Jakarta, one of the most congested cities in the world, with dirt, chaos and slums

Indonesia's Jakarta, a place that is hard to associate with the country's capital, a place that is dreaded and known as the "world's most congested city", a city with a population of 30 million, but a land area of ​​only 661.5 million square kilometers. How can it fit? The most troublesome thing here is not the dirtiness and disorder, but the congestion and the language barrier.

There is no traffic jam here every day, every hour, every moment. It is so congested that you panic, despair, and high blood pressure. The one-way street can be turned into a two-way street, but it is congested; the road is too narrow, there are too many small vendors, so it is congested; there are too many motorcycles and they don't give way, so it is congested again. Turning around for half an hour, the congestion makes you panic even more.

We had two Grab incidents where they dropped us off on the way because the driver had not recharged the toll card on the highway. We had to accompany him to find a place to recharge the card. Later, when we had lost our patience and were on the verge of collapse, we asked him to drop us off on the side of the road and we changed cars ourselves. Another time, a female driver told us in a particularly irritable manner that there was a parade ahead and it was very congested, and she didn't want to drive in, and then sent us back to the hotel. The language barrier was really terrible.

About shopping: I visited Grand Indonesia, the Plaza Indonesia, Sarinah, and a Blue Garden mall. I tried very hard to find what I wanted to buy, and in the end I only bought a pair of earrings and some things at Sensatia, that’s all about it.

You can visit the National Museum in Jakarta in one day, but I didn’t go there. I passed by the Freedom Monument, and I didn’t have much interest in the Centennial Cafe. It’s still worth a day’s stopover here, but forget about it if you come here on a special Trip.