After 8 days in Bali and the Gili Islands, 8 days of sun, beaches, scuba diving, temples, monkeys, bintang, snorkelling, etc., and during those days I met fellow travellers from all over the world, it was intriguing for me why nobody recommended to go to Jakarta, but I like big cities and I didn't want to miss which is probably my only chance in a long time to visit the capital of Indonesia, luckily Garuda Indonesia allowed me to make a stop over on my way back to Singapore, a total of 2 days and 3 nights to see the highlights of the capital, but what was really surprising to me was how friendly people are.
During these two days I met a few tourists, I know now that the majority of the tourists are in Bali, the few travellers I spoke to in Jakarta had the same experience with people, you are walking on the street and people say "Hello mister" "How are you" "Where are you from?" and they are not trying to sell you something they are just being friendly, a lot of kids ask to practice english, even in my hotel the staff usually take some minutes to conversate with me, and more than three times people ask me to take my picture with or without them. But my most remarkable experience was in my first day of sightseeing, while I was queuing for the lift to the top of the National Monument, a group of kids on their school trip lined after me, and instantly I got all the attention of the group, they talked to me and asked me questions, took pictures of me with them, ask me to take their picture with my camera, they taught me indonesian (at least I learned to count up to 5) and even tried to hook me up with one of their single teachers. I did not learn to speak indonesian but they were surprised that by the end of the 90 minutes wait, I could remember the names of many of them. Once on the top they ate their lunch and some of them wanted to share their lunch with me, after saying goodbye I took the lift down and continued to explore the city.
I can say that in my short visit to Jakarta I had a good time, the city has some interesting places that are worth visiting like Kota and Sunda Kelapa, but truly it was the first time that being in a tourist felt like being a national celebrity.
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