Most people will immediately think of Bali when they’re thinking of places to visit in Indonesia. To be honest, until recently I would not recommend anyone to visit Jakarta as to me it’s just another capital city. I thought there’s nothing interesting for tourists to see.
This changed last year, when I was planning a group trip to Indonesia. My friends have never been to Indonesia, so I was racking my brain thinking of the best way to show a flavour of the country as best as I can, squeezed into a two-week time frame.
After reading travel websites, Lonely Planet, blogs, articles and TripAdvisor reviews, I realised that Jakarta has a lot to offer! It has a lot of history, that locals themselves don’t always know… or have forgotten as we memorised stats blindly when we were kids in order to past tests. True enough, when I booked a day trip to go around Jakarta, my mum and uncle were super keen to join!
My one recommendation would be to go with a guide + driver. Jakarta’s traffic is world-renowned, and you don’t want to be navigating the roads yourself. We went with walkindies and we highly recommend them.
We covered the following places in a day:
- Ancol beach and Echo Green Park
- Sunda Kelapa harbor
- Chinatown market and Toasebio temple
- Old Town quarter
- Istiqlal Mosque
- Cathedral Church
Being a local, I just had to deviate from the standard tour 🙂 We went for lunch at Seribu Rasa, instead of the usual Cafe Batavia, as I think Seribu Rasa is better! And it’s located super close to my school (where I spent 15 years of my life!) so I could not resist showing the place off to my friends.
We went crazy with food, drinks and desserts, we took longer than usual lunch break. We had to pay slight extra for the additional time, but hey, it’s all worth it!
We didn’t go to any museum or the National Monument as they’re all closed on Mondays.
If you’re interested, you can contact Rico Pratama at +62 812 828 14680 (mobile) or +62 21 46272200 (office), and tell him we sent you!
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