entering the Departure Hall. My turkey before leaving Yogyakarta weighted 9.1kg.

We sat at the Departure Hall, Facebooking, tweeting, napping, talking, phototaking until we were bored. Our flight supposedly at 4.30 got delayed more than half an hour without any announcement. Luckily the Departure Hall is small, therefore easy to keep an eye on the boarding.

We made our way to the door once we saw 2 Air Asia’s stewardess opened the door and started accepting flight tickets.

We took AirAsia flight from Yogyakarta to Jakarta and the journey took about 1 hour. The flight was rather shaky as we had to go through the clouds. I’ve faced worst air turbulence before, so that shakiness was considered okay though some passengers on board were quite terrified. Lol.

We touched down the Soekarno-Hatta Airport at around 7 something Jakarta time. Jakarta’s time is same as ours, so we readjusted our wristwatch to an hour later.

It was raining quite heavily when we reached. I dreaded thinking about walking on the ground holding the red umbrella! Thankfully, there were red buses, ferrying us from the airplane to the airport. *Phew!

The airport is big, and modern. The amounts of luggage conveyer belts are plenty, and there weren’t any sign showed to which belts our backpacks will come out. Fortunately, our plane was the only one there in the airport; and it didn’t take long till then one of the conveyer belts started moving.

Quickly, we took out our backpacks and thankfully we wrapped them as the bags were wet when we got them.

A bit further up, we came to an almost round desk with 2 polite speaking Indonesian behind. They called us, asking if we need transportation to anywhere.

So we went to them, asking on the price, the transportation to Jl. Jaksa. They were trying to sell us their package, I can’t remember what package; but we ended up agreeing on taking 2 Toyota Alphards running on meter.

Okay, to be frank, I didn’t remember how Alphard looks at the moment we agreed on taking that though I keep seeing them on roads back in Penang. I weren’t as excited as the rest until I saw the vehicle and sat inside it.

It was quite dark and I didn’t have much time to retake the car since we were in a hurry so let it be blur! Muahaha!

And OMG! It’s seriously one LUXURY CAR! Who on earth goes vacationing and takes Alphard as taxi to a shabby place in Jl. Jaksa? And our driver is one heck of a cool guy too! He’s very friendly, he spoke to us about the city, the culture, the malls, BAK PAO, and many more.

This pic also blurry but I don’t care! Muahaha!

We were required to pay for the toll on the expressway we took. 10.000 Rupiah (RM3.70). The other car panicked, and called us on the payment. Sat told them that we have to pay for that as said over the desk.

After that, we continued talking. He explained on the black market taxis, and how it’s better to get reliable ones like the Blue Bird Taxi. I can’t remember the whole conversation, but something about not being conned by the illegal ones. The funny thing about the bak pao conversation was he suddenly said those words loudly when we asked him what the guy is selling at the middle of the highway. We were shocked upon hearing that because back in Malaysia, bak is considered non-halal; to the point that they want to rename the famous bak kut teh dish to chi kut teh. –“ He said the bak pao isn’t only made of pork meat, but of chicken meat, kaya, vegetable, beef too – just that they are all called bak pao in general. Afterall, it’s just a word. Imagine selling bak pao to our brothers and sisters in Malaysia, they would have freaked out upon hearing those words though the filling is chicken or vege or kaya or beef.

The driver made me feel more multicultural in Jakarta, than in Malaysia. How sad. As we were moving towards the city, more and more malls are seen. I kept going ahhhh and wow at the malls as they are all big and beautifully decorated! Then our driver told us that in Jakarta itself, there are like more than hundreds mall and soon are still building. Really jaw-dropped after hearing that. We then passed by a big roundabout. It looked so beautiful at night and I wished that we could stop for a while that time. But knowing that the meter was moving, it’s better to reach our destination as soon as possible.

Soon, our taxi went into a lane, with a signboard bearing Jl. Jaksa at the entrance. As our taxi driver didn’t know where the Hotel Le Margot is (as he normally drives to the bigger and well-known hotels), he asked for our help in looking for the place. The hotel is situated in the middle of the street. As we didn’t make any reservation beforehand, Sat went down to check on the room availability. Before that, he requested for the driver to stop the meter. The rest of us stayed in the car, talking.

I remembered making a joke on asking Ailing to go for this massage that can make people taller that I saw in Yogyakarta the day before. Our driver overheard that and he interrupted us by telling that massage really exists and it works; making all of us turned to him and listened attentively. But he told us that those who want to do that needs to being massaged for 4-5 times only it works. On the amount of increment of height, he said about 13 cm. 13 cm!!! That’s like a lot! I too got interested in that and threw even more questions to him, where we ended up laughing even harder.

He’s one very good driver, and his name is Dade/Dedi – can’t remember the exact spelling but it’s pronounced as ‘daddy’. Lol.

Then Sat came back. He told us the Hotel Le Margot was full house that night but he managed to get us rooms at Bloem Steen Hostel. I read about the place before, though the place is not as well as Hotel Le Margot, the cheaper price compensating it all.

The meter showed 197.000+++ Rupiah. He rounded it up and asked for 200.000 Rupiah (RM75) when we asked for payment. We gladly gave him as his service was excellent and joyful! That’s 40.000 Rupiah (RM15) per person.

We said goodbye to our nice ‘Dade’, and walked along the dark alley towards Bloem Steen Hostel. There was a guy sitting at the wooden chair in front of the door, welcoming us by saying, “Welcome to my world.” As Sat already checked-in our names, we got the keys to our rooms, threw bags into our rooms, refreshed and sorted out the payments for the hotel rooms, the taxi and the toll. The triple room I stayed with Ailing and Emily costs 85.000 Rupiah (RM31).

Then all of us went out to hunt for food along Jl. Jaksa.

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