I knew the day would come that I would have to break away from the comfortable confines of Thailand and the Philippines and start venturing into uncharted waters without the convenience of user-friendly mongering venues. After a while I felt like a deep sea sport fisherman that had become so bored with catching marlin, tuna and shark that I would just catch them and throw them back in the water. Catching 10 giant yellowtail and then giving them away to the village markets just wasn’t fun any more. Sure, I have been to Batam, Cambodia, Singapore, Korea, Japan, Cuba, Mexico and Macau but it was Jakarta that kept calling my name and it was time that I started my trip towards my next mongering mecca. As of two years ago, the best looking girls being photographed from this site have come from Jakarta and it was time that I had my Batam mentor MongerX give me a tour of one of the great mongering destinations of the world.

I will not bore you with Penthouse forum details about how I fucked each and every girl nor will I discuss the surrounding high school drama that becomes a part of mongering life. I will give you details about mongering in Jakarta that have been overlooked a bit or not emphasized enough and let you know the good, bad and ugly about Jakarta. No mongering destination is perfect and Jakarta is no different. I can only make a judgment about a place completely after taking several trips. These are just first impressions from a newbie monger who has a lot to learn about how to fully take advantage of a unique and incredible destination.


FIRST: GETTING THERE:

As you arrive in Jakarta, the airport will remind you of landing in Phnom Penh for the first time. It is very third world and dilapidated. As you exit the airplane you have to really pay attention before you get to immigration. Just before you get to the electronic walker area, look to the right and left and you will see the visa area. Remember that the visa on arrival booths are at least a hundred yards before the immigration lines and not close as described in the past. Both sides are equally full so take your pick. After getting your visa, you shouldn’t have any problems getting through immigration quickly, exchanging some money at one of the banks, getting your bags and through customs. One thing you must note is that the week before Ramadan, many of the hard core Muslim Indonesians will be coming from the Middle East to visit their relatives and it seems a lot of the airlines come in around the same time as the Eva flight that arrives in the afternoon. Had I not passed up the visa section, I would have not had to wait for an hour to get through immigration. Lots of touts similar to Thailand when you arrive but just go to the Silver Bird taxi stand and you are on your way. I costs about 100,000 Rupiah including the extra ticket fee the give you for leaving the airport(9,000 I believe) if you are going to Kota/Chinatown area.

SECOND: HOTEL

I decided to stay at Novotel Mangga Dua in the Mangga Dua Square. I made my reservation on the Eva web site. I was able to get a flight for $674 plus tax and my hotel was $47 a night. The service here was excellent, the rooms were modern, the beds were very comfortable and large, the gym was the best I had seen in any hotel before and the pool was beautiful. My only grip with them is that they are understaffed at the front desk and they don’t have their shit together. Instead of using my credit card to hold the reservation, they charge the room for all days in advance and hold $150 from my card. They had told me they would cancel the hold if I paid for my incidentals with cash but instead they informed me that they would keep the hold for two weeks and place an additional $50 hold just in case. I have never had a hotel do this before but instead of fixing it, I just got the fake Asian smile and “sorry sir, its our policy”. Some of the real perks of the hotel is that they have a Blue Bird taxi stand nearby, the Mangga Dua Square Mall has a great grocery store on the bottom floor called Carefour(I think) and there is a great food court as well.

Here are some photos:








THIRD: GETTING AROUND

Basically you always want to use Bluebird taxi’s if you can because they are the only ones that will absolutely always use the meter. The meter prices are the cheapest in Asia and that helps considering traffic is a bitch in Jakarta sometimes. Be careful as some taxi’s look like Bluebird but don’t have the Bluebird logo across the windshield. The downside is that most of the drivers are straight from the kampong and speak no English and might not know the area too well. Always remember to carry some small bills around(10,000/5,000) as these guys never have change.

I was lucky enough to have MongerX showing me around the first 5 days so I had the benefit of someone who has the place wired and speaks Bahasa Indonesia. Basically the amount of massage joints and small brothel areas are endless but for a newbie there are a couple key areas that others have pointed out. The areas are basically Lokasari Plaza bars, Kota Indah bars, Stadium Disco area, Hotel Travel, Block M and various massage places. Try getting business cards from your favorite places so you can show your taxi driver. To those that don’t know the area, realize that Block M is way fucking far away and takes at least 30 minutes each way. I would think most girls wouldn’t mind the drive for ST or LT but realize the drive could cost as much as 80,000 Rp more or less. Although Jakarta looks much more modern in it’s downtown areas, the area where I was mongering looked similar to most of SEAsia but still nicer than the Philippines.

FOURTH: THE FOOD

IMHO, the best food in SEAsia outside of Thailand. As a matter of fact, after going to Bali, it might actually have a cuisine that rivals Thai food. I did not get food poisoning, the shits or upset stomach once in Jakarta and I was eating in some warung type places. The muslims have a code of cleanliness that is unreal. I especially love a type of regional cuisine called Nasi Padang from Sumatra. The food is unique and spicy and comes in various plates that you can sample from. Pay as much as you eat. Seafood pujasera’s are different than Batam but I found some in all parts of the area near my hotel and the seafood is unreal. I would say that Indonesia is almost worth a trip just for the food and massage service alone....not quite though...lol.

FIFTH: THE GIRLS

Very sweet and accommodating girls in almost every venue I was at. The girls are typically younger, cute and thin. Not a lot of fat girls in Jakarta working at the mongering spots. The girls are not quite as pretty as Thai girls but much prettier than Filipinas in general. My problem was that a lot of the hotter girls would not allow photos or just flat out would not let me book them. If you are a tall bule(white guy foreigner), these girls always assume you are packing a horse cock. No matter how much you try to convince them otherwise, many of the hot spinners will not go with you. One of the misconceptions is that you do not need to know the language. I think it is imperative to know basic Bahasa Indonesia to have a complete experience in the venues. These girls speak zero English. If you go to Block M, you will find girls who prefer bule’s and speak English but I only went there once so I can’t comment. By the fourth day, I was getting tired of sign language and getting blank stares. A lot of the girls will not take photos and many use the white face makeup. The rooms are dark which makes for difficult photography lighting and the photos just didn’t come out that great.

I will give my overall conclusions in the last chapter.

Blazers, you are one of the absolute best at writing trip reports. It's always a pleasure to read your reports and I am glad you decided to submit one on this trip. Anyone acquainted with me, knows I have a strong cheerleading bias for mongering in Indo. So I think it really benefits readers to get objective newbie perspective reports like this. Of course, I am sure that I will still defensively chime in with my observations in latter chapters!

Dittos Blazers, I've always enjoyed your perspective and insights and am glad you are posting on a fav. destination.

I also thought the food to be found in Jakarta was unusually good and unique.

It's also good to reiterate to guys know that very few people speak English there and its extremely helpful to learn basic words.

Hey blazers, nice intro and i also enjoy your writing style.

re photos, that didn't use to be the case. in fact, i've never heard the word "internet" spoken by the girls until my last trip.

i agree that of course knowing the language will help make the most of things, but still think you can get gfe service without it.

as for waiting for the conclusion, the title of your TR kinda gives it away. lol.

Soc, do you also bow 3x a day towards Jakarta like I do :-) The Mongering Meccca, for sure.

yes, but...

it's really a tough call between LOS and Indo. I go to the local places at both venues and they are very similar except los is much cheaper and the women have less volume of clients. looks are close but still go to the thai girls, particularly the lao girls that are found up north by the border. Service is great in both places but the indo gals edge out the thais as far as technique is concerned. Indo also wins in quantity as well.

You know what? While I always love looking at pics guys are posting of the girls they've done, those pics of the Novotel really made me miss Jakarta! They remind me what a great thing it is to be on vacation.

The Novotel was actually the most expensive hotel I have EVER stayed at on my mongering trips (~ 50 bucks a night), but I did really like the rooms there. I made the cost worse by ponying up 10 bucks a day for the (formerly FREE) in room internet access, which only worked intermittently -- very BAD value, but internet access in Jakarta generally sucks ass to begin with, and if you don't get the in-room access, you're not at all close to any other place to even briefly check email.

Another point against the Novotel, IMO: While the Bluebird taxi stand is indeed convenient, you really have to take a taxi EVERYWHERE you go. Staying near Lokasari means that taxis are rarely needed at all, as just about everything you need is an easy walk or, if I'm by myself, I'll take an ojek many places. It's hard to recommend Sparks right now with the thumping disco music bleeding into your room indeed being a severe pain in the ass every night between 9 AM and 2 AM, but Sparks' location is simply ground zero for Jakarta mongering.

Comparing costs on what I spent at Novotel, the room, internet, paying for the 1st meal of the day (my rate didn't include breakfast) and figuring 3 RT taxi rides daily, that's close to 70 bucks a day. Staying at Sparks, I can get all that for ~ 35, and the rooms at Sparks certainly don't SUCK. 35 bucks a day is almost the difference between staying at the Wild Orchid in Angeles vs. staying at Swiss Chalet, although in that case, both hotels are in the same location. In this case, the location of the Novotel is a big negative, IMO.

I LIKED my stay at the Novotel, but I'd imagine it's going to be Sparks for me from now on. I'll just have to arrange things so I sleep after 4 AM!

Blazers, can always count on your for interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining reports. Gotta giggle a bit about your whining about pics so far, though. I'd guess you're being too nice and pussy whipped about the whole thing. Kinda ironic when considering your sometimes board persona, but as most of is know, you really are a nice guy.

BTW, while that pool is huge and great looking, it's no more than about 4 feet deep at any point. What the HELL is up with that at Indonesian pools?

Totally agree about the hotel situation. Sparks would be perfect if they didn't have the disco downstairs and the karaoke joint on the top. But it's location can't be beat in my book. Does anyone know of any other hotels close to Lokasari where someone can actually get a good night's sleep? I wonder if I ought to try the Mercure next time.

Pardon me, the muzzah is calling me to pray towards Jakarta for the third time today.

Blz.,

Nice to finally read about your trip and impressions here.

Sadly, the one trip we made together to the Blok M place that night did not work out for both of us.

My own ventures (over the years)to My Bar have never been great (for what I look for) although I have pulled a couple who rocked my bed.

In the area of looks, Kota truly beats My Bar and the surrounds. However, the My Bar GFE is what some people like.

This last visit, my own activites were in Stadium and a phone-in from Bintang Mawar.
For a short visit like I made, more than enough to keep me busy and HAPPY.

Nice to catch up again in Jakarta.

I really think you should have bought that electronic translator because it works out well when you are with the girl. "You work the keyboards, while she sucks you up" And when she is keying in her reply, " you do your thingy." When it truly heats up, make sure the machine is not crushed & broken by the moving bods!

Mine has earned every cent that I invested on it while I visit China and Thailand and will surely continue to do so when I make the odd trips to Vietnam and Philippines too.

Mura, when I had the probls w/Sparks last trip, I closely checked out Mercure, Travel Hotel and a few other hotels in Kota(I don't like taxis and fighting traffic myself). I think Mecure was the best potential, although the rooms seemed smaller than Sparks. Travel Hotel was asking $50+ bucks for their exec suite, but the rooms were dark, horrible view, kind of small for the price.

The other thing would be for all of us to chip in to pay for sound insulation or pay an oject driver to sabatoge their sound system downstairs. Peppering the clueless Sparks management w/complaints and appeals to do the right thing for business doesn't work..."Mr. Merlin, here are your free earplugs".

Crazier, call in service at BM? Hmmm.

Mercure's GREAT, IMO, but room rate almost the same as Novotel, and, as Mx points out, showing their age a little bit while Novotel is brand new. Still, Mercure has GREAT views, huge, king size bed, Kaha rate includes breakfast, Bluebird taxis abound close by for non-walking-distance itins, BUS to Blok M is steps away, Trans-jakarta bus is only steps away... I certainly wouldn't mind staying at Mercure Rekso again.

Sparks has a tremendous location with out a doubt. It and Mecure Rekso are the only modern western style that put you in walking distance of the Mangga Besar dens of sin. Novotel is a $3 R/T to kota Indah or Lokasari, but you are within walking distance to Sands massage a place I love to hit atleast every other day. Also, having the Carrefour there is awesome.

The rooms at Sparks are well designed and decent, but very small and no decent seating to hang out in the room. IMHO the rooms at Sparks are no where close to the quality of the rooms in Novotel. I am not sure which room Merlin saw, but Mecure Rekso has the biggest room of them all. But the rooms are quite dated and have a quirky not effective light and power swithc system. Mecure also has no in room safe. Oh the Mecure Rekso has only two elevators and the wait can be a pain in the ass.

Internet at Sparks costs 3 bucks an hour (porker ignores this cost in his comparison) and is worthless during normal biz hours. At novotel it's about $12 for 24 hours, but they use skynet. This allows them to bypass the bottleneck on north jakarta lines. Usually good download speeds, but as with that satellite techonology, much slower upload speed. Probably not good for those using VOIP. Mecure doesn't have an in room internet option and the business center is really outrageously priced and performs very poorly.

Sparks is clearly the price leader with rooms with a break fast easily gotten for around 300K with a decent breakfast. However, the noise here is a HUUUUUUUUUGE negative. Except for Sunday night, your room will reverberate from the music until 4AM. Also, the staff here is real nice but not very competent, especially on the security side. Girls and unwanted visitors can get to your hotel room door unfetered. I would have no faith in them to deal with an ugly situation if one should arise.

Mecure rekso goes for about 450K a night, and comes with a very very good breakfast buffet. The rooms are large have good views from higher floors but are dated. The lack of in room safe and don't have an efficient system for getting into lock boxes behind reception. Also, they have a real ball busting check out time, if you are late by even a minute you are screwed. Also, security is a bit more competent than Sparks. However, folks can get to your door with no problem.

Novotel is 438K with out breakfast. (You can sometimes get it with a single breakfast for 50K more at the airport Goindotel desk.) Rooms size is between Mecure and Sparks, but new and a decent layout and sitting area so you can hang out. Bathrooms kick ass over the other two places as well. Public areas are much better with a very good gym and pool area. Location leads you to take several more $1.50 taxi rides over to Mangga Besar. Also Road construction out front now is a temporary negative. However, this construction is for a new transjayakarta bus, it will be interesting to see where this route goes to. If all the way to Blok M, that will be cool. Also, security here is by far the best, lots of competent security here and folks can't just show up at your door. However, reservations and reception staff really suck here.

You will spend 20-25 dollars a day more at Novotel than Sparks. But for me being able to get a good nights sleep, having a much more comfortable room, and the real security make it a no brainer. If you are budget strapped than Sparks maybe the answer. But perhaps then you can try the new Mangga Basar hotel. Brand new small asian style rooms (I.e. now windows) for 180K a night.

Cheap internet across the street from Sparks at Lokasari costs betwen 14-20K per hour depending on the place, and a quick 5 minute check of email costs pocket change, certainly less than a one way taxi ride from Novotel. I'm also not as dependent on the internet to entertain me if staying at Sparks as there are more things to do within easy walking distance, and certainly more things to do at odd hours of the day/night.

Yes, the download speeds for Novotel internet better than that usually found in the rest of Jakarta during the daytime hours WHEN IT IS WORKING. It was down a far too unacceptable period of time when I was there in July, although for the night it was down virtually all night, we did get credit.

Good call, though about internet at Mercure Rekso: In July '05 it cost 1K per minute, in 15K increments, and the speed was beyond useless anytime after about 7 AM.

Blazers, re: taxis and meters, there are plenty of taxis in Jakarta that will use a meter. The problem is that the meter rate varies wildly from one taxi line to another. Bluebird has honest, cheap meters.

Oh I forgot to add that both Novotel and Mecure Rekso have bluebird taxistands out front. Sparks doesn't. So at sparks you have to rely on the valet guy being able to cathc a bluebird for you. This can usually be done within 5 minutes during the day. However at night (especially late) you can have a real problem getting one.

Also, two other honest taxi companies are Taxi Express (all white taxis and actually cheaper than Blue bird) and Family Taxi.

Merl.,

Bintang Mawar "call-in" service basically refers to taking her "off-premise". The LT rate is 800k which is reasonable by Jakarta standards for establishment ladies but expensive when compared with Blok M FLs.

Then, if she is worth it, why not.

I have done "call-in" ST with one particular mummy controlled girl who says "mummy" insists on 400k for ST but I get 3-4 hours from around 1030am to after lunch and at these hours, "first-bite" of the day's cherry so-to-speak and that's really OK by me.

This means that I do not have to leave the place where I bum in in Kemayoran, a not so convenient just outside Kota preivate apartment locality and she pays for her own cabfare to get there and back from where she lives.

By the time she leaves, I have little sex on my mind and will only be thinking of food or other pursuits.

The rate for the Mercure Rekso can move up and down with market conditions with KAHA and it does pay to just ask KAHA on arrival because we have bought the same said rooms for 350- 360k in previous visits when the timing is more fortunate.

Sparks - nothing else need be said about the noise.

Novotel still sounds good if the budget can afford it.

I did forget to mention the internet issue at Novotel. One of the things that I must have when traveling is VOIP to contact my clients during odd hours. The upload via satellite at Novotel does not allow VOIP, at least with Vonage. This made the calls cut off or sound muffled or not at all. This frustrates clients and makes it to where I have to use long distancec on my cell to call them which means limited discussion. As a result, I lost two clients who thought my phone calls were unprofessional and that I was not keeping in contact with them as usual. Sucks giving partial refunds on retainers.

This is probably the biggest downfall of Jakarta for those of you who are doctors or attorney or other and need to keep in contact with your office. The internet in Indonesia is aweful. Even when I used the Sparks Hotel internet, I had to only use it in the lobby and the connection was turtle speed.

Blazers

I use both Vonage and Skype in Jakarta every day and my coverage is average to excellent. The internet access in the better hotels is far superior. The extra cost of the hotel will more than be offset by not losing clients. My experience is at the Shereton Media Towers and Le Meridien by the way.

All,

My Bar can be very good I have had some real gems from there including some very fresh sisters. However, be warned places are closing early right now due to Ramadan around 1.30am and I am told Blok M is subject to raids during this period.

All the hotel discos are also closing early but there is some serious talent around. Tigga Puluh has at least 10-15 extremely nice girls most nights, Bats had some talent too and in The Park Lane in the last few nights there have been 3 girls I would love to do!

Been here for 9 days and I am having a real ball Jakarta is No1, but not safe for your health if u are working I am so tired too many temptations to keep you from sleeping!

Blazers,

Nice opening. Merlin and I did the same thing at immigration bypassing the visa booths. I mentioned this in my Jakarta guide.

I still remember the immigration guy yelling at Merlin, “You don’t have sticker! You need sticker! You go back and get sticker!” and pointing back to the booths. There wasn't much of a crowd when we first arrived, but by the time we got back to the visa booths a huge crowd had arrived.

I forget which floor I stayed on in Sparks, but I don't remember the music being as bad as everyone mentions. I could hear it, but it didn't prevent me from sleeping. I was on a "green" level in Sparks.

Xen, the lobby bar has caught on and actually has steady clientele. The music now is much louder and running later than when you visited. I tried a bunch of rooms and floors and couldn't escape heavy window reverberation. You have been warned if you choose to return to stay at Sparks. Hopefully you are a much heavier sleeper than I.

The noise at Sparks wasn't that noticeable when I was there with Xen last year. It's really bad now to the point of being intolerable.

don't y'all think Bose noise reduction head phones will do the trick? I really fancied Sparks when I was there.

That is a good suggestion DM. I actually have a pair of Bose QC2 headphones. They are great on the plane and I often just turn them on to sleep to cancel out all the ambient noise in the plane cabin.

MX and Merlin. Thanks for the heads up. From my experience I just do not remember it being that bad. Didn't know it had changed though. When I was there the downstairs lobby bar was completely dead.