I wrote earlier during my travels about how jarring it will feel going from the relaxed, slow paced life of the island worlds of southern Thailand to the high-pressured world of Law School…and I went so far as to say I couldn’t think of two more opposing worlds. I still maintain this, but now I have another example of polar opposites: Singapore vs. Jakarta…a mere 1 hour flight away, but worlds apart. As I wrote earlier, Singapore felt very much like the perfect city…and now I think I’ve found the city that I would least like to live in: Jakarta.
Jakarta is crowded, congested, paralyzed by traffic, lacking any neighborhoods, completely devoid of public transportation, consists nearly exclusively of mega-shopping malls and lacks any real interesting core. The rich live in condos integrated into giant malls and can spend their whole lives doing this…the poor live in slums that barely classify as real housing.
Jakarta is also a very corrupt place. I experienced this first hand when I was asked for a bribe by the immigration officer at Jakarta International Airport because my passport was “full of stamps” and “had no room for the visa” (which wasn’t true…AND I didn’t care if they covered other stamps) So the guy asked me to “help him out” but I’m so damn naive that I started talking outloud about how much he wanted…which scared him and escalated the situation. Luckily I was saved by a woman who turned out to be our savior and the most generous/kind person I’ve met in a long time. Her name is Bunga and she talked down the immigration officer and everything was sorted out…but Bunga turned out to be far more than an immigration savior…she ended up taking us under her wing and took us around Jakarta for a full 24 hours in her car, with her entire family! Check out Nick’s recounting of the events here.
I won’t repeat what Nick so eloquently wrote in his blog, because he summed it all up quite well…but needless to say this was a bright highlight in our trip to Asia, and I’m just so thrilled we were able to be shown Jakarta by someone so friendly and knowledgable about the city!
Here are some photos from the day:
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