When you think of the must see capital cities of South East Asia it is not often that Jakarta gets a mention, everyone wants to visit Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi, and even Vientiane, but no one seems to want to visit Jakarta, and those that do are usually staying for just the night before going on to Bali or Yogyakarta. The consensus among most backpackers seems to be that Jakarta is boring, OK so it is crowded and dirty, and the city has a traffic problem, but if you scratch the surface you will find that Jakarta is a melting pot of all the different peoples of Indonesia and can definitely keep you occupied for a few days at the very least.

I arrived back in Jakarta for a short two week adventure, I had nothing really planned but I was thinking about having a bit more of an explore around West Java. I had booked a couple of nights at six degrees hostel and was just going to plan my travels on the fly.

When you arrive at Soekarno-Hatta airport you will be mobbed by people offering you taxi’s, a lot of these will rip off tourists and as a rule you should really only use Bluebird taxi’s if you are a Jakarta novice. You can save money by avoiding a taxi fare by walking down to where the Damri buses are outside the terminal and get a bus to Gambir railway station for 40000 Rp. Damri buses also run from here to other locations in Jakarta, as well as other local cities like Bekasi and Bogor. The journey to Gambir takes about an hour, depending on Jakarta’s legendary traffic jams.

At Gambir station you can take a taxi to wherever you are staying, it is cheaper to walk outside the station and take one that is going past as those inside the station will add the station parking fee to the fare. Six degrees hostel is in Cikini and a taxi to here will cost about 25000 Rp. You could take a train to Cikini station but unfortunately the local trains do not stop at Gambir, despite passing through the station very slowly and Gambir being announced as the next stop. You could walk to the next station of Gondangdia about half a mile away, but if you are going to do that you might as well just walk over a mile to the hostel itself, it is a pretty straightforward walk.

There are not many hostels in Jakarta, but of the few that are there six degrees is in my opinion the best. It has a friendly and social vibe without being noisy, and the rooftop bar is great for meeting fellow backpackers. It was already evening when I arrived and so I headed up to the roof for a couple of beers and to round up a few fellow backpackers for exploring the old town in the morning.