13 Jan 2020
Turns out, I don’t sleep so well on planes. While I’m pretty decent at folding up and contorting to fit within the confines of my seat, I sleep best sprawled out, so instead of exploring Jakarta as planned, I checked into the Jakarta Airport Hotel and took a much-needed nap.
I woke up famished so after exchanging a bit of money (1USD≈14,000 rupiah, not an easy conversion to calculate in your head, but great for feeling like a millionaire!), I went in search of food.
This is mie goreng, Indonesian fried noodles, with beef and it was AMAZING! And, I ordered it all in Indonesian! I made a point of learning at least a few basic phrases for this trip, and while it was definitely slow and imperfect, the waiter didn’t try to switch to English for convenience, which made me feel pretty awesome.
After lunch, I met up with part of the group and we hopped this super-convenient train to the next terminal and found more food.
No pictures, but I tried several more traditional Indonesian dishes and learned:
- Durian, while quite smelly, is actually pretty tasty as a juice. 8/10, would try again
- Satay, meat on a stick, is delicious! Peanut sauce on the other hand, not so much (it’s basically just thin peanut butter, which isn’t my thing). 9/10, without the sauce
- Sambal, a chili sauce that’s served on or with pretty much every dish, is spicy and I’m a wimp… I quickly learned to order no sambal. Still, it has great flavor once you get past the burn. I’ll stick to small doses 🙂
And just like that, this layover was over and we were hopping on one last red-eye, to Sorong, where we would meet our boat!
For reference, this is Indonesia:
Jakarta is on the northwestern side of Java Island, there on the left side of the map; the islands of Raja Ampat are to the east.