What to do with 1 Day in Jakarta

Since you already know why I flew to Jakarta for just one day, let’s talk about what I actually did in Jakarta.  When I schedule these flight runs, I try to spend at least a day in that destination.  I enjoy seeing new places and trying new foods, and being stuck in an airport the whole time is pretty lame, so I try to make the most out of a flight run.

Figuring out what to do

Once I had selected Jakarta as my destination, it was time to figure out what I wanted to do and see in Jakarta.  I’m not big on guided tours, but since I only had 1 day in Jakarta, I wanted to maximize my time there and I figured having a local show me around would be the best way to do that.

My absolute favorite site and app for booking small tours is Viator. You can find tours in just about every country and new locations are always being added. I had previously used it for a private tour in Bogota and quad biking in Namibia, so I couldn’t wait to see what it had for Jakarta. However, when I opened up Indonesia’s Viator page, Jakarta was not one of the cities listed.  (cue Bruce from Family Guy and his Oh Nooo, and that was my reaction). As it turns out, Jakarta was added to Viator in between the time I booked my flight and when I left for Jakarta, but I had already chosen a slightly different path.

Viator has a spin-off site called Viator Tour Guides. Here you simply input your destination, dates, etc., and you’ll get a list of actual tour guides, with pictures, and you can choose whatever tour guide you want. I chose a licensed tour guide (you can filter for that) who had an itinerary that fit my interests and time constraints. Turns out I picked an awesome tour guide, but more on that in a minute. The best part now was that I could enjoy my 1 day in Indonesia without having to worry about all the logistics of getting around.

Hotel or No Hotel?

I’ve read a lot of blogs and forums over the years about people that are totally against booking a hotel during a flight run because it just adds to the cost for a 1 day trip and it’s usually for only a few hours at the most. I get that. But in this case a hotel was necessary for a couple reasons:

1. I arrived to Jakarta a 1am, and I didn’t leave until 9 that night, so I kind of needed a place to crash and shower.
2. I was 1 stay away from regaining Gold status with SPG, so I used Le Meridien Jakarta as my 10th stay.
3. The hotel provided a good meeting point for the Viator tour.

Arrival

A visa is required to enter Indonesia as a US citizen, but you can obtain one upon arrival by following the Visa on Arrival signs. They cost $35 for 30 days and the agents only accept cash payments. If you don’t have cash on you, Indonesians need dishes washed, too.  Kidding.  There are ATMs nearby (note: at time of writing $35 is about 481,000 Indonesian Rupiah).

Once I cleared customs, I tried to hail an Uber cab, but none were available at that time. I took a metered taxi to my hotel, which was about 20-25 minutes away and it cost me $17.  Indonesia is very inexpensive.  Also, landing at 1am was kind of a blessing because Jakarta is world (in)famous for its traffic, but at that time it was smooth sailing.

Tour of Jakarta

I was able to shower and get a few hours of sleep before my private tour began at 8am from the hotel. My tour guide, Ira, met me at the lobby of my hotel and we took off from there.  Since it was a Sunday, traffic was not as heavy, so it was a little easier to get around. Ira had 5 main things on the itinerary:

1. Open Air Market/Monas Tower
2. Istiqlal Mosque
3. Old Town Jakarta
4. The Old Harbor area
5. Taking all different kinds of public transportation to and from each place

Open Air Market/Monas Tower

About 10-15 minutes from my hotel, we arrived by taxi to the Monas Tower and open air market surrounding it.  The open air market was incredible.  Vendors everywhere, the smell of spicy curry, and the hundreds of motor scooters all in a line gave this place a bustling atmosphere.  Ira stopped at one of the food vendors and ordered me the equivalent of an Indonesian breakfast burrito! It was a simple tortilla-like food made with egg, rice, and some kind of spicy curry or chili powder.  Roll it up and eat it. Amazing.

With that in my belly, we walked through Merdeka Square and towards the Monas Tower.  The Monas Tower is the National Monument of Indonesia, and much like the Washington Monument in DC, it towers above everything around it.  Normally, you can take the elevator to the top but the queue was already 2-3 hours long, and I wanted to see more of Jakarta, so I skipped it.

Merdeka Square is one of the largest in the world, and it even includes an enclosed deer park where you can pet and feed the deer.  Pretty cool.

Istiqlal Mosque

From the Monas Tower, Ira flagged down a Bajaj BBG, which is basically a three-wheeled scooter with doors and a top.

We arrived at Istiqlal Mosque. Now, I had never been inside a mosque before, not even in Baghdad, so this was a first for me. This is not a place I would’ve gone to on my own, but I’m really glad Ira suggested it. Inside was a beautiful mixture of marble and stainless steel, and Ira mentioned that it was a Protestant who designed it after he won the overall design competition. Who knew?! It’s also built across from a Cathedral to promote religious tolerance in Indonesia.

Old Town Jakarta (Batavia)/Harbor Area

At one point, Jakarta was known as Batavia, mostly when it was controlled by the Dutch.  The Old Town is really where you can see the Dutch influence, especially in the architecture and all the canals.  The place to go here is Fatahillah Square, where you’ll find museums, restaurants, and tons of people.

Within this square, there is also the Wayang Museum, an entire museum dedicated to puppets and puppetry.  Ira gave me the history lesson, and I didn’t know that puppets were a big part of Indonesian culture, so this museum was something completely different altogether. There are collections of doll-size puppets, life-size puppets, puppet masks, puppeteers, and human puppet dance performances all happening inside the museum. It was fascinating and terrifying all at the same time. Probably the most unique museum I’ve seen aside from the Mummy Museum in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Not far from the Old Town Square is the old harbor, our last stop on the tour.  At one point, the old harbor, or Sunda Kelapa port, was a focal point for development in and around Jakarta. Now that distinction belongs to Tanjung Priok port, the largest in Indonesia. The old harbor area still exists but is mainly used by fisherman and for smaller cargo. There’s not much to do here, but it does give you an appreciation for Jakarta’s roots and you can almost feel the excitement and activity from centuries ago. Not to mention there are still wooden ships with huge masts that still pull in to this port.

Finally, it was time to head back to the hotel.  That could only mean one thing: one more form of transportation. When I visited Bogota in 2014, they had a great bus system called Transmilenio. Well, leadership in Jakarta loved it so much, they adopted an identical system called Transjakarta.  It’s a fairly efficient system that runs alongside traffic, often in dedicated bus lanes, and it has elevated platforms for entering and exiting the buses.  There is a stop right near Le Meridien so we took the bus all the way back to the hotel, where I could eat, shower, and change before heading back to the airport.

Ira Lathief, My Guide

It really was a whirlwind trip to Jakarta, but it was made so much better by my incredible tour guide, Ira Lathief. As I mentioned previously, I chose Ira from Viator Tour Guides and she was great.  Prior to my arrival, we communicated via Whatsapp and she was always quick to respond.  She gave great history lessons at each of the places we went to, she coordinated all the transportation which really added to the overall experience, and she was just so pleasant to talk to.  If you’re ever in Jakarta, I highly recommend looking her up.  Here is Ira’s Viator Tour Guides page for reference.

Until next time, Indonesia…