22 ms·

I used to spend a lot of time in Jakarta for work, and it's an underrated city. Yes, it's hot, congested, polluted and largely poor, but so is Bangkok. Public

I used to spend a lot of time in Jakarta for work, and it's an underrated city. Yes, it's hot, congested, polluted and largely poor, but so is Bangkok. Public transport remains not great, but it's improved a lot with the airport link, the metro, LRT, Transjakarta BRT. SE Asia's only legit high speed train now connects to Bandung in minutes. Grab/Gojek (Uber equivalents) make getting around cheap and bypass the language barrier. Hotels are incredible value, you can get top tier branded five stars for $100. Shopping for locally produced clothes etc is stupidly cheap. Indonesian food is amazing, there's so much more to it than nasi goreng, and you can find great Japanese, Italian, etc too; these are comparatively expensive but lunch at the Italian place in the Ritz-Carlton was under $10. The nightlife scene is wild, although you need to make local friends to really get into it. And it's reasonably safe, violent crime is basically unknown and I never had problems with pickpockets (although they do exist) or scammers. I think Jakarta's biggest problems are lack of marketing and top tier obvious attractions. Bangkok has royal palaces and temples galore plus a wild reputation for go-go bars etc, Jakarta does not, so nobody even considers it as a vacation destination.

duffyjp 11mo ago
I was there ~20 years ago. I had made friends with some Indonesia students in college and joined them on a trip home. We were mostly in Surabaya, but did spend some time in Jakarta as well. We had a great time. The language is a hidden gem, you can learn enough to get around on the flight over which I can't say about any other SEA language. Phonetic spellings, Latin alphabet, no tonal sounds, dead easy grammar and a million loan words you already know. Jakarta is definitely for the adventurous though, and you had better have an iron stomach.
- mmooss 11mo ago
  How did the language end up with a Latin alphabet?
  - itake 11mo ago
    Same as Vietnam: No dominate written language at the time of European Colonialization.
    - rafram 11mo ago
      Sort of. Indonesian had Jawi, based on the Arabic script. People in today's Vietnam mostly wrote in Chinese AFAIK. Those methods of writing were dominant among the people who could write. But the populations were mostly illiterate, so it was easy for colonial administrators to supplant the existing writing systems with Latin as they introduced European-style schooling.
      - LAC-Tech 11mo ago
        How well do Chinese characters mesh with Vietnamese? I mean I note that there are some Chinese languages, with millions of speakers, where the largest written text they have is a bible written in a Roman script. If those are a challenge surely Vietnamese must be as well.
        alephnerd 11mo ago
        Like this - https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_N%C3%B4m https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_N%C3%B4m
        wisty 11mo ago
        Like Korean and Japanese it has a different grammar and vocabulary. Japanese added a bunch other characters and Korean just made up a new (phonetic) script.
        realusername 11mo ago
        > How well do Chinese characters mesh with Vietnamese? Not very well. The old vietnamese script with Chinese characters had a lot of custom additions not in Chinese to make it work. It clearly was ducktaped.
- asmosoinio 11mo ago
  > ...which I can't say about any other SEA language. Phonetic spellings, Latin alphabet, no tonal sounds, dead easy grammar and a million loan words you already know. Nitpick: Sounds a lot like Tagalog (Filipino), another SEA language.
  - Squealer2642 11mo ago
    Both are Austronesian languages
  - duffyjp 11mo ago
    I've never studied it, but my understanding is that like Japanese, Tagalog has the pitched/stressed thing going on. My wife is Japanese and holy cow I can't tell the difference. Bridge or Chopstick? No idea, they sound exactly the same to my ears... I'm pretty fluent, but my pronunciation was as good as it's gonna get like 10 years ago which is a frustration.
    - throwaway2037 11mo ago
      In Japan/ese, the pitch/stress thing is overrated, and so are regional language differences. When natives point it out to me, it strikes me a little more than cultural gatekeeping. Linguistic context matters much more. How often are you listening to your own native language and you are confused by two words that sounds similar (like 'hashi' in Japanese for bridge/chopsticks)? Almost never. Advice: Ignore it when natives that criticise your pronunciation. Ask them how is their German or Thai is... and they will freeze with shame. Where I come from, to criticise a non-native speakers accent or small grammatical errors (that do not impact the meaning) is a not-so-subtle form of discrimination. As a result, I never do it. (To criticise myself, it tooks many, many years to see this about my home culture and stop doing it myself.) Still, many people ask me: "Hey, can you correct my <language X> when I speak it?" "Sure!" (but I never do.)
      - Muromec 11mo ago
        >How often are you listening to your own native language and you are confused by two words that sounds similar It confuses the hell out of me when non-natives misplace stress in Ukrainian and use wrong cases. It's that I want to gatekeep, but above certain rate of mistakes it's just difficult to follow what is being said.
- celloductor 11mo ago
  most SEA languages are similar btw
- Loughla 11mo ago
  >Jakarta is definitely for the adventurous though, and you had better have an iron stomach. I love, love, loved backpacking across quite a bit of southeast Asia. I did not like the massive gastrointestinal problems nearly the entire time though. I spent big money on four things for that trip: the flight, shoes, backpack, and toilet paper. I would've killed and eaten someone to get my hands in alcohol free wet wipes.
  - RankingMember 11mo ago
    It'd be nice if there was some way to "acclimate" your gut prior to a trip like that.
- ipince 11mo ago
  > which I can't say about any other SEA language maybe this doesn't qualify as "south east asian", but Korean is very easy to learn how to read too. It's not latin alphabet, but you only need to learn 20 symbols, and then everything is phonetic! you can have a lot of fun "reading" all the signs after you study a bit on the plane. Not as many loan words though
jasonthorsness 11mo ago
What is the air quality like to actually breathe in your experience? I have noticed Jakarta on lists of poor AQI and it doesn't look great [1] but I think the AQI number is kind of an abstraction. [1] https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/indonesia/jakarta/jakarta/historical-analysis https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/indonesia/jakarta/jakarta/hi...
- itake 11mo ago
  Air quality is terrible. AQI does not lie. It's even worse when you're sitting on the back of a motorbike 6ft away from 10 other gas powered bikes. There is slow adoption of electric vehicles, but still very low adoption rate (like less than 10% of motorbikes).
  - thaumasiotes 11mo ago
    > Air quality is terrible. AQI does not lie. Heh. To get a sense of what the page's numbers might mean, I checked on Kaohsiung, where you can taste gasoline in the air as you walk down the street. And hey, reported air quality in Kaohsiung is abysmal, so that checks out. Jakarta even looks good by comparison. https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/taiwan/kaohsiung/kaohsiung https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/taiwan/kaohsiung/kaohsiung https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/indonesia/jakarta/jakarta https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/indonesia/jakarta/jakarta AQI appears to have Jakarta pegged at an average "66", which looks pretty respectable for the region. They seem to have much more carbon monoxide than Kaohsiung or Shanghai, but much less fine particulate.
    - mcmoor 11mo ago
      Hmm it's a bit surprising. Usually when I checked, it'll never be under 100. Maybe the current rainy season helps?
  - apelapan 11mo ago
    I don't feel that AQI in reasonably normal ranges corresponds at all to the subjective experience of how nice the air feels to breathe. The best breathing I've done was in Mumbai. Felt like a silk blanket both in the lungs and on the skin. I'm sure it would be bad for me if I stayed there a few decades, but it didnt feel bad at all when visiting.
markus_zhang 11mo ago
Thanks for sharing. I’m wondering whether they have a large retro computing market?
- veeti 11mo ago
  I'll just chime in that Chinatown in Glodok might have been that place a couple decades ago, but seemed quite deserted now :/ There's still some shops around though.
rockskon 11mo ago
Shame their water is poison.
- itake 11mo ago
  and air
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
itake 11mo ago
I spent a month in Jakarta earlier this year and wasn't impressed. Traffic was terrible. I almost missed my flight due to taking a bike over a car, but then it started pouring rain and I had to huddle under a bridge while I waited for a car. Jakarta has a noise problem. The temples blasting the prayers is disruptive to sleep and inner peace. The traffic does not make anything either. Also, Indonesian food IMHO is at the bottom of SEA food culture. MY has wayyy better food (both in quality and diversity).
- darkwater 11mo ago
  > Also, Indonesian food IMHO is at the bottom of SEA food culture. MY has wayyy better food (both in quality and diversity). Agreed! Malaysia is really underrated, or at least it was by me. Now it's one of my favorite spots in the world, food is great (not as Thai's but comes close), wonderful sea, wonderful jungle, Kuala Lumpur is becoming a really nice city and CoL is value for money.
  - itake 11mo ago
    The teh tarik tea (served in a glass mug! paper cups don't count) is my favorite drink right now. Also Malaysian Indian food is one of my favorite foods (especially the sweet roti).
- phainopepla2 11mo ago
  > Indonesian food IMHO is at the bottom of SEA food culture I take it you haven't been to Burma / Myanmar
  - itake 11mo ago
    haha, I have not.
  - seattle_spring 11mo ago
    ??? Burmese food is absolutely delicious. Burma Love in SF, Rangoon Bistro or Burma Joy in Portland. They're some of my favorite restaurants.
bogota69 11mo ago
Bangkok is not what you described. Bangkok is a great city, not too polluted, there are not a lot of poor people. Bangkok is like Manila. I spent a lot of time working is South East Asia. Jakarta is the worst city, yes it is big but very filthy like New Delhi or India in general. Second filthiest is Malaysia. The cleanest city is without a doubt Singapore.
- moneywoes 11mo ago
  what is the cheapest for a nomad
  - itake 11mo ago
    Vietnam. source: I've been to almost every country in SEA at least 3x. (Brunei was once, never went to Timor-Leste). Check the forex changes and rent prices if you don't believe me. Harder to factor in is visa costs. Vietnam, you need to leave every 90 days. So you need to buy a $25usd visa + flights/buses + hotels for 3-5 days while you get your next visa. Thailand, you only need to leave every 6mo on the DTV.
    - exidy 11mo ago
      Thailand is cracking down on visa runs and people staying quasi-permanently on short-stay visas: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visit/thailand-steps-up-scrutiny-of-foreigners-making-back-to-back-visa-free-visits/articleshow/125558883.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visit/thailand-step...
      - doix 11mo ago
        The parent mentions the DTV visa which is the opposite of the visa-run strategy. Realistically though, if you're a "nomad" from a country with a powerful-ish passport you can come to Thailand for 60 days, extend once for 30 days for a total stay of 90 days. After that you can do a bit of a loop between Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Philippines in whatever order you prefer and come back to Thailand in a year. They'll have no problem letting you in again. It's pretty easy to spend a year in SEA without raising eyebrows at any border if you're willing to change countries somewhat often and don't mind AirAsia flights.
NedF 11mo ago
[dead]
andyjohnson0 11mo ago
Thanks for posting this. Really interesting perspectives Whats the food like for vegetarians/ vegans?
- zppln 11mo ago
  Tempeh is an Indonesian staple and from what I understand pretty popular with vegans.
- decimalenough 11mo ago
  If you're strict or allergic, very difficult. Fish sauces and pastes like terasi and patis are culinary staples on the level of soy sauce and make it into otherwise seemingly vegetarian dishes. If you're willing to flex a bit and just avoid obvious meat/fish, you'll survive, there's plenty of tofu, tempeh, veg etc. Gado-gado is always veg, nasi/mee goreng, etc.
mandeepj 11mo ago
> you need to make local friends to really get into it Well, that might sound like an impossible task!! So, just sign up for Experiences from any of the leading travel portals. They’d get you into any of the local party scenes.
vladgur 11mo ago
This could be a general issue with SE Asia, but one thing that was a breath of fresh air for me as I departed Jakarta from my Bali trip last year was a thought that I no longer need to worry about quality of water being used to wash salad veggies or clean my toothbrush with. Clean safe water from the sink was definitely not something I experienced in Bali in 2024 and I had the similar impression in Jakart
- lofties 11mo ago
  I traveled often between Jakarta and Japan in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The real breath of fresh air for me was literally the fresh air back in Japan. After running around for a week through Jakarta, I would inevitably develop a deep cough and a clogged nose. That said, the people, the food, and as someone else pointed out the nightlife is amazing.
  - Yokolos 11mo ago
    Somebody I know had asthma while she lived in Jakarta. It went away when she moved to Europe. I really liked Jakarta, but the air quality is one of the reasons why I won't go back again.
- esperent 11mo ago
  Clean safe water from the sink is not something you'll find in most of the world, in fact. It's not just SEA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Safe_drink_tap_water_map.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Safe_drink_tap_water_map.... So basically it's only safe to drink tap water in western countries + Japan, Singapore, Chile, South Korea, and a few of the rich Arab countries. I would argue that even the blue areas here would be speckled with lots of non-drinkable areas if you zoomed in, due to old lead piping and so on.
  - vladgur 11mo ago
    Any idea why that is? Why is safety of tap water high(I hope) priority in some parts of the world and not the others? Is it simply the economics of water purification and delivery or something else?
kgwxd 11mo ago
Is being an attractive vacation destination necessarily a good thing for a city? They're the biggest city, didn't they "win"?
markdown 11mo ago
Sounds wonderful if you're OK with Indonesia's ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of West Papua. > Widespread atrocities committed by Indonesian forces have led human rights groups to describe the situation as a genocide against the indigenous Papuan population. Reports of mass killings, forced displacement, and sexual violence are extensive and credible. According to a 2007 estimate by scholar De R. G. Crocombe, between 100,000 and 300,000 Papuans have been killed since Indonesia's occupation began.[19][23] A 2004 report by Yale Law School argued that the scale and intent of Indonesia’s actions fall within the legal definition of genocide.[24] State violence has targeted women in particular. A 2013 and 2017 study by AJAR and the Papuan Women's Working Group found that 4 in 10 Papuan women reported suffering state abuse,[25] while a 2019 follow-up found similar results.[26][27][Note 1][Note 2] > In 2022, the UN condemned what it described as "shocking abuses" committed by the Indonesian state, including the killing of children, disappearances, torture, and large-scale forced displacement. It called for "urgent and unrestricted humanitarian aid to the region."[28] Human Rights Watch (HRW) has noted that the Papuan region functions as a de facto police state, where peaceful political expression and independence advocacy are met with imprisonment and violence.[29] While some analysts argue that the conflict is aggravated by a lack of state presence in remote areas,[30] the overwhelming trend points to systemic state violence and neglect. > Indonesia continues to block foreign access to the Papuan region, citing so-called "safety and security concerns", though critics argue this is to suppress international scrutiny of its genocidal practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_conflict
- sl-1 11mo ago
  They also have not prosecuted the earlier genocides they made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_1965%E2%80%9366 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_19... I have personally flagged them as a country non-grata.
- defrost 11mo ago
  BLACKWATER Angwi fled his mountain home, the soldiers, as they burnt his village down, near the border line. He’s left the card games by the valley fire, the stories that his uncle told, the stories old, the spirits past. He’s seen the land taken away and given to the Java men; they’ve flown them in from distant lands. Angwi fears for his people’s songs, the nights they danced the valley strong; the hunding grounds, steep mountain side. slash and burn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrciT3lXtwE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrciT3lXtwE Tabaran: Recorded Pacific Gold Studios, Rabaul, PNG, July to August ‘88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX5p1sjvW6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX5p1sjvW6s
paxys 11mo ago
So - hot, congested, polluted, no public transit, cheap taxis, cheap luxury hotels, amazing food, fun night activities (but you'll need to know locals). Other than the no crime claim (which I find dubious) you've just described every big city in every developing country on the planet.
stickfigure 11mo ago
> lunch at the Italian place in the Ritz-Carlton was under $10 I'm curious, what does a beer or a glass of wine cost?
- wiradikusuma 11mo ago
  Alcohol is more expensive than other countries, in general.
  - incompatible 11mo ago
    Due to high taxation, apparently to appease the religious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_in_Indonesia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_in_Indonesia
- rossriley 11mo ago
  A local beer in a bar will normally be around 60k IDR so $3-4, wine is more expensive generally in SEA you'll normally pay around 90-100k IDR per glass.
junofan 11mo ago
The nightlife is wildest in SEA but definitely for the bold and brave.
aurareturn 11mo ago
Jakarta doesn’t need to turn itself into a sex tourism city like Bangkok. It shouldn’t. Thailand sold its people out to make some business and government people rich in my opinion. I spent a lot of time in Jakarta. It has some serious issues like pollution, worst traffic in SEA, unwalkable city, actually far more expensive for what you get than other SEA areas. It isn’t surprising to me that people don’t want to travel there for holiday. There are far better places for tourism.
noobermin 11mo ago
Why compare Jakarta to Bangkok?
- decimalenough 11mo ago
  Because they're both hot, polluted, congested and mostly poor, but Bangkok is literally the world's most popular tourist destination city while Jakarta is not.
rurban 11mo ago
What? Jakarta's biggest problem is the rising sea level and the sinking ground. Jakarta is one of the fastest sinking cities globally. Venice or Miami are nothing compared to this. 40% will be gone soon. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7a9fa31104334f3db4c01d087598e6b1 https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7a9fa31104334f3db4c01d0...
chickenegg 11mo ago
> it's hot, congested, polluted and largely poor, but so is Bangkok. That's a wild comparison, makes me wonder how much time you spent in Bangkok. Bangkok has a much higher standard of living compared to Jakarta, and I've yet to meet anyone who spent more than a month in both places and prefers Jakarta. Living costs are cheaper in Jakarta for sure, but that's about it.

duffyjp 11mo ago

I was there ~20 years ago. I had made friends with some Indonesia students in college and joined them on a trip home. We were mostly in Surabaya, but did spend some time in Jakarta as well. We had a great time. The language is a hidden gem, you can learn enough to get around on the flight over which I can't say about any other SEA language. Phonetic spellings, Latin alphabet, no tonal sounds, dead easy grammar and a million loan words you already know. Jakarta is definitely for the adventurous though, and you had better have an iron stomach.

mmooss 11mo ago
How did the language end up with a Latin alphabet?
- itake 11mo ago
  Same as Vietnam: No dominate written language at the time of European Colonialization.
  - rafram 11mo ago
    Sort of. Indonesian had Jawi, based on the Arabic script. People in today's Vietnam mostly wrote in Chinese AFAIK. Those methods of writing were dominant among the people who could write. But the populations were mostly illiterate, so it was easy for colonial administrators to supplant the existing writing systems with Latin as they introduced European-style schooling.
    - LAC-Tech 11mo ago
      How well do Chinese characters mesh with Vietnamese? I mean I note that there are some Chinese languages, with millions of speakers, where the largest written text they have is a bible written in a Roman script. If those are a challenge surely Vietnamese must be as well.
      - alephnerd 11mo ago
        Like this - https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_N%C3%B4m https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_N%C3%B4m
      - wisty 11mo ago
        Like Korean and Japanese it has a different grammar and vocabulary. Japanese added a bunch other characters and Korean just made up a new (phonetic) script.
      - realusername 11mo ago
        > How well do Chinese characters mesh with Vietnamese? Not very well. The old vietnamese script with Chinese characters had a lot of custom additions not in Chinese to make it work. It clearly was ducktaped.
asmosoinio 11mo ago
> ...which I can't say about any other SEA language. Phonetic spellings, Latin alphabet, no tonal sounds, dead easy grammar and a million loan words you already know. Nitpick: Sounds a lot like Tagalog (Filipino), another SEA language.
- Squealer2642 11mo ago
  Both are Austronesian languages
- duffyjp 11mo ago
  I've never studied it, but my understanding is that like Japanese, Tagalog has the pitched/stressed thing going on. My wife is Japanese and holy cow I can't tell the difference. Bridge or Chopstick? No idea, they sound exactly the same to my ears... I'm pretty fluent, but my pronunciation was as good as it's gonna get like 10 years ago which is a frustration.
  - throwaway2037 11mo ago
    In Japan/ese, the pitch/stress thing is overrated, and so are regional language differences. When natives point it out to me, it strikes me a little more than cultural gatekeeping. Linguistic context matters much more. How often are you listening to your own native language and you are confused by two words that sounds similar (like 'hashi' in Japanese for bridge/chopsticks)? Almost never. Advice: Ignore it when natives that criticise your pronunciation. Ask them how is their German or Thai is... and they will freeze with shame. Where I come from, to criticise a non-native speakers accent or small grammatical errors (that do not impact the meaning) is a not-so-subtle form of discrimination. As a result, I never do it. (To criticise myself, it tooks many, many years to see this about my home culture and stop doing it myself.) Still, many people ask me: "Hey, can you correct my <language X> when I speak it?" "Sure!" (but I never do.)
    - Muromec 11mo ago
      >How often are you listening to your own native language and you are confused by two words that sounds similar It confuses the hell out of me when non-natives misplace stress in Ukrainian and use wrong cases. It's that I want to gatekeep, but above certain rate of mistakes it's just difficult to follow what is being said.
celloductor 11mo ago
most SEA languages are similar btw
Loughla 11mo ago
>Jakarta is definitely for the adventurous though, and you had better have an iron stomach. I love, love, loved backpacking across quite a bit of southeast Asia. I did not like the massive gastrointestinal problems nearly the entire time though. I spent big money on four things for that trip: the flight, shoes, backpack, and toilet paper. I would've killed and eaten someone to get my hands in alcohol free wet wipes.
- RankingMember 11mo ago
  It'd be nice if there was some way to "acclimate" your gut prior to a trip like that.
ipince 11mo ago
> which I can't say about any other SEA language maybe this doesn't qualify as "south east asian", but Korean is very easy to learn how to read too. It's not latin alphabet, but you only need to learn 20 symbols, and then everything is phonetic! you can have a lot of fun "reading" all the signs after you study a bit on the plane. Not as many loan words though

jasonthorsness 11mo ago

What is the air quality like to actually breathe in your experience? I have noticed Jakarta on lists of poor AQI and it doesn't look great [1] but I think the AQI number is kind of an abstraction. [1] https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/indonesia/jakarta/jakarta/historical-analysis https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/indonesia/jakarta/jakarta/hi...

itake 11mo ago
Air quality is terrible. AQI does not lie. It's even worse when you're sitting on the back of a motorbike 6ft away from 10 other gas powered bikes. There is slow adoption of electric vehicles, but still very low adoption rate (like less than 10% of motorbikes).
- thaumasiotes 11mo ago
  > Air quality is terrible. AQI does not lie. Heh. To get a sense of what the page's numbers might mean, I checked on Kaohsiung, where you can taste gasoline in the air as you walk down the street. And hey, reported air quality in Kaohsiung is abysmal, so that checks out. Jakarta even looks good by comparison. https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/taiwan/kaohsiung/kaohsiung https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/taiwan/kaohsiung/kaohsiung https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/indonesia/jakarta/jakarta https://www.aqi.in/us/dashboard/indonesia/jakarta/jakarta AQI appears to have Jakarta pegged at an average "66", which looks pretty respectable for the region. They seem to have much more carbon monoxide than Kaohsiung or Shanghai, but much less fine particulate.
  - mcmoor 11mo ago
    Hmm it's a bit surprising. Usually when I checked, it'll never be under 100. Maybe the current rainy season helps?
- apelapan 11mo ago
  I don't feel that AQI in reasonably normal ranges corresponds at all to the subjective experience of how nice the air feels to breathe. The best breathing I've done was in Mumbai. Felt like a silk blanket both in the lungs and on the skin. I'm sure it would be bad for me if I stayed there a few decades, but it didnt feel bad at all when visiting.

markus_zhang 11mo ago

Thanks for sharing. I’m wondering whether they have a large retro computing market?

veeti 11mo ago
I'll just chime in that Chinatown in Glodok might have been that place a couple decades ago, but seemed quite deserted now :/ There's still some shops around though.

rockskon 11mo ago

Shame their water is poison.

itake 11mo ago
and air

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

itake 11mo ago

I spent a month in Jakarta earlier this year and wasn't impressed. Traffic was terrible. I almost missed my flight due to taking a bike over a car, but then it started pouring rain and I had to huddle under a bridge while I waited for a car. Jakarta has a noise problem. The temples blasting the prayers is disruptive to sleep and inner peace. The traffic does not make anything either. Also, Indonesian food IMHO is at the bottom of SEA food culture. MY has wayyy better food (both in quality and diversity).

darkwater 11mo ago
> Also, Indonesian food IMHO is at the bottom of SEA food culture. MY has wayyy better food (both in quality and diversity). Agreed! Malaysia is really underrated, or at least it was by me. Now it's one of my favorite spots in the world, food is great (not as Thai's but comes close), wonderful sea, wonderful jungle, Kuala Lumpur is becoming a really nice city and CoL is value for money.
- itake 11mo ago
  The teh tarik tea (served in a glass mug! paper cups don't count) is my favorite drink right now. Also Malaysian Indian food is one of my favorite foods (especially the sweet roti).
phainopepla2 11mo ago
> Indonesian food IMHO is at the bottom of SEA food culture I take it you haven't been to Burma / Myanmar
- itake 11mo ago
  haha, I have not.
- seattle_spring 11mo ago
  ??? Burmese food is absolutely delicious. Burma Love in SF, Rangoon Bistro or Burma Joy in Portland. They're some of my favorite restaurants.

bogota69 11mo ago

Bangkok is not what you described. Bangkok is a great city, not too polluted, there are not a lot of poor people. Bangkok is like Manila. I spent a lot of time working is South East Asia. Jakarta is the worst city, yes it is big but very filthy like New Delhi or India in general. Second filthiest is Malaysia. The cleanest city is without a doubt Singapore.

moneywoes 11mo ago
what is the cheapest for a nomad
- itake 11mo ago
  Vietnam. source: I've been to almost every country in SEA at least 3x. (Brunei was once, never went to Timor-Leste). Check the forex changes and rent prices if you don't believe me. Harder to factor in is visa costs. Vietnam, you need to leave every 90 days. So you need to buy a $25usd visa + flights/buses + hotels for 3-5 days while you get your next visa. Thailand, you only need to leave every 6mo on the DTV.
  - exidy 11mo ago
    Thailand is cracking down on visa runs and people staying quasi-permanently on short-stay visas: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visit/thailand-steps-up-scrutiny-of-foreigners-making-back-to-back-visa-free-visits/articleshow/125558883.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visit/thailand-step...
    - doix 11mo ago
      The parent mentions the DTV visa which is the opposite of the visa-run strategy. Realistically though, if you're a "nomad" from a country with a powerful-ish passport you can come to Thailand for 60 days, extend once for 30 days for a total stay of 90 days. After that you can do a bit of a loop between Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Philippines in whatever order you prefer and come back to Thailand in a year. They'll have no problem letting you in again. It's pretty easy to spend a year in SEA without raising eyebrows at any border if you're willing to change countries somewhat often and don't mind AirAsia flights.

NedF 11mo ago

[dead]

andyjohnson0 11mo ago

Thanks for posting this. Really interesting perspectives Whats the food like for vegetarians/ vegans?

zppln 11mo ago
Tempeh is an Indonesian staple and from what I understand pretty popular with vegans.
decimalenough 11mo ago
If you're strict or allergic, very difficult. Fish sauces and pastes like terasi and patis are culinary staples on the level of soy sauce and make it into otherwise seemingly vegetarian dishes. If you're willing to flex a bit and just avoid obvious meat/fish, you'll survive, there's plenty of tofu, tempeh, veg etc. Gado-gado is always veg, nasi/mee goreng, etc.

mandeepj 11mo ago

> you need to make local friends to really get into it Well, that might sound like an impossible task!! So, just sign up for Experiences from any of the leading travel portals. They’d get you into any of the local party scenes.

vladgur 11mo ago

This could be a general issue with SE Asia, but one thing that was a breath of fresh air for me as I departed Jakarta from my Bali trip last year was a thought that I no longer need to worry about quality of water being used to wash salad veggies or clean my toothbrush with. Clean safe water from the sink was definitely not something I experienced in Bali in 2024 and I had the similar impression in Jakart

lofties 11mo ago
I traveled often between Jakarta and Japan in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The real breath of fresh air for me was literally the fresh air back in Japan. After running around for a week through Jakarta, I would inevitably develop a deep cough and a clogged nose. That said, the people, the food, and as someone else pointed out the nightlife is amazing.
- Yokolos 11mo ago
  Somebody I know had asthma while she lived in Jakarta. It went away when she moved to Europe. I really liked Jakarta, but the air quality is one of the reasons why I won't go back again.
esperent 11mo ago
Clean safe water from the sink is not something you'll find in most of the world, in fact. It's not just SEA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Safe_drink_tap_water_map.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Safe_drink_tap_water_map.... So basically it's only safe to drink tap water in western countries + Japan, Singapore, Chile, South Korea, and a few of the rich Arab countries. I would argue that even the blue areas here would be speckled with lots of non-drinkable areas if you zoomed in, due to old lead piping and so on.
- vladgur 11mo ago
  Any idea why that is? Why is safety of tap water high(I hope) priority in some parts of the world and not the others? Is it simply the economics of water purification and delivery or something else?

kgwxd 11mo ago

Is being an attractive vacation destination necessarily a good thing for a city? They're the biggest city, didn't they "win"?

markdown 11mo ago

Sounds wonderful if you're OK with Indonesia's ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of West Papua. > Widespread atrocities committed by Indonesian forces have led human rights groups to describe the situation as a genocide against the indigenous Papuan population. Reports of mass killings, forced displacement, and sexual violence are extensive and credible. According to a 2007 estimate by scholar De R. G. Crocombe, between 100,000 and 300,000 Papuans have been killed since Indonesia's occupation began.[19][23] A 2004 report by Yale Law School argued that the scale and intent of Indonesia’s actions fall within the legal definition of genocide.[24] State violence has targeted women in particular. A 2013 and 2017 study by AJAR and the Papuan Women's Working Group found that 4 in 10 Papuan women reported suffering state abuse,[25] while a 2019 follow-up found similar results.[26][27][Note 1][Note 2] > In 2022, the UN condemned what it described as "shocking abuses" committed by the Indonesian state, including the killing of children, disappearances, torture, and large-scale forced displacement. It called for "urgent and unrestricted humanitarian aid to the region."[28] Human Rights Watch (HRW) has noted that the Papuan region functions as a de facto police state, where peaceful political expression and independence advocacy are met with imprisonment and violence.[29] While some analysts argue that the conflict is aggravated by a lack of state presence in remote areas,[30] the overwhelming trend points to systemic state violence and neglect. > Indonesia continues to block foreign access to the Papuan region, citing so-called "safety and security concerns", though critics argue this is to suppress international scrutiny of its genocidal practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_conflict

sl-1 11mo ago
They also have not prosecuted the earlier genocides they made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_1965%E2%80%9366 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_19... I have personally flagged them as a country non-grata.
defrost 11mo ago
BLACKWATER Angwi fled his mountain home, the soldiers, as they burnt his village down, near the border line. He’s left the card games by the valley fire, the stories that his uncle told, the stories old, the spirits past. He’s seen the land taken away and given to the Java men; they’ve flown them in from distant lands. Angwi fears for his people’s songs, the nights they danced the valley strong; the hunding grounds, steep mountain side. slash and burn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrciT3lXtwE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrciT3lXtwE Tabaran: Recorded Pacific Gold Studios, Rabaul, PNG, July to August ‘88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX5p1sjvW6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX5p1sjvW6s

paxys 11mo ago

So - hot, congested, polluted, no public transit, cheap taxis, cheap luxury hotels, amazing food, fun night activities (but you'll need to know locals). Other than the no crime claim (which I find dubious) you've just described every big city in every developing country on the planet.

stickfigure 11mo ago

> lunch at the Italian place in the Ritz-Carlton was under $10 I'm curious, what does a beer or a glass of wine cost?

wiradikusuma 11mo ago
Alcohol is more expensive than other countries, in general.
- incompatible 11mo ago
  Due to high taxation, apparently to appease the religious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_in_Indonesia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_in_Indonesia
rossriley 11mo ago
A local beer in a bar will normally be around 60k IDR so $3-4, wine is more expensive generally in SEA you'll normally pay around 90-100k IDR per glass.

junofan 11mo ago

The nightlife is wildest in SEA but definitely for the bold and brave.

aurareturn 11mo ago

Jakarta doesn’t need to turn itself into a sex tourism city like Bangkok. It shouldn’t. Thailand sold its people out to make some business and government people rich in my opinion. I spent a lot of time in Jakarta. It has some serious issues like pollution, worst traffic in SEA, unwalkable city, actually far more expensive for what you get than other SEA areas. It isn’t surprising to me that people don’t want to travel there for holiday. There are far better places for tourism.

noobermin 11mo ago

Why compare Jakarta to Bangkok?

decimalenough 11mo ago
Because they're both hot, polluted, congested and mostly poor, but Bangkok is literally the world's most popular tourist destination city while Jakarta is not.

rurban 11mo ago

What? Jakarta's biggest problem is the rising sea level and the sinking ground. Jakarta is one of the fastest sinking cities globally. Venice or Miami are nothing compared to this. 40% will be gone soon. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7a9fa31104334f3db4c01d087598e6b1 https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7a9fa31104334f3db4c01d0...

chickenegg 11mo ago

> it's hot, congested, polluted and largely poor, but so is Bangkok. That's a wild comparison, makes me wonder how much time you spent in Bangkok. Bangkok has a much higher standard of living compared to Jakarta, and I've yet to meet anyone who spent more than a month in both places and prefers Jakarta. Living costs are cheaper in Jakarta for sure, but that's about it.