9th January 2024 - Jakarta to Ciater via Bandung
We said goodbye to the apartment at Green Bay and ordered a Grab cab to Gambir Railway Station. In the lift (which takes a long time), there is a sign forbidding talking in lifts.
The journey in a car without air-con was as frenetic as ever. We headed into central Jakarta with its high rises. There's a real contrast between wealth and poverty here, with so many people living cheek-by -jowl.
The station is close by the tall spectacular national monument. It is a testimony to how high the Green Bay apartments are, that we could see them still, miles away.
For a major national railway hub, Gambir was quiet with lots of helpful staff to help. (The trains are nationalised.) We boarded about an hour before, travelling Executif Class.
The trains were clean, airy with big windows and, probably because we went first class, quite empty. That said, first class was less than the cost of one trip to Manchester.
For the first part of the journey, we passed through the outskirts of Jakarta. Some houses were barely held together by anything but hope, made out of chipboard, corrugated iron and reclaimed wood. Lives seemed to be lived half outside. The land was flat and swampy. At each railway crossing, there were legions of people on scooters waiting as the train passed. Gradually it became less dense, with a few rice fields with flags and scarecrows to fend off pests.
After an hour or so, the landscape became less urban, with more rice fields and fruit trees. The narrow gauge track slowly began to climb into a more hilly landscape with terraced rice fields. The train wound itself around the hillside, over a series of unnervingly delicate viaducts with roaring brown rivers way below. The countryside was steep and lush. Sharp peaks came into sight for the first time. We dashed from one side of the carriage to the other like kids, trying to get photos of the scenery.
We passed (but didn't stop) at many stations, and the altitude was given on every name sign.
Eventually we reached Cimachi, which Joan had thought was the main station in Bandung. We disembarked and realised fairly quickly this was not the main station! But our train had left. Though we don't speak Indonesian and most Indonesians don't speak English, everyone, ourselves included, muddles by in gestures and good will. Tickets were bought to Bandung and all the staff and train crew ushered us on to the right train and then made sure we got off.
Maybe half an hour later than planned we finally reached Bandung. Our plan was to use the Grab app to hire a taxi, but there was no free WiFi at the station. So we looked for a taxi rank and there was none to be seen. We walked down to the chaos on the streets outside the station and it was hopeless. No taxis to be seen. So we headed back to the station door where we had seen taxis drop off. We saw a taxi empty and hustled the young taxi driver to give us a lift and, even though he shouldn't, he agreed.
When we said where we were going, his jaw dropped. We were heading into the mountains, about 35 km away. we asked how much it was, and he calculated via Grab - 192,000 Rupiah or about £9.69!
The streets were teaming with cars so he took a "short cut" along impossibly narrow, bumpy country roads with no streetlights and in the rain. On the way, he expressed his consternation at our choice of resort, offering to take us on a different trip to the white crater, which he said many tourists visited. Worryingly he showed us videos of it as we drove and admittedly it did look good, but it would be an all day trip. However we did book him for our return journey to Bandung.
Eventually we arrived at Sari Ater Resort. It was dark and wet. We were allocated a room in the main hotel with a balcony overlooking the garden. Hungry, we headed to the on-site restaurant to be told that there was only fried rice for veggies and vegans and, the horror, the horror, no beer! We tried to look for nearby restaurants, but this is rural, with dark roads and few pavements. We, ironically, could have ordered food via Grab, that came from Bandung, but that didn't seem eco friendly!
We searched the local roadside kiosks for suitable food and eventually stumbled across a small beer stall. Result! As the food front looked hopeless, we thought we would try the on site restaurant again and try to cobble together a meal. We had seen chips and salad. Bizarrely this time we were offered pizza and we somehow manged to order one with and one without cheese. Plus the chips were crinkle cut. Another result! The pizzas were freshly made and came in boxes so we took them back to our balcony to enjoy.
Whilst we dined, a huge stick insect landed on Kevin. Not a bad evening after all!
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