So I got ready and left my hostel in search of some breakfast. Usually this would be a simple enough task, but mid-morning during Ramadan this is an adventure in itself. And of course, I turned and walked in the oppositie direction of all the food locations. I figured that out pretty fast. There should have been options within four minutes of my hostel, but I assumed if I kept walking I would find an option eventually. Well, fourty minutes later in 95 degree heat I was about ready to give up and grab a cab back to my hostel.
What was particularly annoying was that everyone tried to just point me to the national monument when they saw I was a foreigner walking around. Eventually, this one man behind me started walking faster and faster until he was following rather closely behind. Aware of this, I turned into a hotel lot and loitered near their parking lot security guard hoping the man would just pass. He didn't. He aproached me and asked if I was going to the monument. I said sure because usually that answer got people off my back the fastest. He was different though, he said he was going there and would walk me there himself.
I know traveling around as a single woman can be dangerous. However, there are also moments when you have to use your judgement. I had nothing better to do, and he was being followed (now almost a block behind due to him trying to catch up with me) by three people, two of whom were hijabi women. They seemed nice and I was in a public area and would be around more and more security every meter we traveled closer to the monument. So I took him up on his offer. Might as well see the national monument, right?
Turns out his name is Imam and he works as a culinary artist for a nice hotel in the area. He's from central Java, not too far from Yogyakarta, and his wife and kids (who were the people with him) had come from their village to visit him in the city that weekend. He spoke decent English, but his wife and children didn't speak any. Regardless, I was suddenly just invited to join them as they toured around the monument.
Turns out his name is Imam and he works as a culinary artist for a nice hotel in the area. He's from central Java, not too far from Yogyakarta, and his wife and kids (who were the people with him) had come from their village to visit him in the city that weekend. He spoke decent English, but his wife and children didn't speak any. Regardless, I was suddenly just invited to join them as they toured around the monument.
Imam's wife and kids in front of me as we approach the monument.
Some of Jakarta's skyscrapers standing out from behind the historial relief around the monument.
There are short walls of carvings of different symbolic Indonesian images around the base of the monument.
The bottom serves as a base for a museum of Indonesia's history which you can walk around in before lining up to catch an elevator to the balcony at the top. But you can take an elevator to the top, and by far the balcony is the best part about the monument.
The view from the top of the monument.
The view in the other direction.
Hanging out with Imam's daughter on the lower balcony.
It was super nice being invited to tour with them. Both Imam and his wife were chatty, and they were very patient at rewording things until I understood their bahasa. When people overheard me chatting with his wife at the top of the momument it created sort of a frenzy as almost everyone at the momument lined up to take a photo with the white girl speaking bahasa. It was great practice though. Imam would help me if I got stuck on a word, and I was trying to speak with his wife and kids throughout the trip.
After the monument I let them continue on their day and I caught a cab back to my hostel to recouperate and decide on my next adventure. Which of all things happened to be a trip to the mall. I was hot and wanted to be somewhere with aircondiditoning. Plus, I picked the mall that was connected to the fourth tallest building in Indonesia... I figured I'd continue with the accidental trend of looking out over the city. I even timed it so I made it to the top floor right as the sun was setting.
The Jakarta skyline at dusk.
The hazy sunset over Jakarta.
As far as I'm concerned, it was a pretty great view to be taking in as I was enjoying the close of my first day in Jakarta.
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