Sights of Jakarta

My previous company is an American company, which has a strict policy with regards to suitable locations for regional/global meetings. As Indonesia is deemed as a high risk country, in all my years there, I’ve never travelled to Indonesia for business meetings. Two weeks was my first, to Jakarta.

There isn’t much to see in Jakarta – I visited Taman Fatahillah, the town square surrounded by several museums, the old harbor of Sunda Kelapa, and the National Monument.

Museum Fatahillah (National History Museum), at Taman Fatahillah

Bicycles for hire at Taman Fatahillah

Old harbour of Sunda Kelapa

Museum Bahari (Maritime Museum), housed in a 17th-century spice warehouse

Jakarta's last remaining Dutch drawbridge

National Monument

At one corner of Taman Fatahillah is Café Batavia, the city's most iconic international restaurant. Set in a 19th-century colonial-era building, it's filled with period antiques, and hundreds of old photos of long-forgotten movie stars, royalty and presidents adorning the walls.

While at Taman Fatahillah, I chanced upon a family of street performers. This child was being tied up by the man, and few other men were whipping the ground with these huge whips. I feared for the worst – I was thinking that their performance was to put the child into a trance and whip him, but luckily it wasn’t. The child was shoved into the tent, and while the man chanted and danced, the child unravel the binding and walked out from the tent. Phew!

(L) The child being tied up (Top R) The child being shoved into the tent, see the huge whip that the man was holding? (Bottom R) The child freed himself and gleefully ran back to his "family"

Another performance from the same group