Ahhh…finally here. After nearly 27 hours of nonstop travel from door to door we have finally made it to Jakarta. Our flight landed at 12:05am so it was pretty much pitch black outside until we saw the city lights during our decent, but even then Jakarta doesn’t make use of many street lights so the city was pretty dark flying into it compared to many other cities that I’ve flown into. Upon arriving in the airport and deboarding the plane, I was pretty shocked by how quickly we made it through customs and got our luggage. I think it took a total of 35 minutes from the time we left the plane to the time we got into our taxi to take us to our hotel. Piece-of-cake, seriously. Everyone we’ve talked to so far has spoken perfect english which doesn’t surprise me one bit.
During the drive to our hotel we took some toll roads so the driver had to stop three times to pay tolls: the first stop was 6000 Rupiah, the second 8000 Rupiah, and the third was 9500 Rupiah which we ended up paying for when we arrived to our hotel. I know we got over charged but even then it cost us 300,000 Rupiah to get from the airport to our hotel which equates to $22.09 US. A measly price to pay to get to our hotel quickly that late at night.
Our hotel, the Mercure Jakarta Simatupang is lovely. The check-in process was a breeze and like always, I told them it was our anniversary and we were treated to a delicious complementary chocolate cake and had swan towels folded on our bed. It’s alright to tell a little white lie every now and again (and by that I mean every hotel I stay in).
The rooms come with all the usual amenities (safe, mini fridge, wifi, TV, etc.) and there is a rooftop bar, swimming pool, and jacuzzi which we definitely made use of today until a 20 minute thunderstorm hit and it started pouring rain. It was so cool to see the storm hit over the main city which is about 5 miles away from our hotel and then roll in around us. It’s definitely something that we don’t get in San Diego, California.
Make Me a Jetsetter 