Our original travel plans were to go to Hong Kong for four nights at the end of our South East Asia trip. The return flight I booked was Hong Kong -3 hour layover in Taipei - Chicago. With the evolving coronavirus (COVID-19) situation, before we ended our Vietnam trip we decided we would eliminate Hong Kong and spend that time in Taipei. This had been our plan if the Hong King protests got out of hand, but Conspiracy Theorists would say that the coronavirus virtually wiped out that issue. So, for $500 in change fees and pricing differences EVA Airlines agreed to change our return ticket to originate in Taipei and terminate in Chicago, no Hong Kong leg. Same seats on the plane. Oy!

Our four days became three days when our Sunday flight from Jakarta to Taipei was canceled and we were moved to Monday. Lucky for us the Jakarta condo we are staying was available for the extra night.

Our taxi driver arrives a little early for our ride to the airport - great! We wear masks as we enter the departures area and are aware that our body temperatures are being monitored. We must not be running a fever, as we’re allowed through. The Jakarta airport is very quiet and the airport lounge is nice. Because of the flight cancellation for the previous day EVA is using a larger plane which has a 2-4-2 configuration and William and I settle into one of the 2’s. It’s a good flight which arrives a little early.

Again, temperature scanners are monitoring everyone who enters the country. We’re asked to fill out extra paperwork regarding our travel history and must attest to our health. We’re also given a paper explaining the symptoms of SARS, MERS and COVID-19 and what do do if we develop the symptoms. By the time we’re through immigration our masks are back in our backpacks. The CDC doesn’t advise using them unless you have symptoms or are caring for someone with the virus, but 95% of the people here are wearing them. The question is...is this their cultural norm, or is this due to the virus? Probably a little of both. When we arrive at the taxi stand they hand us masks before allowing us to get into the car.

When we arrive at the Roaders Hotel they must take our temperature before allowing us to check in. The desk clerk sanitizes an in-the-ear thermometer with alcohol then takes the temperature. Thank goodness they don’t have to use a rectal thermometer (as our brother-in-law likes to tease “the way momma used to take temperatures”). Of course we also have to provide our travel history and attest to our health.

​The hotel has the vibe of trying to attract people in their 20’s and 30’s. In the lobby there are couches, tables, complementary electronic bar games and a projector TV. There are bicycles and umbrellas which can be borrowed. Our room is simply decorated and oddly shaped with a curved wall - it will be fun for 3 nights.

Once again we wake up around 4:30 am to the numerous mosques in our area chanting or reciting call to prayer over loudspeakers. The call is actually issued six times a day aligned with the prayer services at the mosques which is 4:40 am, 5:58 am, 12:03 pm, 3:07 pm, 6:09 pm, and 7:18 pm on this Saturday and similar the other days of the week. Sometimes it lasts 15-20 minutes. It is something which would take a lot for us to get used to. One evening I recorded a short clip of the sound, see below.
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We’re feeling closed in staying in this small apartment and we have some computer-based work to do, so the obvious answer is a trip to the mall! Saturday we grab a table and coffee at Starbucks then log into their WiFi. When we’re hungry we take the escalator down a floor to Greyhound Restaurant for “Thai with a twist”.

​In the afternoon we try out Paulander, Jakarta’s only micro-brewery. William orders a half liter and I choose a glass of white wine. William declares that the beer is good and my wine is a decent Vouvray. We sip and snack on a pretzel while doing more work using their WiFi. A nice treat.

Sunday morning Jakarta has a car-free zone on a few of their major roads. People come out to bike, run and walk from 6:30 - 11 am. Vendors setup carts near the Selamat Datang Monument with food or goods - the small Sunday market is open. It’s a good start to our day.

​In the afternoon we try an upscale restaurant with a memorable name: Cork and Screw. They specialize in wine, with a mention in Wine Spectator Magazine. I have a delightful salmon ravioli and William has a tasty lasagna.

In the evening we pre-pack for tomorrow’s departure and remind our Airbnb host of the need to order a taxi to take us to the airport in the morning.

Today we venture a little farther to the north in Jakarta, to Fatahillah Square. The taxi driver takes the same creative left turn through the mall drop-off zones then drives along very busy roads for 20 minutes. He stops in front of the bank museum and points us to go straight ahead. We politely argue a bit and he continues to point ahead. This is not where we want to be, but we know that we are just a couple blocks from Fatahillah Square, so no big problem. We start walking and realize why the driver stopped where he did - we need to walk through a pedestrian only street.

Our first stop along the square is the Jakarta History Museum. It’s small and only takes 30 minutes to walk through, which is good because the building was completed in 1710 is not air conditioned.

The Art Gallery & Pottery Museum is on the eastern side of the Square, and it’s our next stop. This museum is air conditioned (somewhat). We stroll through the museum, which is small but has some interesting pieces.

​Kafe Batavia is in an old building on the north side of Fatahillah Square. It is a Jakarta landmark. Built in 1837, it’s most recent refurbishment was in the early 1990’s. We aren’t terribly hungry, but a cold beverage and an appetizer sounds good. We’re escorted up a wide teakwood staircase to the air-conditioned grand salon. We order a beer and iced tea.  We share a Ceasers Salad along with an octopus appetizer and a plate of satays. The food is surprisingly good and the ambiance is something out of the 1930’s.

It takes 10 minutes to flag down a taxi, much longer than we are used to, but we are ultimately successful. There’s a significant amount of traffic on the ride back and we crawl along or sit still all with the meter ticking away. Normally we would be worried about the impact on the wallet, but this is Jakarta. The 45 minute, 8 kilometer (5 mile) trip costs 56,300 Indonesian Rupiah, less than $4 USD!

​This morning we met an expat in the elevator. He mentioned that this complex is named Thamrin City / Cosmo Park due to the construction of the two-story townhomes ten stories up on top of the mall. We see the townhouses along the pool area, but never realized that there is a whole community behind them. This evening we walk over the pool bridge and between the poolside townhomes to find asphalt streets and ~ 80 townhomes. Parked in the carports are premium automobile brands such as Jaguar and Lexus as well as a few junkers.....well, they can’t be too bad, because they must circle up ten stories of parking ramp to get up and down. There are also small bikes indicating some of the owners have young children.  It is almost like a small suburb - but 10 stories up and in the middle of the city.

Jakarta’s National Mosque and Catholic Cathedral are across the street from each other, which is convenient for sightseeing.

We taxi to St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Cathedral, choosing to visit it first since it closes from noon to 3 pm each day. We must sign in, recording our passport number, and are each provided a lanyard with a guest pass. We walk around the Cathedral and it’s grotto. It’s a nice church and grotto, but not overly impressive.

​The Istiqlal Mosque, Indonesia’s National Mosque and the third-largest Sunni mosque in the world, is undergoing renovation and the entrance across the street from the Cathedral is closed. We have 45 minutes before the next service, and the Mosque is closed to visitors during services. Finding an open entrance as we walk around the perimeter is frustrating. Finally we walk down a construction roadway toward the building. At that point we are not sure we will have enough time to explore the mosque before the prayer service. We decide to skip seeing the interior. We walk back out the muddy construction road and signal a taxi.

Our afternoon meal is at Public Markette, definitely not a Muslim-centric restaurant. There is alcohol and pork on the menu! Given the chance, we go for it. William orders a Guinness and the pork belly while I order a glass of wine and a pork chop. As the server sets down my wine she explains to William that they are out of Guinness, but they have a local beer. Disappointed, William doesn’t think the local beer is worth it and he orders a carbonated water. The food is great and we both enjoy our entrees.

​As I have on other evenings tonight I stand on the balcony for a while listening to the city and taking in our view. There are tall buildings, including the white Shagri-La hotel and another distinctive blue building which reflect in a small somewhat polluted pond. It appears that they may be in the process of cleaning up the pond, but I can’t be sure. Next to it the concrete base of another large foot-print building is being poured. The concrete mixing plant is next door and I hope that once the building is near completion the area will become a park with green space. This city of 10 million (30 million in the metro area) with so many tall business, condo and apartment buildings can use some place for people to get out. However, with an air pollution index which all too frequently falls into the unhealthy category there is much additional work.

Now that we have experience with the taxi’s we feel confident and take off for the National Gallery of Indonesia to see their artworks. The museum is in the same general direction as the Museum Nasional, but on the other side of Monas, the National Monument.

Today the taxi driver takes a very creative approach to the left turn that Google maps showed yesterday (and also today). He drives through the mall pickup area, turns around and returns through the adjacent pickup/drop off lane then makes a turn at the end of the mall. Oh! Apparently Google thinks a turn is allowed when it isn’t. We also see the driver having to take U-turns and odd routes. We are possibly starting to see why Jakarta traffic is so notoriously bad - the road rules inhibit direct routes.

​After the driver drops us at the gallery we walk past the manned guard house and down the interior road toward the cluster of buildings. Unfortunately all the doors are either locked of have a closed sign on them. There are men working on repairs to the buildings - oh no, they might be closed for renovations! There was no mention of this on their website when I checked it last night. Darn! We use the opportunity to walk to the gate of Monas and take a photo. It is also possible to go up into the 132 meter (433 foot) tower, much like the Washington Memorial, but we haven’t purchased tickets in advance, it’s lightly drizzling, and as William’s mother would say “we don’t feel to” (I.e. we don’t feel like doing it).
 
Time for Plan B. We flag a taxi and have the driver take us to the mall. We buy two tickets for Sonic the Hedgehog, the only movie in English that is starting within the next two hours. The total price is ~ $7 USD. We’ve slipped quite a bit from fine art to Jim Carey, but it’s okay for a rainy day.

Our adventures of the day are figuring out transportation and going to Museum Nasional, the National Museum.

Grab is the Uber of South East Asia, in fact, Uber even sold their business here to Uber a couple of years ago. We consider using Grab, but taxi’s here are super cheap and we are concerned about communicating how to find the lobby of our condo. (Reviews on Airbnb indicated this can be an issue). I look up the approximate fare for a taxi and we decide to take that approach.

We walk down to the street level and signal one of the many taxi’s driving by. I have written out the name of the museum and the address on a slip of paper. I show it to the driver and say Museum National and he replies “Yes, I know it”. He turns on the meter and off we go. William has Google mapped the route and the driver doesn’t make the left that Google suggests. He loops way around. Well, maybe the driver knows something....or is he taking the scenic route?? We arrive at the museum and the taxi fare is less than 35,000 Rupiah ~ $2.50 USD. Although by principle we don’t like to be “taken for a ride” if we were it doesn’t cost us much.

The old portion of museum has a courtyard with some interesting statues and stone carvings. From there we move to the modern section with it’s five stories of exhibits. The footprint of the building isn’t huge and it takes us two hours to see the exhibits even William periodically resting his foot.

We walk out of the museum and one of the street hawkers tries to convince us that he is a tour guide and can take us all around Jakarta to see the sights. We firmly thank him and tell him “no” a number of times and finally he just helps us to get a BlueBird metered taxi. He warns us not to take the other taxi’s, take just the metered BlueBird. Good advice. We are not worried from a safety perspective, more that we don’t want to be ripped off (even more).

We have the taxi drop us off at Grand Indonesia Mall where we will have lunch. There are many restaurants to choose from, including at least one restaurant with a Michelin star. I saw Fish & CO when I was doing a Google search, and the idea of a nice price of fish appeals to us. When I ask for directions at the mall information booth I ask for Fish and Company, assuming the CO meant company. The gentleman gives me a puzzled look and I see a lightbulb go on in his head. He responds that they have a Fish and C O. Hmmm, sounds like my guess is wrong. Anyway, we have a decent meal at Fish and C O.  No alcohol, of course.

Last night we picked up breakfast supplies at the Hypermarket in Thamrin City Mall, so we enjoy coffee and tea then William takes up his role as chef.
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We try to settle in to our small condo and spend time blogging and processing photos. One of the Top 10 Things To Do in Jakarta is to go to the malls. The malls also have many restaurants, so they really are somewhere to go for entertainment. Since the Grand Indonesia Mall is just a 10 minute walk away (at normal speed), we make that our activity for the afternoon.

We find stores from many international brands and several regional brands. When we get tired of window shopping we stop at Kafe Betawi for lunch. I choose an Indonesian meal with chicken and William has one with beef. Both come with rice, a small salad and we think fried tofu. The meals are tasty, but nothing to die for.

FoodHall is in the lowest level of the mall. It is an upscale grocery store complete with small outlets for Famous Amos Cookies, Godiva Chocolates, Krispy Cream Donuts and other food brands. At the freezers we find a pork section and they have Johnsonville spicy bratwurst! Not all grocery stores stock pork, as the primarily Muslim population does not eat it. We skip the spicy brats but pick up some ground pork to use with our eggs in the morning. The refrigerated case is stocked with a few hard cheeses. This is definitely the international grocery store and the prices reflect it but we’re happy to pay the price for some familiar foods.
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In the evening we scope out the 10th Floor of the condo building. There’s a large swimming pool with a bridge over it and at one end is a swim-up bar, which unfortunately looks closed for the long term (too bad). The 10th Floor also has a hot tub, children’s play area, mini-mart and laundry. The listing on Airbnb said that these facilities were here (sans the bar), and they look very handy!