On most Sundays, I usually end up at Car Free Day on Sudirman Street, Jakarta. It’s almost a ritual. But today, laziness won. I woke up at 8 a.m. (already too late for any serious Car Free Day ambition), so I did something simpler. I walked around Wahid Hasyim Street instead.
Wahid Hasyim has a quietly good vibe for Central Jakarta. The street is shaded by trees, lined with cafés and hotels, and by Jakarta standards, the sidewalks are actually pleasant to walk on. It feels like one of those places that tries, at least a little, to be friendly to pedestrians.
This is Cipta Hotel, one of the older hotels in the area. Long before it became a hotel, the building reportedly served as a homestay for a minister during the Soeharto era. Buildings like this always make me pause. They don’t announce their history loudly, but you can feel that they’ve seen several versions of the city come and go.
Not far from there is Apotek Cemara. I don’t know its full story, but this neighborhood has been considered an elite area since the colonial period. That history still shows in the architecture: old buildings, restrained designs, and a sense that time moves just a bit slower here.
Then there’s Hotel Cemara. Same name as Apotek Cemara, though I doubt they’re related. Most likely, both simply borrowed the name from nearby Cemara Street. Cemara, by the way, is the Indonesian word for a fir tree. Were there once many fir trees here? Maybe. Or maybe the name is just a memory, preserved long after the trees are gone.
That’s actually quite common in Jakarta. Many places here are named after trees, fruits, or animals. Wahid Hasyim Street sits in Gondangdia, a name derived from gondang, a type of large snail. Gondangdia itself is part of Menteng, which is named after a fruit, known in Latin as Baccaurea racemosa. I don’t even know what it’s called in English.
Ironically, you won’t find many Menteng trees in Menteng today. What you’ll find instead is a concrete jungle: buildings, offices, more buildings. The names remain, but the nature they refer to has mostly vanished.
Anyway, that was my walk today. Less exercise than Car Free Day, but richer in small stories.
Thanks for reading.
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