From Jakarta to Singapore

The adventures in Indonesia made us anxious to travel to its capital, Jakarta. Although spat out by many for being a grey dusty megapolis, it was interesting to absorb life observing an ants nest of almost 9 million Indonesians. And, frankly, it was a cheap pit-stop on the air-road to our next destination, but shhtt!

Try to imagine; túk-túks and up-market SUV's surrounded by thousands of loud motorcycles, intersections with up to 40 lanes and - if they were present - sidewalks with deadly pits. Pour a sauce of a 30+ degrees temperature and a layer of exhaust-fog over the city and you get our first impressions of Jakarta.

But we didn't give up: Dimitri decided to check out the new TransJakarta bus system. His verdict? The system is great: the clean, air-conditioned busses speed over exclusive bus lanes while a conductor ensures that maximum passenger numbers are not exceeded and Dimitri is not (intentionally?) sitting in the woman's coupé (true story).

Graham confirmed his euro-hero status during a soccer game with locals. He was enthused enough to play on barefeet like them and was motivated enough to ignore the big blood blister forming on the sole of his foot. The locals were charmed however and we suspect that out of sympathy they let Graham score on purpose.

Although we only stayed two days we got a lot out of it. We took a badly negotiated túk-túk and discovered traffic, traffic jams and slums, went up the 'nasional monumen' for a glimpse over the city, checked out the activities at the docks in a rowing boat and played chess with the locals. We stumbled on a local flee market and impressed sales man with our bargaining skills in Indonesian. And, last but not least, we ran into the cheapest Mc Donalds ever - 3 euros for a whole menu... Actually, by then, we decided to love Jakarta!

We waved Indonesia goodbye and embraced beautiful Singapore. The ultra-clean automatic spaceship metro was just the beginning. Rich, multicultural, high-tech yet colorful, filled up with different religions and a great example how to organise traffic in the city. You just have to love it and so we did.

A lunch in a food market in Chinatown wrapped up our schedule as we both were called on-stage and had to perform some tricky dance-moves for a crowd of enthusiastic Singaporean Chinese. Next moment we were picked up by expat Monté, who dragged us in the decadent night life.

Nature lovers as we are, we were longing for some green again and so we headed to the Singapore zoo. But action lovers as we are, we were longing for some adrenaline so we headed to the rollercoasters of Universal Studios. But explorers as we are, the show must go on, and we left Singapore for our next destination: Kuala Lumpur.