Hey Guys!
I am really excited to have a place in which I can share one of my biggest passions, which is traveling.
My most recent travel experience was to Indonesia.. and I know what you're thinking "Isn't Indonesia a really expensive destination to travel to?" and the answer is NO! actually I was shocked when I arrived to this beautiful country and notice how affordable this country is.
Before joining Steemit I was working for the Embassy of Indonesia in Panama City and I got the chance to bring a delegation of central american tour operators to get to know the wonders of Indonesia. All of us only heard about Bali, which is considered right now the best place to visit in the world according to trip advisor, but we not only had the chance of visiting Bali, we also visited the capital city of Jakarta and Yogjakarta, and by the end of this trip we came back home with tears of joy in our eyes of how amazing this travel was.
I've decided to split this post in 3 parts so I can talk about each place I visited in Indonesia properly, so let's get into it.
FIRST STOP - JAKARTA
We took our first flight from Panama City to the city of Amsterdam with KLM, it was a 12 hours flight and let me just say that I normally do not like fliying for so many hours because I start to feel a little of anxiety but this flight was actually comfortable and felt like a really quick one.
We had 8 hours transit so we were able to see the city of Amsterdam a little bit and it was amazing, I was really excited since I have not been in this city before so I was able to walk around and get to know a little about this amazing city.
The first thing everyone notice are the canals, I think they make the city look gorgeous and when I used the little boats to float around made me fall in love of this city, so I am definitely coming back.
The previous days the weather was really cold but the day we arrived we were really lucky, it was sunny and we were even able to walk around without a jacket since the cold wind wasn't that strong. Everybody I talked to said the weather in Amsterdam is really bipolar and you can have different types of weathers the same day and it rains quite a lot.
STRESSFUL JAKARTA
Once I arrived to Jakarta the first thing I noticed was the heavy traffic, I mean... 13 million people live here so it is a huge city, so if you come to Jakarta bring a lot of patience within you, I have to admit that I was struggling a little bit when I was 3 hours stuck in traffic and it made me understand right away why there were many motorcycles in the city, and when I say many I mean A LOT! to the point that there is an Uber-type app for transportation in motorcycles.
CITY OF CONTRAST
Even though Indonesia is within the ring of fire they were able to build really high and earthquake safe buildings.
Jakarta has stunning buildings that have nothing to envy to other developed countries in Asia making the city really atractive for those who enjoy a nice city vibe.
Indonesia has a lot of dutch influence since it was ruled by them a lot of time ago and when I visited the old town it was really noticeable the European architecture in the place.
Even though I am not a fan of museums I had to make a stop in the National Museum of Indonesia because I really wanted to learn more about such a different culture and how it all started to happen in this country.
We learned about the different types of music instruments Indonesia has and we also visited a really amazing place in which they showed us all the different types of gold jewelry they used in the past by the kings and queens, sadly I was not able to take pictures there since it was forbidden.
While doing some shopping in Jakarta I noticed at how cheap a lot of things were, for you to understand I 'll tell you that the national currency of Indonesia is the Rupiah and one american dollar equals to 13.000 Rupiah and with only that I was able to eat breakfast and lunch so imagine if it is so affordable in the capital city other islands could be even cheaper.
I will say that Jakarta is a city I enjoyed and I would like to go back someday since I only had 1 day and a half to visit, people are so kind and friendly that everybody took pictures with me when I said I was a foreigner especially when I specified I was from Venezuela, Indonesians love Beauty pageants and knowing I was from the country with more crowns in the Miss Universe made them feel really excited.
Well.. this is it for now guys, I hope you guys enjoyed this first part of my trip to Indonesia and don't forget to comment, share and follow, I would love to see your feedback.
Part 2 will be my trip to Jogjakarta visiting Borobudur, the biggest Buddhist temple in the world and many other places, so stay tune.
See you guys soon.