I lost my netbook adapter few days ago and had to spent the whole day today looking for adapter for my laptop. I already went to the electronic shops in Glodok Plaza and Pinagasia yesterday. Took the transjakarta to Kota and then got on a minibus to Mangga Dua. There is a big computer and electronic mall at Mangga Dua,

however no shops has the size for my netbook adapter. Asus is not that popular in Indonesia and the pin size for my netbook was smaller than what most notebook uses There is a shop which mentioned about ordering the adapter from Asus for me but I decided to go there on my own since it will take a while for them to do so and I thought I can get a better price, at the same time look around the city by going on my own.

Took the transjakarta towards the south, passed by this interesting statue

stopped by Block M at the southern part of Jakarta
Had Mie Acheh (11,000 Ruppiah)

and then went to the Asus service center at Senayan Trade Center. The lady mentioned that currently Jakarta doesn’t have any parts and needed at least a week to order the adapter from Taiwan. I asked her to double check again and found out that the other service center at Kelapa Gading has a spare adapter.

Kelapa Gading is located at the eastern part of Jakarta so had to take the transjakarta towards Pulo Gedung

and then got on an Ojek to the Asus service center there. That took me around 2 hours to get there.

Finally got the damn adapter (425,000 Ruppiah~USD$44), on ebay I can get a compatible one for USD$10.

Looking for adapter

View Adapter search in Jakarta in a larger map

Indonesia is huge and I have been thinking about my travel routes in the country for a while. I was thinking about either traveling east to Java or west to Sumatera. Decided to go Sumatera because it’s closer to Thailand and leave Java for next time since it’s closer to Bali, which is not a great place for a one man budget backpacking trip in my opinion.

Since Sumatera is 2000 km long with mountains and lakes, furthermore the road is not well maintained, I decided to book a flight (550,000 Ruppiah) to Padang in Sumatera instead of traveling overland, skipping by Palembang. That will save at least 3 days in my trip. The agent screwed up and I had to take the evening flight instead of an earlier flight booked earlier.

Booked return train tickets to Bandung with the same travel agent. Paid 85,000 Ruppiah for each way but noticed that on the ticket is just 45,000 Ruppiah, since it’s already 11.30pm, I don’t want to go to the train station and just pay more for conveniency sake.

Moved to a different hostel (70,000 Ruppiah) few doors away

because the one I stayed at looked dirty and my skin has rashes sleeping on the bed.

Jakarta pusat.

Jakarta has a similar transportation mode to the Transmileno in Bogota, Columbia. But the one here is called transjakarta, it’s actually buses running on a special lane, 3500 Ruppiah per trip.

Museum Mandiri, an old dutch bank just right across Kota transjakarta/busway station.

Bajaj, a three wheeler transport vehicle

The rivers in Jakarta are dirty and do smell.

Museum Jakarta

Bridal photo shoot in the museum

Bicycles at the square

Walked to Maritime Museum

The museum is informative. Ports and the maritime sector do play an important role in Indonesia because of the geographic and shape of the country.

View from a tower

and then to Sunda Kelapa.

Sunda Kelapa is a port north of Jakarta, it was a burstling port of the last Hindu kingdom of west Java before the Portuguese came at 1520s but then was driven out by a Muslim leader and was renamed Jayakarta, meaning Victory City.

Sunda Kelapa

The Dutch then came in the beginning of 1600, built a fort and named it Batavia, making it the capital of the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch colonialize Indonesia for the next 350 years.

Walked from Kota, the old city to Glodok which is also called Chinatown.

The gap between the ethnic Chinese and other ethnicity in Indonesia is obvious, with many Chinese businessman owning shops. Ethnic Chinese only make up of 3% of the population but they control almost 70% of the economy. The riot in May 1998 happened around Glodok area.

Lunch, GadoGado at Glodok Plaza (16,000 Ruppiah)

Museum National

There are many Hindu statues because Hindu was a major religion just around 600 years ago before Islam came.

Jewelry for different ethnicity

Sanskrit writing and the many different forms used in Indonesia before Roman alphabet was introduced.

Local houses during old times

The national museum is also known as the Elephant building because of the bronze statue in front, given by the King of Siam in year 1871.

Monas (Monument Nasional)

built by Sukarno and the flame on top was said to be covered with Gold. Wasn’t able to get up the tower because there were demonstrators practicing some drills.

It’s not uncommon to see protest on the street here.

Met Stephanus for dinner, Mie Bakso (15,000 Ruppiah)

and Stef dropped me off at FX mall which has quite a cool design. There is also a 7 storey slide in the mall.

Coming from Singapore, felt that Batam is not clean.

Took a cab to the airport (65,000 Ruppiah) after lunch. There is an airport tax of 30,000 Ruppiah for domestic flights at the airport. Got on the 2.50pm flight with Kartika Airline (303,000 Ruppiah). There are many low cost airlines in Indonesia so it’s affordable to fly.

and arrived at Jakarta airport at 4pm.

The city is around 30km away from the airport so got on the shuttle bus (20,000 Ruppiah) to Gambir train station in the city center.

Jakarta

is also called the big durian and is a city with 10 million people. The city is located at the western part of Java. Java is just half the size of Britain but it has 120 million people here and is considered as the heart of Indonesia. The city is around 660 sq km and is 25 km from the north to the south.

Java Man, an earliest form of human lives here 1.7 million years ago. Even though Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population in the world, but Islam was just introduced during the 15th-16th century. Before that, Hindu and Buddhism are the major religion here. Borobudur, one of the biggest Buddhist temple was built around 750-850AD in central Java. Almost 88% of the population today is Muslim but it doesn’t seem like a religious country. By just looking around it seems there wearing head scarf is the exception rather the norm for the ladies, probably it’s better to stay that there are more non head scarf wearing ladies than those that who are wearing head scarf.

Took an Ojek, motorbike taxi (10,000 Ruppiah) to Jalan Jaksa

which is a place for backpackers. When I tried to look around the hostel, I noticed the Ojek rider tried to open my bag. Always have to be aware of people around.

Stayed at Hostel Kresna (70,000 Ruppiah) since that’s one of the cheapest option among the few places I asked.

Nasi Goreng Gila and Avocado Juice (20,000 Ruppiah)

Decided to visit Batam, Indonesia since it’s just 20km from Singapore and I thought I can get a cheaper flight to Jakarta from Batam. Went to Harbour front and took the 2.50pm ferry, Penguin Express to Batam Island (SD$23, an hour ride).

Indonesia time is an hour slower so arrived at the same time as I left.

Singapore has one of the most active ports in the world and there are quite a number of ships around Singapore coast.

I am pretty excited to visit Indonesia because it’s so close to Malaysia yet I have never been there. Indonesia is the 4th most populous country in the world with 250 million people. It has 17,000 Island which 6000 is unhabited, with 300 ethnic groups. From the Northern tip of Sumatera, Acheh to Papua, it’s around 4000km long, roughly the same horizontal distance between LA and NYC..

The largest ethnic groups are the Javanese (45%) of central and eastern Java, the Sundanese (14%) from western Java, the Madurese (7.5%) from the island of Madura, and Coastal Malays (7.5%), mostly from Sumatra. The rest are Acehnese and Minangkabau of Sumatra, the Balinese, the Iban and Dayaks of Kalimantan and many more.

Wasn’t able to find a public bus from Batam center to the city center so had to take a cab (45,000 Ruppiah~USD$45, USD$1~10,000 Ruppiah).

There isn’t any hostel in the city so I asked the cab driver to drop me off at a cheap hotel, Hotel Bahari (16,000 Ruppiah)

and booked a flight to Jakarta for tomorrow (303,000 Ruppiah )

Batam is similar size to Singapore and is considered like the special economic zone of Indonesia with factories, shopping malls and is also considered as the sin city for Singaporeans. Even the taxi driver was asking if I wanted to rent a girl for the day. There isn’t much to see at Batam, it’s just like another typical small city. There aren’t public buses around so it’s hard to move around city since I usually avoid taking cabs.

Nagoya Hill which is the biggest mall here.

Lunch Mie Soto and GadoGado Siomay(14,000 Ruppiah~USD$1.40)

Nasi Padang for dinner (24,000 Ruppiah)

Took a ride with an Ojek (Motorcycle taxi) and the rider drove me around and went to the beach front.
With the Indonesia motorbike rider

I just bought him a drink and paid for his gas.

March 7
Took a train to Punggol, a residential area which is located at the North East side and crashed at Vin’s place.
Punggol has some new HDB which looked very well planned. Only local citizens can buy newly issued HDB flats and needed to have a monthly income below SD$8000 if I am not mistaken. PR can buy HDB flats at the used market but even 2 bedrooms HDB flat in the north east part cost more than SD$350,000.

Singapore has quite a lot of church goers and a few megachurches. On the front page of strait times there is news that one of the megachurch is going to invest SD$310 million to co-own Suntec city. I don’t consider myself religious but decided to check out a mega church with 18,000 people in Suntec City.

Had lunch with my aunt at Orchard road

and catch up with XiaoRui in the afternoon.

around the city

Flirting point

Went to Harbour front and took the Sentosa train (SD$3) to the newly opened casino, Resort World.

For Singaporeans and PR holders, they will have to pay SD$100 to go in because the government discourages the locals from visiting the casino.

Some expensive shopping place in the casino

Met up with cousin Ling and she drove me around the city at night and bought me to Mustafa centre, a 24 hours mall which has a good variety of products.

A typical HDB flat, behind is the highest HDB flat, the 50 storeys Duxton.

Walked to Red Dot Design Museum.

Dog drawing competition

Award winning utensils and Tupperwares with ergonomic design.

Self standing umbrella, how useful is that.

Just right across is URA (Urban Redevelopment Authority) office. On the second floor there is a city gallery which shows how Singapore has developed over the past years as well as showing how the urban planning was done.

Singapore is divided into few districts such as West, North, North East and Central.

Model of the Central district.

Model of Singapore Island.

Singapore has the 2nd highest density of population after Monaco. The population has grown almost 20% for the past 5 years. Even though the land size of Singapore has grown from 580sqkm to 710 sqkm now by landfilling, Singapore is still a more crowded place than before.

Singapore is a well planned city and is runned like a private enterprise with a Concept Plan which is to guide development in the next 40-50 years and is reviewed every 10 years. While the Master Plan is used to guide development for the medium term in the next 10-15 years.

Singapore’s Master Plan 2008
Map

Challenges for the expanding Singapore, the country needs land for water catchment needs, there is a limit to building higher buildings because of height restrictions around airport areas and need more land for self defenses training. Singapore air forces do their practical in training base overseas because the country air field is too limited.

The solution is to build cities underground in the future. 50 meters below ground is the sewage system so the underground city will be just above it.

A bird eye view of the business district

It’s quite educational visiting the URA office.

Not far away is Chinatown

Took bus 80 from Chinatown to Kowan towards the North East directions passing by the city.

Took the metro back to Little India. Indian Food (SD$4)

Visited Geyland which is famous for food and also a legal place for prostitution in Singapore. Then met up with a friend and visited Club Attica (SD$28 including 2 drinks) at Clark Quey area.

Met Chim in the morning in the new Merrill Lynch office at Harbour front area. Chim is a great guy and gave me some helpful info.

Visited a friend’s landscape designing office. Designers do have to dress well even at work.

Singapore is a pretty clean and well planned city

Raffles place which is also the financial district

Had lunch with Jason and his friends at Raffles area. It’s pretty crowded because it’s lunch hour, noticed that tissue is a necessity to get a seat during lunch time because Singaporeans use tissue to claim their seats.

Raffles area

The new marina bay still under construction.

The Esplanade, opera house.

Got a day pass for public transportation (SD$8 a day).
Took bus 678 to YinChu which is the last stop then got on bus 171 to Orchard road.

Ion, a new mall at Orchard road.

No durian in the metro.

Nightview of Chinatown

Had dinner with KuoWen and then dropped by his friend place for a visit.

After spending slightly more than 2 weeks in Malaysia celebrating Chinese New Year with friends/relatives and doing some errands such as getting a new passport/applying for visas, it’s time to get back to the travel mode again.

Felt a little lazy after having a stable life for the past 2.5 weeks. Spent the past 3 days in Kuala Lumpur, getting back my new passport (RM300~USD$88) with a multiple entry Chinese visas (RM148~USD$44), US visa (RM492~USD$145), finally got on the 3pm Aeroline bus from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore (USD$79~USD$23, 5.5 hours bus ride). There are other buses to Singapore which is cheaper but got on theAeroline bus since it’s just across MCA building in KL city center and is more convenient for me.

Arrived at Singapore at 8.30pm. Today Singapore has a population of around 5 million but the city just had 3 million people 20 years ago. The government policy has been immigrant friendly to attract talented professionals to the workforce.

Singapore is a city state and the island is just around 700 square kilometers. The city is 45km from West to East and 25km north to south.

Singapore merged with Malaya in 1963 to become Malaysia but was explused from Malaysia in 1965 to become an Independent country because of disputes between Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party and Malaysia government then. Singapore is considered as the only country in the world that gained independence unwillingly.

Because of the competent government of the country, even without much natural resources, the country has been growing on a sustainable path and become the richest country in South East Asia. An example is to compare Singapore dollar to Malaysian ringgit which is exchangeable
at par until 1973 but today 1 Singapore dollar ~ 2.4 Malaysian Ringgit.
Since the country doesn’t have much natural resources, the country economy needs to diversify into different areas in manufacturing, services, biomedical, tourism and is also one of the biggest port in the world.

Singapore is considered a democratic country but with a strong government controlled by PAP party. Even though there is election but the PAP has been in power since independence and controlled around 90% of the parliment seats since independence.

Arrived at Harbour Front in Singapore at 8.30pm. Took the metro to Tanjung Pagar area and crashed at Jason’s place.

Inside the metro, I heard not only Singlish but also noticed that Singapore has a lot of immigrants from China, India and South East Asian countries from the way the people speak. There are also quite a lot of expatriates and tourists as well. Read that there were 10 million tourist visiting Singapore in 2007, twice the number of the country population.

Met up Sunny whom I have not seen for a while for dinner at Bugis area.

Had hotpot buffett for dinner, SD$20 per pax.

Went back to Kuala Lumpur to get my passport and applied for visas.

View from the North South Express way

Malaysia is the second biggest exporter of Palm oil trees in the world after Indonesia

Dropped by the Kuala Lumpur twin tower skybridge. Finally managed to go up the skybridge after more than 10 years of waiting.
Skybridge

View from the bridge