Odysseys of George

(From Jakarta Part 1) &
(Ritz Carlton and I)

Nothing is complete without having have visited at least some part of the city. During the day, there is an estimate 12million people on the streets of Jakarta heading for work and at night, there is about 8 to 10 million people.

The city is divided to 5 areas namely the north, south, west, east and central Jakarta. We were staying in Mega Kuningan, South Jakarta. There are various transportation modes but the safest I suppose would be by taxi. There are many taxi services, the best is managed by the BlueBird company and insist on a metered fare. There is also Silver Bird under the management of Blue Bird but the cars are bigger and “limousine-like” and the starting fare is higher.

The famous university where the modern revolution started.

On the first day, we planned to go for a spa and thereafter a bazaar called Tanah Abang, if not mistaken. The spa, Taman Sari, Royal Heritage Spa was our destination of choice.

The lovely ladies of the group.

That is me already very excited!

Well, we all had the same package of Royal Balinese Spa, a two hour massage with body wrap and treatment to relax and destress and rejuvinate! Ahem!Ahem!
By the time the spa was over, we realised that the bazaar was closed! The bazaar closes at about 4pm. So, for shopping we headed to a another famous but a little expensive, shopping centre named after Sukarno’s maid, Sarinah, the following day. They had good quality bateks, a cloth material locally designed and a traditional wear in Indonesia.

We were also taken to a high end street called Jalan Kemang. This is where all the famous branded shops and boutique and even pubs are. We went for dinner here at a place called De La Rosa. It was a well and beautifully set up restaurant and as usual food was marvelous. The welcome drinks were as exotic and lovely as the ladies welcoming us at the entrance.

They entertained us with some great Balinese dance.

The course ended well, and so did the fun when we heard that MAS cancelled our flight at 3.15pm to a later flight at 6.30pm. We ended up boarding the just awarded Best Airlines, at 8pm, tired and drained! The ladies in the group were excellent as they managed to squeeze the arms of the officer in charge to convert the lunch ticket to a lounge entry. Then again after being pampered in a 5 star hotel, nothing anywhere could match the comfort and food served.

Thanks to the organisers and to my friends.
Below is a painting I saw in the hotel. Enjoy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.