We're not in Kansas anymore

**Quick note: My appologies for leaving this blog so empty. As I mentioned before the internet has been slow at every location thus far and spending extra time away from exploring is no fun. But have no fear! I am on a small island off the coast of Lombok called Gilli Trawangan. I am spending the rest of my time here. The island has no cars, no motorcycles, no ATMs and no police... but the internet is blazing fast. Go figure. I'll catch everyone up with what as happened so far over the next few days. Now, back to the blog.**

I knew there would come a moment during my travel when all of a sudden it would hit me... I'm on the other side of the world. Singapore is incredibly western and spending two nights there is more than enough time to "get it." The country is expensive (due mainly to the weak dollar) and the culture is hard to uncover. It was no culture shock. We flew from Singapore to Jakarta, Indonesia on a small air line known as Lion Air (motto: We make people fly). We landed in Jakarta in the afternoon and had plans to go straight to the central train station and take an overnight train to Jogjakarta (central Java). Here is the warm welcome in Indonesia (insert picture). We we're in for a rude awakening.

Jakarta is the capital and largest city in Indonesia. It has a population of 9,000,000 and resembles Los Angeles... without any money. The place was an absolute dump. The streets were jam packed with cars and motorcycles and people populated every square foot. I've never seen poverty quite like this before. The distance from the airport to the train station was probably only 20km, but took over an hour. We arrived at the train station (Gambir station) and I foolishly figured it would be as straight forward as BART. The place was a zoo. The line to the ticket window was 100+ people long, it was hot, my back pack was heavy and every minute a voice would come booming over the loud speaking ranting something in Indonesian. We were the only westerners in the entire station and nothing was in English (to be expected). I had researched the schedule before hand and had a good idea of which train we wanted. We were one person away from the front of the line when an officer approached us. In broken English he explained that all the trains were sold out tonight.... oops.

Luckily a local women noticed our "Duh, what that hell is going on..." look on our faces and helped us out. She was bilingual and was a huge help. Through her we managed to book tickets for the following morning in an executive class cabin to Jogjakarta (180,000 rupiah = $20). Now all we had to do was find a hotel...

Walking the streets of Jakarta at night didn't seem like the best idea, so we hired a taxi and ask their opinion on where to stay (btw, Every indonesian is a part time sales man and tourist information center. They always have an "uncle" who happens to offer the services we need. In this case, his uncle owned a hotel.) The hotel seemed nice at first. Near the station, large lobby, clean and with a friendly staff. The luxuries ended there... we had to sleep with the lights on as it keeps the cockroaches at bay. At $10 per person/night, the price was right. The next morning we headed back to the train station with tickets in hand and smiles on our faces.