The section for hotels...

http://www.goindotel.com has rates similar to Kaha's on several hotels and offers advance booking online. I have NOT used them, but might be worth a shot if anyone wants the comfort of having a room reservation already waiting for them on arrival in Jakarta. Looks like you'd still need to pay in advance at the airport desk on arrival, though.

Does anyone have any opinions about Ibis Mangga Dua??? I'm thinking of giving them a try. It more or less looks decent enough on it's web site and the location certainly looks ideal for my purposes. Has anyone actually stayed there?

I actually saw the place and a sample room and was thinking about this hotel as it is close to Penjay (Indah Kota) and part of the Accor group. Decided to stay at Mercure (closer to many more places in Kota and nicer). Reasons: fewer staff spoke English as they cater mostly to locals (2 of 'em couldn't tell me about their wifi setup). You can walk to Penjay, but need motos or taxis everywhere else. As you know, traffic is usually very bad in Kota area. Rooms are decent, lobby a bit cluttered.

Haven't stayed there in Indo, but Ibis in general is supposed to be the no frills, budget end of Accor. Rooms are pretty small and cramped and they pride themselves on "French ingenuity" in their space saving techniques.

But I'm sure the rooms are a step up from a place like City View in Batam, which actually always did the trick for a short stay there.

Ibis MD is a very sucky 3* place... Stayed there on New Years to save money. I won't be back.

You are better off at Sparks in the same price range. The Legranduer around the corner from Ibis is a really nice 4* place (better but smaller rooms than Novotel.) I haven't been able to find a good deal from this hotel except the somtimes run a promotion for long stay where for about 550K a night you get the room, LAN internet in room, breakfast for two, and fiver free peices of laundry a day.

Anybody here know about Take's Mansion? http://www.takesmansion.com/index.php/rooms/types/1#
Is it a good place to stay?
There's a map link on their site, which P4P places are within walking distance from it?

I've found agoda which offers fairly good rates as well. It quoted $51 for the Mercure Rekso when the accor website was quoting $80. Seems like a good deal, anyone used agoda before?

I've used agoda.com for Thailand before. No problems there and it was a good deal. Never used them for Indo though.

Wow, those are extremely high rates for the Rekso. What time of year are you looking at? Are these Christmas rates?

Or I wonder if Accor jacked the rate to pay for the renovation. But that would make the Rekso more expensive than the Novotel.

The Accor hotels in North Jakarta must be doing really well.

It is really hard to find rooms at the Novotel for under $60, the same rooms that were around $40 when the place first opened. But I do agree. $80 for the Rekso is outrageous.

I just did a spot check on them for the first week of December. Rekso is $65 for the best, all prepaid rate. A rate you cancel is $74. Wow!

It seems like Jakarta is no longer a great cheap destination. With the price of a decent hotel room $50+, under $30 ST getting ever scarce to find, and the number of reasonable priced venus with hot chicks ever shrinking. Jakarta will now take discipline to get laid 3X a day with only $250 expenditure. Worse, it that the quality in the $30-$40 ST venues has really been dramatically reduced. A recent as two years ago, it used to be wall-to-wall decent looker and hotties. Furthermore, it used to be 20% shitty to fogettable service, 40% good service, and 40% fantastic service. My last couple of visits it's like 70% shitty to forgettable, 20% good, and 10% fantastic. I know most of the Jakarta regulars are repeating very heavily because of the inconsistent service levels.

Probably nobody has pimped Jakarta as hard as I have over the past few years. But I gotta call it at I see it. Jakarta has taken a major slip. In my personal rankings of Asian mongering venues, I would shock myself and put Jakarta 3rd, behind southern China and AC. Southern China continues to kick ass (although CP is started to get the tourist shitty service attitude in many places, CA still 100% rocks). But AC passing Jakarta is more about how bad Jakarta has slid rather than AC getting better. Jakarta was still a lot better than Pattaya and Bangkok - the prior on looks and service, and the latter on price and service.

And I always thought Jakarta would be the last place to take such a dive. Goes to show, you enoy the good places while you can. And we need to find some new places to go!

" under $30 ST getting ever scarce to find, and the number of reasonable priced venus with hot chicks ever shrinking. Jakarta will now take discipline to get laid 3X a day with only $250 expenditure. Worse, it that the quality in the $30-$40 ST venues has really been dramatically reduced. A recent as two years ago, it used to be wall-to-wall decent looker and hotties. Furthermore, it used to be 20% shitty to fogettable service, 40% good service, and 40% fantastic service. My last couple of visits it's like 70% shitty to forgettable, 20% good, and 10% fantastic. I know most of the Jakarta regulars are repeating very heavily because of the inconsistent service levels. "

Wow, that's a pretty accurate assessment of the recent changes to JKT. 2007 was my favorite year, then it's gone downhill since then.

The cost is a real concern. ST after tip is about $40, and LT is well over $100 during their shift.

Another concern are stds like gonn, and clap. Those seem to be on the rise.

Jakarta Regulars -

I am working on a trip to Jakarta. I would like to stay in North Jakarta at either the Mercure Rekso or the Novotel. I plan to visit Block M in South Jakarta several nights. Is it possible to stay up in North Jakarta and travel down and back to Block M at night via taxi or the busway system? Is the time/distance at night a real problem? Would I be better off just getting a hotel for several nights close to Block M for a couple of nights and staying in North Jakarta the rest of the time?

I would say the taxi times between Kota and Blok for different time periods is

Daytime 45- 1 hour
Nighttime - 35-50 minutes
late night 15-20 minutes

Taxi fare is about $6


Busway from the front of the Mercure Rekso is 35 minutes and cost less than 50 cents. but you will be dropped off in the middle of the kota bus station complex and it you can easily take wrong turn and end up walking around a long time. Plus you can get stuck for 15-20 minutes on a jammed packed sweltering bus platform waitng to get on a bus to go back up north. The bus doesn't run late night either.


Note: when leaving Blok Bars on Jalan Paletahan DO NOT USE the taxis on that street and in front of the bars. Seriously consider dumping any girl who insists on using them. Instead walk to the end of the road and grab a passing Bluebird or Express taxi

"....Jakarta will now take discipline to get laid 3X a day with only $250 expenditure. "

Ah to be 25 years old again....

I missed that Mx assessment of J-town the first time around.

AC > Jakarta?

I NEVA EVAH EVAH thought I would hear that from Indo's-once-upon-a-time biggest fan.

Come on, Murasaki, call HIM a rube!!!

Well Porker,

I may take out my cheerleader Pom Poms more often than other posters. But I gotta call it as I see it. Some of the Jakarta regulars have reported good times the past month, which is good to hear, but I still remain skeptical. Like I said I expected Jakarta to be one of the last places to depreciate. However, the depreciation has come from unlikely sources. Indonesia has just gotten wealthier and real prices have gone up. Fewer kampong girls need to become prostitutes, and the one who do can know go to some silly glitzy club and get 500-1000K per hour, or the same in an upscale massage parlor. The now wealthier locals have voted with their pockets, they prefer those types of venues and can afford them now.

I guess I should feel lucky with the really great 3-4 year run I had as Jakarta as my main mongering spot. I had some incredible times, met some incredibe sexy fantastic ladies, and had probably much of the best sex I will ever have in life.

I hope still make an occasional visit to Java, but for my main sourcing LBFM's the current place is AC. AC also ain't as good as it was a couple of years ago. But I have found ways to get the best I can out of it. Also despite prices going up there, with a little control your money burn here is slower than most places for the good times you can experience.

Personally I think Mr. Purple would actually enjoy himself in AC, if he had the right group of wingmen. Also, I have found it best not to come directly from mongering in South china to AC. The dramatic difference in look standards takes some real adjustment.

Overall, I had a great time in JKT this trip (11 days), but I also did notice several, former penjay hotties now @ Travel/Malioboro, and (one was at Alexis). Definitely some poaching of the talent towards the high end. Also, the exchange rate sucked big time 9350/$ vs. 11k/$.

I did hang out more w/ the local friends who took me to lower end saunas that were fun, DV Sauna, PH sauna. Most popular places for them is BM, Penjay and Travel.

Malioboro was interesting b/c the lowest fee for local gal was now 350k and Stadium daytime happyhour (1-5pm) is like 205k. I sat and watched in amazement one night as dozens of locals @ malioboro had no qualms about taking up the 1.6 million gals.