Jakarta is muggy and congested. Just like I remembered it. It's warm here - I can get away with a skirt/tanktop and only need a jacket when shops are being over zealous with the air conditioner. It rains everyday and sometimes hard, but it doesnt last very long and then sun shines again. Drivers are crazy. They arbitrarily follow lane lines and it's terrifying to watch the driver navigate traffic that is ever present. It's 11pm as I write this, sitting in the car in traffic, moving 0 miles per hour. There are a lot of seemingly arbitrary tolls that make the traffic even worse.
I've successfully acquired an Indonesian SIM card, putting my international phone to the test. So far so good! If you figure out how, you can call/text me at 082110 683936. Being on the receiving end is free... but that also means I get a continuous slew of spam. The worst(best?) part is that I dont understand any of it.
We spent one night in Bandung, a pretty big city about 90 miles from Jakarta. A city of about 8 million, Bandung is less congested and more welcoming than Jakarta. We stayed in a swanky hotel with really modern decor, an awesome free buffet breakfast, and free (but terrible) wi-fi, for only $60/night. The Aston Braga. I recommend it.
I know Bandung for the food - they call it Sundanese food here - it's just one of the many types of Indonesian food. Not bad, not great. The best meal I've had so far was at a Chinese restaurant: a la carte all you can eat. We ordered 25 dishes between the five of us. My aunt hid some onde onde (chin toy/sesame balls) in her purse to eat at home later. =) They charge you the full price of the dish if you dont finish it... We got charged a whopping $3 for the yang chow fried rice we didn't eat. Good thing we didn't try to stuff ourselves even more with it. I have not yet found marquisa (strange fruit with little bursts of citrusy passionfruit-like happiness [think pomegranite without the POM or granite]). It's a fruit you can supposedly only get in Bandung, but I am on the lookout. It's the one thing I've wanted from Indonesia since my last trip here in August 2008.
Now, I also know Bandung for the shopping. Of the 31 hours we spent here, we shopped for at least 12 of them. Crazy.
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