Day 17
Today I'm in: Jakarta, Indonesia
If there is a capital city in hell, it probably looks a little bit like Jakarta.
If you go by statistics alone, this is one of the world's great cities. With 28 million people in the metro area, it's second only to Tokyo as the world's largest urban conglomeration. It's the undisputed center of Indonesia, which in itself is one of the world's most populous countries. Its citizens refer to it as the "Big Durian" in a nod to New York's title of the "Big Apple." The view from my hotel room (right) is only a fraction of the city.
During the two hours it took my cab to get from the Soekarno-Hatta airport to central Jakarta, it seemed like all 28 million people were trying to merge onto the highway connecting the two places. The view from the cab - when we weren't surrounded by exhaust-belching trucks - was of human settlement as far as the eye could see - buildings to the horizon in all directions, cloaked in a layer of smog, punishing heat and unbelievable humidity. This is a city of crumbling tower blocks alongside gleaming new apartment buildings, massive elevated expressways, and fetid, pestilential canals (a legacy of the colonial Dutch, who initially tried to replicate Amsterdam here before realizing they were basically digging malaria incubators.)
Once I got settled in my hotel, I gamely hit the street to see what I could of central Jakarta. My guidebook diplomatically says that Jakarta "presents a challenge for the pedestrian." The roads are lawless - traffic (when it moves) in all directions, nobody following the signals, honking horns, cutting one another off, driving onto the sidewalk (yes!), swerving crazily. I've crossed streets in similar free-for-all places like India and Vietnam and never felt the same level of fear that I did today. There are no crosswalks, no underpasses, no traffic cops. Yet the sidewalks are heaving with people. Your best bet is to latch onto a local at an intersection and cross when they do. Jakarta is the largest city in the world without any sort of metro rail system, although they did put in a reserved-lane bus system a few years ago that has reportedly improved things considerably.
The upshot to the mass of humanity is that it makes for great people-watching. There's not much in the way of sights to see, but there are a million stories unfolding on the sidewalks, and the more I walked the more I realized that's what Jakarta offers the tourist. Outside every run-down corner store, makeshift food stall and wobbly card table serving as a shop, there were people. More than any of the other cities I've visited on this trip, Jakarta fits the archetype of the crowded, bustling Asian metropolis. Bangkok comes close, but can't hold a candle to this.
So you can't judge a book by its cover. In the same way that New York is a fascinating city but (for better or worse) is not representative of the entire United States, I'm sure there's much more to Indonesia than its largest city. I'll find out tomorrow afternoon, when I leave Jakarta behind and head to Yogyakarta, the cultural heart of Java.
Today I'm in: Jakarta, Indonesia
If there is a capital city in hell, it probably looks a little bit like Jakarta.
If you go by statistics alone, this is one of the world's great cities. With 28 million people in the metro area, it's second only to Tokyo as the world's largest urban conglomeration. It's the undisputed center of Indonesia, which in itself is one of the world's most populous countries. Its citizens refer to it as the "Big Durian" in a nod to New York's title of the "Big Apple." The view from my hotel room (right) is only a fraction of the city.
During the two hours it took my cab to get from the Soekarno-Hatta airport to central Jakarta, it seemed like all 28 million people were trying to merge onto the highway connecting the two places. The view from the cab - when we weren't surrounded by exhaust-belching trucks - was of human settlement as far as the eye could see - buildings to the horizon in all directions, cloaked in a layer of smog, punishing heat and unbelievable humidity. This is a city of crumbling tower blocks alongside gleaming new apartment buildings, massive elevated expressways, and fetid, pestilential canals (a legacy of the colonial Dutch, who initially tried to replicate Amsterdam here before realizing they were basically digging malaria incubators.)
Once I got settled in my hotel, I gamely hit the street to see what I could of central Jakarta. My guidebook diplomatically says that Jakarta "presents a challenge for the pedestrian." The roads are lawless - traffic (when it moves) in all directions, nobody following the signals, honking horns, cutting one another off, driving onto the sidewalk (yes!), swerving crazily. I've crossed streets in similar free-for-all places like India and Vietnam and never felt the same level of fear that I did today. There are no crosswalks, no underpasses, no traffic cops. Yet the sidewalks are heaving with people. Your best bet is to latch onto a local at an intersection and cross when they do. Jakarta is the largest city in the world without any sort of metro rail system, although they did put in a reserved-lane bus system a few years ago that has reportedly improved things considerably. 
The upshot to the mass of humanity is that it makes for great people-watching. There's not much in the way of sights to see, but there are a million stories unfolding on the sidewalks, and the more I walked the more I realized that's what Jakarta offers the tourist. Outside every run-down corner store, makeshift food stall and wobbly card table serving as a shop, there were people. More than any of the other cities I've visited on this trip, Jakarta fits the archetype of the crowded, bustling Asian metropolis. Bangkok comes close, but can't hold a candle to this.
So you can't judge a book by its cover. In the same way that New York is a fascinating city but (for better or worse) is not representative of the entire United States, I'm sure there's much more to Indonesia than its largest city. I'll find out tomorrow afternoon, when I leave Jakarta behind and head to Yogyakarta, the cultural heart of Java. 
The 'Big Durian'-- I like it haha!
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