Time to recover

  Jakarta, Java, Indonesia Monday, March 2, 2015

After that awful journey, we changed and got as dry as best we could which was difficult as all our belongings were soaking wet. All four of us jumped in a taxi back to Berau. Kayla and Kevin jumped in their own and we all headed for the airport. The mood in the car was strange. Anger was dissipating and as the adrenaline that got us through it also subsided, we were all very very tired. Although the events of the boat trip were still being discussed and rationalised, we gradually nodded off. None of us took in any of the beautiful Borneo scenery and soon we were at  Berau Airport. It was 1pm now and a flight left at 2pm. We bought tickets, waved goodbye to Kayla & Kevin again and took the 40 minute flight to Balikpapan. Here we boarded another plane to Jakarta and by 5pm we were on our way to the Tune Hotel. We hadn't booked but we knew what lay in store - a powerful hot shower, a comfy bed, wifi, AC and a hot drink. Perfect. They had plenty of room for us and we settled in next door to Kiki & Per. It soon became apparent we were all on Face Book as pictures started popping up from them of all their clothes hanging up in their room. What was funny was that their room looked like ours - clothes drying everywhere! We all slept well that night! The next day we were on a mission. Kiki & Per went sight seeing as they had never been to Jakarta before. But as we had purchased return tickets by the awful ferry to get back to Surabaya and as we had now flown and cut several days of travelling out, we had only a very short window of time to get a refund on our ferry tickets. 11am to be precise! We had to dash across the city to their head office. We were there by 8:30am abut had to wait 30 minutes as they didn't open until 9am. By 9:05 no one had turned up for the ticket office so we asked a man in another office when it was opening. Oh no one will be here he said - you have to go to the main ticket office across the city! Grrrr!!!! So a dash back to.... yep - 100 mtrs from our hotel! funny but not funny if you get what we mean. The clock was ticking and to cut a long story short; we got our money back - well 50% of it but what we got back was enough to cover our flights. The next few days were fairly uneventful. There was a big shopping centre a 10 minute walk away which led to Jakarta's oldest market. It was good for a wander around but nothing really that would interest any of us. Except the music shops. Per was on a mission to find an instrument he could carry with him so he could still play. He was missing his band back in Sweden so off we went into probably half a dozen different shops. He is a great musician but it was really funny when he went into one (they combine the sport shops with music shops here) and tried to play the tube used for blowing up your football! Ha ha Per it was pretty funny! Kiki and Per left us on Wednesday 4th of March and were heading to Koh Tao of all places. We had discussed together our onward plans before and it was funny how it turned out. Kiki & Per had planned to go to Singapore and we had planned to go to Koh Tao. But as we know Bryan had to return to England and so we ended up going to Singapore for him to get a flight home and Kiki & Per decided to meet a friend in Phuket so flew to Thailand! They spent a few days there before heading to Koh Tao. So we had a few days left in Jakarta on our own. Nothing eventful really we just had to kill some time before flying to Singapore as it was cheaper to kill time in Jakarta. Our hotel was only costing us £13 a night here in Jakarta. You would have to times that by 4 at least for Singapore. We did find a large shopping centre which was almost all electronics. Each floor was something different - 1st floor phones, 2nd floor computers, 3rd & 4th floors something else but we never got beyond the 2nd! Eating in Jakarta was tricky too. One night Bryan found a restaurant on Trip advisor and we took a taxi there. When we got there it was all steak and meat - no vegetarian. So we walked to find somewhere else. With almost nothing else around we ended up in Dominos Pizza. Well it was that or Burger King and they don't sell spicy bean burgers out here! Another night Jody tried. A little more success as the restaurant she found on Trip Advisor had very good reviews. We noticed it was inside a hotel so we got a taxi over there. It was actually a very big, very posh hotel. We were in our shorts and flip flops again and there was a massive jazz event being held there too. Everyone else was in ball gowns, posh frocks, suits and tuxedos. We found the restaurant but the prices on the menu matched the environment. £7 for a main course plus taxes. That would put it up to a massive £12 each. Way out of our budget so we snuck out quietly again. Oh well. Good job taxis are dirt cheap here. As we have found with a few places we have returned to on this trip, we found we like Jakarta more this time than when we were here before but maybe we were not here long enough before to appreciate it properly. Not on our hit list of places to come back to again, but we won't be as bothered if we had to return another time. :-) [gallery columns="4" ids="6810,6816,6819,6821,6823,6829,6835,6838,6840,6841,6844,6847,6861,6866,6871,6874,6876,6881,6887,6892,6899,6901,6906,6910"]