Today I'm leaving Jakarta for Yogyakarta, travelling down the length of Indonesia to reach Lombok and Bali. I think I've spent enough time here; I was able to rest up and get myself ready. But before that, one last day around the malls in Jakarta. Of course, malls are nothing new, I've seen them before. But malls in Jakarta are slightly different, where you've got to pass through armed security to get in. Something instituted after the recent terrorist attacks a few weeks ago I suppose, which happened 5 minutes away from the mall. I'm not all that reassured about the security changes though; you've got to pass a metal detector to get in, but I must've triggered the alarms at least 3 times and the guards either didn't pay attention or didn't care, I was able to pass through anyway with no checks. I couldn've been a suicide bomber, and no one would know!
But I digress. There was one cool thing to see at the mall; at the top floor there was what appeared to be a racecar gambling ring, complete with elaborate race tracks and professional car mechanics and everything.
Check out this guy's equipment, they take this stuff seriously.
Cool, no? The next morning would be my last in Jakarta, and off I went to the train station. Unfortunately I woke up early for nothing as the train was delayed for an hour due to some technical problems, but at least the train platform had some nice views of the National Monument. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it look like a big penis?
Anyway, the train ride was good. After waiting in the Jakarta heat for an hour the train was air-conditioned, thank god. It was pretty comfortable too, no problems on my side.
Myself, I chose to take the train to see the scenery on the way. It's pretty inexpensive to fly from Jakarta to Yogyakarta and takes an hour vs 8 hours by train, but where's the adventure in that? I wanted to see stuff. And what did I see? Endless, neverending fields of rice paddies. Occasionally I would see some rural houses, but other that that it was rice all the way.
Wow, how exciting. No matter, there was more excitement yet to come when I get to Yogyakarta, thought I. I arrived in Yogyakarta late afternoon, and had to find the place I reserved a room at quickly; it was Chinese New Year, so there were a lot of people looking for rooms to stay and if I didn't show up at the place by 6:00pm the reservation would not be kept. I thought it would be easy to find it since I had a map, but a map isn't really helpful when a lot of streets simply don't have street signs and you can't tell where you are. But I did eventually find the place, with 10 minutes to go.
The damn place was hidden in a small alleyway, hard to spot if you weren't looking for it:
But all turned out well. I heard some other people looking for a place couldn't find anything as all budget places were full, but I lucked out. Tomorrow would be the start of a new day.