Jakara to Singapore - West Jakarta, Indonesia
West Jakarta, Indonesia
Happy birthday Hels. Hope Norway is awesome and that you're enjoying seeing the northen lights....or at least that you get to see them even if they're ****.... Love to you and Rich Up at 9. No tea, coffee or creamer replacements have been left with us since the last clean. bollocks. Having dumped our remaining water into the kettle I'm a bit disheartened. We have a decaff coffee and a green tea. We have been taking advantage of Indonesia's not so nazi policy on blocking websites and have added to our music collection. **** you draconian UK ***********, protecting the overpriced ******** outdated ripoff music "industry". We will buy some of these albums when we're home though as we like what we've heard. We listen to Marshal Mathers 2 LP for situplates My body violently rejects the green tea. Ick! More teeth cleaning ensues Check out, get more cash from ATM, and bundle into a taxi. It's 7 quid including motorway tolls. Looking fwd to airport burger Shun the "burger and chicken" place outside and go through bag checks and check in. Bird silently wheels up to us on a segway and asks us if we need any help. I almost reply, yeah some weird bird just scared the **** out of me, go give her a kicking. No humour in airports Cam....no humour in airports.... All the Indonesian food places look amazing but the western food still looks a little ropey...especially the burgers. We try two places, neither are burgerinspirationalheaven. We get some anyway. I order a backup chicken steak in case we're disappointed and a fruit punch. It's ******* lush. Man I hate beer. I hate beer so very very much. Fruit punch wont get you ****** however so it'll never be in the same league. This thing has raspberry syrup with orange, lemon citrus fruit juice on top and comes topped with a slice of lemon and a raspberry for extra ponceyness Some kid in the cafe opposite is is playing clash of clans. I am happy. There was soemone in the aquarium the other day too. I try not to rush over and go, look look look, me too....my base is way better than yours. I feel he'd look down at me We go through security to find a holding area with no facilities. Do not go through security in Jakarta airport expecting to find anything....it isn't here. There's 2 **** vending machines, a smoking room, a toilet and a prayer room. That is all. I attempt not to go put cash in the vending machines. I need no more poo The plane starts to board. There's no announcements, but the screen changes and people amble down the escalators at the far end of the hall. We follow them. Bus pulls past 5 airasia planes in a row. I hope we're on the right one could be going anywhere with these guys. Menu's seem to suggest we're going to Australia, since everything's prices are in aussie dollars Boarding system seems to have been a joke. Several families are strewn around the plane interpersed with people on their own. Leah and I are other sides of an aisle while I have two empty seats next to me. No-one's boarded for 10 Minutes so people start to rearrange themseles. One more guy turns up really really ******* late and then gets really adamant about his own seat number even though there's loads of free seats all over the plane. Maybe he's ordered a ******** for the flight and needs to prove it's his. Chump Goodbye to:- A long drawn out period of time in Indonesia. Goodbye to dirty stinky Jakarta, 10th floor views of beautiful sunsets, swimming pool and hottub awesomeness, Sate Ayam, crazy fireworks street parties, lack of tourist attractions, ripoff cabs, 3 year jail sentences for porn, 3 month jail sentences for killing non-muslim religious leaders, uproar at bikini contests, no jail sentences for raping women on public busses, terrorist threats, overpriced beer and government tax not included on your menu price. We taxi past a potable water service. I'm not sure what potable is, I will consult google at some point. Flight's only an hour and a half but we did manage 4 or 5 bouts of turbulence, and all of them whilst performing some kind of heavy turning manuever. Guy in front of Leah was having great fun jamming his seat backwards and forward with all his might, and the element of surprise to try and spill her food and drink. Hello to:- snogging in public, clean streets, legalised prostitution, obeying traffic lights, more cars than mopeds, english plugs, *****s that mostly sound like they used to be men Airport is really easy to get through and immigration has sweets on the counter. Bit weird that arrivals and departures are together, but I suppose you're not getting onto a plane without a boarding card so what does it matter. Taxi driver tries to forewarn us that our hotel is in the redlight district. We know He explains that Singapore has changed lots in 10 years as it now has 2 casinos. I'm sure there's more to it, but it may remain a mystery for a day or two. Allegedly there were riots here a month ago due to a bus hitting a foreign worker, and them getting the hump about it. First in 40 years. We seem to be following civil unrest and disturbance around Taxi driver helpfully points out which places are brothels so that we can identify or avoid and then points out a streetworker, presumably so that we can take pictures if we want. Man we have a tiny hotel room. Its not even big enough a pilates mat. Still it's clean, pleasant and the wetroom is cool. Unfortunately it has a mirror so I have to see how fat I am in the shower. Also we note that you can rent rooms here by the hour. Useful if we need to check out after 12..... Do some quick map downloading and marking of touristy things and we exit into a light warm thunderstorm. Turns into a deluge before we hit the end of the road. Run upstairs to formulate a plan B, consisting of somewhere local and within reach of the rain lightening up By the time we'd changed socks it had stopped...for good as well which was handy Wandered up and down the main drag people watching the working girls and their clients, bought some juice from a coffee chain proud of much they'd ripped off the starbucks logo, and then got the tube to the promenade area. Saw the fountain of wealth and went for steak. The singapore flyer is only open til half 10 so we'll do that tomorrow We spent £65 on dinner....well you have to do it now and then. Was amazing steak too, seriously seriously happy diners. Current traveller factoids:- Singapore dollar is about 2 to 1 at the minute, tipping is not normal or expected, the brothels are on the even numbered streets in geylang, there's 4 main languages and they have the third highest PPP in the world Everything around us shut down at 11 so we went back to the room on the tube (mrt) passing some old guy in the lift with his "niece" Leah got the mozzy net out coz she's been bitten in her sleep every night for a week...and possibly just to see it working Chelsea - 1 United - 2 Liverpool - 2 Arsenal - 1