Saturday, December 7, 2013

Historic Jakarta City Tour: Jakarta, Indonesia Series 9

Historic Jakarta City Tour
Traffic Choked, Rain Soaked Tour 
(Jakarta, Indonesia Series 9)

We booked for a Jakarta City Tour
at the Ritz Carlton Hotel where I was
attending a medical convention
to familiarize ourselves with the city.




We met up with a group of Filipino doctors
at the hotel lobby, where we were picked up
by the tourist bus to take us around the city.



It started raining when we left and
the city traffic was beginning to build up.





The rained turned to a drizzle when we
arrived at the National Monument,





…which the locals call Monas as a
shortcut for the Monumen Nasional.


Monas is a 132 m (433ft) tower in the centre
of Merdeka Square, Central Jakarta, and was built
to commemorate the Indonesian independence.

 

We posed for some photos at this
very important Indonesian landmark,


  …and we inItially intended to visit the museum
and go up the to top of the monument,
which would offer a sweeping view of the city,




…but the group decided to return
to the bus when it started to rain again.



The tour then took us to the different
important sites and land marks in the city,

 




…with our Indonesian Tour Guide, offering
descriptions and important information of the
cultural significance of each site.




It intermittently rained throughout our tour
and the traffic turned from  moderate to worse.




Our bus was virtually floating is a sea
of vehicles barely moving in the traffic.




It was still drizzling when we arrived at the old port
of Jakarta they call Sunda Kelapa  located at the
the mouth of Ciliwung River in Penjaringan,
a sub district in the Northern part of Jakarta,




Because of the intermittent rain we
decided to take photos inside the bus,


…and we were impressed with the sight of pinisi,
 a traditional two masted wooden sailing ship
serving inter-island  freight service in the country. 


Sunda Kelapa is now only a minor port and
accommodated only nothing but the pinisi boats but
it played a significant role in the city's past development.


The bus then cruised to the nearby
Kota Tua Jakarta the oldest district in city.






It is also known as Old Jakarta,




…and sometimes Old Batavia
from the Dutch word Oud Batavia,
the country’s past colonizer.




Kota is an Indonesian word for city,
it was here where this giant megalopolis
now known as Jakarta was established
 during colonial times in 16th century. 






We later passed by at the still traffic choked
 largely Chinese downtown  area of Glodok .






The Jakarta City tour was an introduction
to the city’s colorful flora and fauna,







…historical and cultural heritage,








…until we returned back to the hotel
with the tourist bus running to a mere
crawl because of the very heavy traffic.


The rain,


…the traffic,




…and even the flooded streets,




...did not dampen our interest and enthusiasm

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