Hunter by Nature

Halo, salam!

Let me start this by saying you should always follow your doctors directions when taking prescription medications. (Trigger warning: gross)

We arrived in Jakarta late Wednesday evening. The second I stepped out of the airport a wall of humidity hit me in the face. The humidity is suppressive, it sits on you as if you’re carrying a backpack of rocks. I’m unsure if I will ever be anything but sweaty and damp until I arrive back in the U.S.

40 hours of travel can be disorientating, which luckily led to me falling asleep at 10pm Indonesia time. Our hotel was rated “very good” on Booking.com. I am unsure about the rating – I’ll need to compare it to other Indonesian hotels. I want to approach it from a point of cultural relativity, but I need to learn more. We had four walls, one bathroom, and zero windows. The location wasn’t ideal and the staff didn’t speak English, but it was a place to sleep.

Originally my time in Jakarta was supposed to be spent in meetings. However, due to a delay, my trip became much more unscheduled. Our first task was to get to an ATM, luckily one was a three-minute walk from the building. However, walking in Jakarta is not quite the same as walking in an American city. The sidewalks are barely there, if present at all, and the streets are lined with stands and motorbikes. The walk was a little treacherous, but we made it to the ATM.

Malaria medications should be taken with food, however we had limited access to safe water and had zero food in the hotel. In the building with the ATM was a coffee shop. My quick Google search had told me this, so I took all of my medications before leaving the hotel. The plan was to grab something to eat at the cafe, which unfortunately ended up being closed. We decided to walk to a nearby mall with several cafes instead.

Picture this: you’re walking in a foreign city without sidewalks. Its approximately 10 billion degrees outside, and it’s so humid that your sweat is sweating. You’re dehydrated and you just took medications known for bad side effects. Well, the nausea hit me like a brick. I looked at Diana, my field assistant, and tell her I HAD to get food and water. The first cafe in the mall is a Starbucks. I was hoping for something local, but I was so desperate that I practically ran to the cash register. We order and sit down. I chug my water, but at this point I’m feeling so bad that eating is a chore. Diana and I are mid-conversation, when suddenly I threw-up. I actually caught it but had to run to a trash can. It was all water as I hadn’t eaten in almost 12 hours.

After surviving the puke incident, we started roaming around the mall. At the time I thought it was one of the biggest malls I had ever seen. I would be proven wrong the next day.

Diana and I spent the rest of the day exploring Indonesian stores in the mall and eating yummy food. There were no more incidents.

The next day we decided to go to the Jakarta Aquarium and Safari, which has a variety of animals, including some endemic Indonesian species!

The aquarium was part of another mega-mall, even larger than the one from the day before. After a quick Google search, I discovered that this isn’t even the biggest mall in Indonesia. In-person shopping and malls may be dying in the U.S., but they are alive and well in Jakarta.

Day 3 began with a trip to the National Museum of Indonesia and the National Monument (MONAS). The museum was beautiful. It highlighted Indonesia culture, history, and artwork. The first section of the museum was dedicated to statues of Hindu gods and goddesses.

The next section of the museum was focused on Indonesian heritage and included a variety of masks as well as an interactive exhibit. This interactive exhibit used AI to match facial features to historical Indonesian figures.

The next section was entitled “Indonesia: The Oldest Civilization on Earth.” It focused on the discovery of Homo erectus remains by Eugène Dubois in 1891. It highlighted the fossils that have been found in Indonesia and the role that they played in shaping our understanding of human evolution. This exhibit also included animal fossils, including elephant tusks.

The final section highlighted the important role of women in Indonesian history. The exhibit presented a timeline, showcasing how women throughout history have made impacts on Indonesia. This exhibit also ended with an interactive portion which allowed visitors to write postcards to the women they learned about. It also included a digital component asking guests what the most pressing issue facing women is in modern Indonesia. Economic opportunities and violence against women were the categories with the most votes. This was my favorite section of the museum.

We ended our time at the museum with a walk to the National Monument of Indonesia. The park surrounding the monument was gorgeous, but the walk had us once again dripping with sweat. Unfortunately, tickets to the top of the monument were sold out.

That evening we returned to our hotel to be faced with another obstacle: a broken AC. As you can imagine, this was an unfortunate end to our time in Jakarta. Given the language barrier, we couldn’t exactly communicate the issue with the front desk. This resulted in problem-solving time. Diana and I messed with the remote control for the AC for about an hour to no avail. The AC kept shutting off and on. Eventually, I climbed up on a chair to clean out the air filters, which were DISGUSTING. Still there was no change. We then shut off the circuit breaker in our room with hope that a reset would be what the AC needed. That night we ended up sleeping with a miniature fan blowing on us.

Day 4 was a travel day. We woke up in the morning and headed to the traditional Indonesian market: Pasar Baru. We spent the morning walking around with vendors trying to get us to buy their items.

Afterwards we left our hot hotel to head to the airport. We decided to come to the airport early to get work done and nap before our 2 a.m. flight to Palu. However, what we didn’t consider is that we would get there too early to check our bags. After being laughed at for our early arrival we lugged our baggage across to terminal 3 to head to the airport’s sleeping pods.

We found a cart to place our luggage on and hopped on an escalator that allows carts, like basically an inclining treadmill. An airport worker stood in front of us with a cart full of boxes. At the top of the escalator her cart got caught, causing us to smush into her from the back. There was no emergency stop button in sight as we continued to smash closer and closer. I think I may have battle scars.

I am writing this blog update from my sleeping pod, which feels oddly like something out of a sci-fi movie.

The next post will be from Palu, Sulawesi, where we will get to work on my research! Wish us luck on our journey, I think we need it.

Selamat jalan!