Jakarta international airport Soekarno Hatta Airport (CGK)

The airport is modern and easy to deal with. When you arrive you will first clear immigration. Most readers on this board will need to obtain a visa on arrival. It’s best you have $10 US (3 day – really a two night visa) or $25 US (30 day) ready to pay for the visa. Also, if there is any doubt that you may want to stay more than two nights get the 30 day Visa. It is impossible to extend once you are in the country. The following link will give you more detail about navigating the Visa on Arrival process at CGK.

http://www.garuda-indonesia.com/events/detail.php?p_id=13

After clearing immigration you will go to baggage claim where there about five different ATM’s. Once you claim your bag there is a nominal customs where you just hand them the form you filled out the airport.

Past Customs is the last secure passenger only area. Here you will find several booths for airport limousines (expensive) and the KAHA hotel reservation desk. This is my preferred place to book hotels in Batam and now Jakarta. I had a pre-paid reservation at Hotel Rekso Hayam Wuruk, so I just stopped by to make sure that my voucher had already been sent on to the hotel. The staff’s English wasn’t too great but good enough that you should have no problem booking a hotel without speaking a word of Bhasa Indonesia.

Finally you will exit the secured area. This exit is hard to miss with a crush of people looking to help you out. The crush is not nearly as bad as that at the Manila airport but more pressing than that in Bangkok. You should ignore all of the touts and proceed to the curbside. Once outside you should look for the Silver Bird Taxi Stand. It took me two passes but I finally found the lighted Silver Bird sign that sat atop a simple metal pole.

I have been warned by everyone to only take a Silver Bird taxi from the airport. Even if the queue is long do not give in temptation to the touts. Silver Bird taxis are a bit of a premium size sedan taxi and cost more than their smaller vehicle cousin Blue Bird taxi. Don’t get a sticker shock on the airport fare. The meter to my hotel was 70 or 80K plus I was instructed to tip 20K on top of the meter to cover the tolls and a small gratuity (the tolls are 7K I believe.) Depending upon traffic the ride can take from 45-90 minutes. I arrived around 8PM and it took me about 45 minutes.

On last airport note, when you leave via CGK you have to pay a 100K rupiah exit fee. This is collected by the agent when you check-in for your flight.

A Rough Lay-Out of the action

My pre-trip research suggested there where roughly three main geographic areas to the action in the biiiiiiiigggg city. The North part of the City, or the Kota district, is a scruffy area where the action seems to cater more to Asian clientele. Here there are tons of massage parlors, discos, and brothels. In the central area, or the Golden Triangle, there are the 5* hotels that are home to some really nice bar-night clubs that are western oriented and filled with free lancers that ranged from amateurs out with their friends to hard core old pros. In the south part of town there is the notorious expat ghetto around Block M, home to some small rough FL laden bars, and a rather famous bar come massage parlor in the Melewai hotel.

Getting Around Town

Jakarata is a big sprawling city that has very bad traffic. You can spend a lot of time in taxis. Your best bet is to always get a blue bird or silver bird taxi. They will always use the meter with no problem. And you find the taxi charges quite reasonable. However, if you are going to cross town it is best that you time it in such a way you don’t go during peak traffic times when the 20 minute ride can turn into a 80 minute ride. I think most repectable hotels have either a Blue or Silver Bird Taxi Stand. Also, outside of some places (For example 1001 or Stadium) there is a curbside mafia that you must use to hail your taxi you. You can tell them only Blue bird and that’s what they will hail you. When you enter the taxi in such a situation immediately give your driver 2K rupiah that he will then tip the curbside mafia. If you are at a nice hotel and they don’t hail you a Blue or Silver bird ask the bell hop to make the taxi turn on the meter.

Evidently a great alternative to get from the north part of town down to Block M is the new TransJakarta bus line. There is a dedicated lanes for these buses and to enter and exit these buses they have platform stops and stations much like a subway. You can buy a ticket for a reasonable 2500 Rupiah.

For local trips you can hop an ojek, or motorscooter, taxi. Being conditioned from Batam I always offered 5K for the fare which was always accepted leading me to believe that you can pay less. There is also some kind of Tut-tut taxi which is also convienent for those local trips when there are two of you.

Hotel

My home for the four nights was the Mecure Rekso Hayam Wuruk. I paid 390K a night including all taxes and breakfast for two. I booked this room through KAHA desk at the airport, we secured our reservations by paying them in advance through some type of wire payment. I tried to do this myself but couldn’t and one of Crazier’s friends in Jakarta was kind enough to do this for us. So please don’t ask me to try and secure a reservation for you.

I am a creature of habit and I was pleased overall enough from my stay that I will probably continue to stay here. The best part of this hotel is its convenient location. The hotel is on Hayam Wuruk at the intersection of Mangga Besar (Big Mango!) on the edge of Kota. This is on the edge of the Kota area and there are a good number of whoring places within walking distance. Within a short ride is a huge array of joint in Kota. Also there is a Blue Bird taxi stand on premise and a stop of the Trans Jakarta bus is right outside the front door of the hotel. Also there is an ATM right outside the hotel that dispenses up to 1.25 million rupiah per withdrawal.

The Rooms were comfortable enough, a good 3 or low 4 star room. However, there were a couple of negatives about the rooms. First there was no in room safe. Second, there was very little control over the lighting. One could only individually turn off the two bedside lamps. The rest of the lights – and all but one of the electrical outlets – were controlled by a bedside switch. Not being a able to set a low light mood or watch the TV with the light off was a pain in the ass. Also only having one outlet active when the master switch was off or the room key card in place was not good for charging various technologies. Finally, the thermostat for the aircon was purely ornamental, with only a fan speed control next to the bed. However, the strength of the aircon was adequate. A final negative, not associated with the room though, was the severe insufficient number of elevators.

On the positive side I have to mention the outstanding breakfast buffet spread, which included fresh cappuccinos, and egg station, and wide selection of Asian and Western dishes. I also tried the restaurant one night and found it quite good and reasonable. Also there are some very attractive servers in the restaurant!

The business center offers internet service for a fairly expensive rate of 60K per hour. Also you can charge your handphone in the Business center and they even had a superfast Nokia charge.

Money Matters

There are plenty of ATMs around town, but I found it difficult to find Money changers. However, considering the fees associated with the ATM is still find it is advantageous to exchange cash I bring. In Jakarta you get a worse rate for Sing Dollars than you do in Batam. But you can get really competitive rates on US dollars. At a crappy money changer where I got 5500 rupiah (crazier got 5650 at the money changer I give below, grrrr) to the Sing Dollar, Chilisquid was getting 9100 rupiah to the dollar when exchanging new 100 dollar bills (that was less that 2% vig on the yahoo rate). The crappy Money changer I used was VIT about a block from the Mercure. Here is a the name and address for a good money changer in the Kota area

CIP
Pt. Cendana Perkasa Inti
Jl. Gunung Sahari Raya No. 31
Jakarta 10720
Telp: 6591351

Internet and Telecommunications

Internet access and the number of internet cafes really sucks here. Don’t expect it to be like Thailand or PI with internet cafes all over the place. There is a 24 hour internet café below 1001 on Hayam Wuruk not too far from the Mercure Rekso. Also, during mid day the internet really bottlenecks and chokes up all over town. Don’t plan on catching up on your e-mail or surfing during those prime hours. Also, getting a local sim card is really cheap and easy. The sim cards and top-up credits called pulsa are available all over the place. At Lokasari Plaza there are a ton of telephone joints were you can get new and second hanphones, and sim cards and credits.


Ok now that the boring stuff is out of the way let’s bring on the sin!

Great Intro.

For hotels in Jakarta, I usually use KAHA on arrival too except that you want to check to make sure you are not in some kind of peak period. This has happened to me so that I found myself paying higher rates on all hotel choices on arrival.

KAHA contacted via SMS to their mobile number +62818866753 & can be paid via telegraphic bank transfer from your bank except that we used a local transfer from Jakarta (a friend's account). This because we left it a little late after finding it difficult to do the transfer from Singapore via the net.

Peak periods would include special large conferences, local events or festivals that may bring people into Jakarta filling up the rooms. I ran into a local government officials convention the trip previous to this.

An alternative and reasonably good reservation on the internet can be made with http://www.asiatravel.com.

Sometimes they have a promotional feature hotel that's on, usually a very good offer and it pays to check the site as an alternative. They will require your credit card to be submitted and will dock you for one night's charges if you fail to show up for the reservation.

I concur entirely with Mx on the hotel's negatives and yet, I do recommend this hotel to the budget conscious for its excellent location next to whoring places as well as the trans Jakarta bus stop in front.

I have personally ridden on this bus service and will testify to its effectiveness for getting from Kota to Blok M through all the heavy traffic of Jakarta.

Many local business people do ride on this service today and have their drivers follow on with the car to pick them up when their meetings are over if they are in a hurry and the traffic is choked up. Cavaet - the bus is packed during peak hours because it's really so effective.