Indonesia with Besties: Jakarta

Day 3: We spent the morning at Pasar Baru Market for last minute shopping. Pasar Baru is an 8 storey shopping mall that sells various items from clothes, bags, fabrics, wedding gifts and even vegetables. The price here is quite cheap compared to the price in Malaysia. 

Walking towards Pasar Baru

Pasar Baru, Bandung

We bought some pretty prayer gowns and my friends even bough fabric for her wedding outfit. I didn’t had time to buy some fabrics for baju kurung. Since we were here for only a few hours, we only managed to cover 2 floors out of 8. I wished we had more time to explore this place as tehre’s a lot more things that we didn’t get to shop for. Maybe we’ll do a lot more shopping in Jakarta. 

We had Sundanese food for lunch at one of the restaurant opposite the market and head back to our hotel to check out and got a taxi to send us to Xtrans station for our shuttle bus to Jakarta. There was a bit of drama as the taxi driver took us to the wrong Xtrans station. Then we knew that different Xtrans station cater for different locations. As we wanted to go to Jakarta Central, we had to take the Xtrans shuttle from the Cihampelas station. 

Sundanese lunch in Bandung

Lunch for 3

We reached the Cihampelas Xtrans station at 1.30pm and managed to get seats for the 2pm bus. It was not actually a big bus, just a 12 seater van and it only costs us Rp.70K to get to Jakarta. The journey was pleasant and we were schedules to arrive in Jakarta at 4pm. But it was Friday afternoon and the traffic was usually extra heavy on Friday. Only at 5pm we managed to arrive at the Xtrans Jakarta station. Then we took taxi to Hotel Alma, our accommodation near Tanah Abang Market. The journey from the station to our hotel was about 20 minutes. 
 

Around Cihampelas

Goodbye Bandung and Hello Jakarta

The journey to the hotel was a bit dodgy as we passed small alley with goats on the street where the locals called this place Pasar Kambing (Goat’s Market). Once we checked in, we rest for a while and then head out for dinner at one of the shop in front of the hotel. Once we came back to the hotel; our friend, Jidah was waiting for us at the hotel lobby. She managed to be back in Jakarta for the weekend from her rural medical posting. We were so glad that she made it back to Jakarta for the weekend to be our tour guide here in Jakarta. She spent the night with us at our hotel. 

Day 4: We took the angkut (a form of transportation) to Tanah Abang Market which costs Rp.2K. The journey from the hotel to the market was only about 5 minute’s angkut ride. We passed the Pasar Kambing again and Jidah explained that it was called Pasar Kambing as they do sell goats here and you can see goats roaming freely on the street.

Us inside angkut

Angkut ride to Tanah Abang

The goats at Pasar Kambing

Tanah Abang Mall in Jakarta

We spent the whole day shopping at Tanah Abang Market. We bought more prayer gowns and sulam fabrics for baju kurung. It was very cheap here; it only costs about RM30-50 for a 4m fabric. The same kind of fabric is sold for about RM70-120 in Malaysia. 

Beautiful fabrics for wedding gowns at Tanah Abang

We had lunch at the food court here. Their bakso here was so delicious and you can customize teh items for your bakso dish. My friends shopped too much that they even ran out of cash. Luckily we brought madam banker with us. So, they borrowed some money from Jidah first and they said they will pay later once they’re back in KL. They have Malaysian cash with them but there’s no money changer here in the mall itself. 

Around 3pm, we head back to our accommodation via bajai (another form of transportation). Once we put all of our stuff at the hotel room, we head out to Taman Anggerik or also known as TA (pronounced as Teh-A) by the locals. TA is just a shopping mall but we came here to watch the water show at Central Park (next to TA). 

Bajai waiting to take us home

At TA

TA Mall, another typical mall

Once the water show ended, we walked around the mall for a while and head back to our hotel.