What to do for One Day Trip at Jakarta with a Low Budget?
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
- Lao Tzu
Never thought to write down things to do where I lived in, so I think maybe I should start one. It happened when I hosted these 2 girls (bioonthego and thegoin) from Canada through CouchSurfing few weeks ago. I had day off since weekend and I have nothing to do so I just accompanied them to explore Jakarta.
In this blogpost I want to share about what to do in a day at Jakarta based on my experience recently of course with low budget.
Usually for breakfast there are plenty Indonesian food to try especially near my house, and if we don't have much time to go somewhere to buy some then toast with the jam or oatmeal will be enough. Today we have Lontong Sayur for breakfast, What is it? it's rice cake served with vegetables, tofu and boiled in coconut milk soup with krupuk. For me personally, to have this kind of Lontong Sayur for breakfast is bit too much since it makes me so full for half day!:D The Cost? ohh it's so cheap around my neighborhood Rp5,000/portion, depend on the neighborhood though.
Woke up pretty late so we left my house around noon, 11.30 AM, How to commute around? well, the convenience way is using car or motorbike taxi online through apps such as Gojek, Uber or Grab but since I lived at South so it's better to use Online Car to the nearest Trans Jakarta station and riding Trans Jakarta around :) Plus it will adding your experience about how local life in Jakarta. Went to Trans Jakarta station and for the cost is Rp3,500 flat price! how cool is that! But to use this Trans Jakarta you need a card, they do cooperations with so many Bank Partner, but shame there is no single ticket for now anymore.
Nowadays, Trans Jakarta covered mostly touristic place in Jakarta so it's really easy to commute around Jakarta with Trans Jakarta, did you know sometimes local bit twisted about how they call this Trans Jakarta with Busway instead haha, busway is the road name for Trans Jakarta but well, Trans Jakarta is the name of the bus. It's been so long for me to use Trans Jakarta since I use online motorcycle a lot to go to my office :p
Our first stop on that day is Galeri Nasional Indonesia (National Gallery of Indonesia), I took Trans Jakarta from Ragunan so you will take the route with stated Monas via Semanggi, get off at Monas and transit to take Trans Jakarta to Pulo Gadung and get off at Gambir 2. From there you can walk, it's so close around 5-10 minutes walk. National Gallery of Indonesia is a museum and an art gallery in Jakarta. It has existed as a cultural institution in the field of visual arts since 1999 (source : wikipedia) They have several buidling (A, B, C and D) and wow it's FREE to enter, you only need to fill your name on their guestbook, put your bags there and good to go.
Each building has their own style of paintings most of all or some art collections. On the Building A, there was an exhibition. The officer said especially on Building A, the collections will changing depend on exhibition and the rest of building is permanent. It was pretty crowded when we went there, the place was pretty nice and you can spot some people there taking photos on their own where they might put it on instagram and so on. This place open from 10 AM - 4 PM.
Each building has their own style of paintings most of all or some art collections. On the Building A, there was an exhibition. The officer said especially on Building A, the collections will changing depend on exhibition and the rest of building is permanent. It was pretty crowded when we went there, the place was pretty nice and you can spot some people there taking photos on their own where they might put it on instagram and so on. This place open from 10 AM - 4 PM.
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| I like this painting, showed us about how diverse Indonesia |
After feeding our happy tummy we were going to National Museum and to make it fast, we took taxi from National Gallery, it's not that far though, you can walk if you want passing the National Monument but since it's 3.30 PM and we just want to cut the time. It took Rp16,000 by taxi to National Museum. Reminiscing my childhood, I went here for the first and last time when I was in grade 3 during my friend's birthday, her parents take us here, such an unforgettable moment for me :)
Entrance Fee for National Museum Rp5,000/person (local), Rp10,000/person (foreigner), ohh here we go, differentiation between local and non-local, thankfully the difference is not that much comparing with Borobudur Temple, phew! The museum consist of 4 floors, it was so big. I don't remember if the museum will be this big, well maybe they improved since I went there yearss ago haha.
So many things to see there, National Museum of Indonesia is an archeological. historical, ethnological and geographical museum located in Jalan Medan Merdeka Barat just right across the National Monument or Monas (Monumen Nasional), it is well known as Museum Gajah (Elephant Museum) because they have this iconic Elephant in front of Museum.
The things that makes me so happy to see is there are some parents who still come with their children and take them to this museum instead of Shopping Mall or giving them Gadget to watch some movie or play around with. And I also heard in museum when there are some kids got really excited and tell their parents if they learn this in school. So for me it's really good though because they can literally see about the things that they read at school.
We caught up inside the museum until closed, which is 5 PM, too bad we couldn't get to see the last floor which is 4th floor, consist of Gold and Bronze (Jewellery). From there we saw City Tour Bus so we decided to take that bus and it's for FREE, yay!
When this bus came out for the first time I already want to try this city tour bus but still haven't chance yet or more because too lazy to go to Central if I have nothing to do there :p This bus is 2 level and will be more interesting to sit on the 2nd level so we did that.
City Tour Bus will stop on some spots especially the touristy places like Old Town, Istiqlal Mosque, Cathedral Church, Pasar Baru etc. We alight at Pasar Baru, established in 1820 and it's one of the oldest shopping district in Jakarta, also my first time here.
We explore this market but we only explore the middle or main road, maybe we will find more interesting things to see if we get into the alley but we pretty satisfied to check this market and prefer to explore another place.
I bought one of my favorites Indonesian snack named which is because of the shape, usually I call it Kue Tete and Tete means boobs, but actually this cookies called Kue Ape, this one is traditional pancake with soft and fluffy center surrounded with thin and crispy crepes which is so tasty, I usually eat the best for the last which is the fluffy one, yummy! Rp5,000/4pcs.
Finished until the end of main street of Pasar Baru we heading back to bus stop of City Tour Bus. Nearby Pasar Baru we also could see Gedung Kesenian Jakarta (The Jakarta Art Building). Built during colonial period in Batavia, Dutch East Indies and using for Concert Hall.
It was 6.30 PM when we took this City Tour Bus, I guess this is the last bus so they only take us to Sarinah which is fine because we can take Trans Jakarta to our next destination, Old Town.
There are so many museums to see in Kota Tua (Old Town) but since we will arrive at night so the museums already closed but strolling around Old Town is pretty fun to do.
I heard already that Government doing some kind of renovation there but I haven't been there after hearing it. Surprisingly there are some changes that I notice comparing with the last time when I came with friends. They have more cafes there not only the famous one, Cafe Batavia located just in time from the entrance.
There are so many people there, I felt this place was like Alun-Alun in Yogyakarta, people gathered there with friends, hang out, relax, chit chat or even playing guitar singing and dancing together. It was fun relaxing night to see all of them. We were starving and decided to go to that fancy restaurant, Cafe Batavia. The place was well organizing with really nice decoration. The service also good and well, the price is quite expensive.
We had Tongseng Kambing (Soup with Vegetables and Goat) and Quesadilla which the shape was kind of unique, it's more perfect to call it Burrito though haha. For 3 of us, cost around Rp260,000 so @Rp86,000.
The taste is good but I didn't feel having full and satisfied dinner so maybe we could find something else to eat again haha.
Continuing our way to explore Old Town more..found lot of stall consist of lot of things like food, clothes, dolls, etc on the back. We look around until we felt tired and heading back home with Trans Jakarta to our nearest stop from my house and by online car to my house.
Jakarta is a big city in Indonesia because it's a capital city of Indonesia but no worries, you can still enjoying Jakarta in a cheaper cost and still fun though :). So, if you happen to come to this city, well, just have fun, explore and eat! haha.
Below I will breakdown how much cost for this Day Trip in Jakarta with a low budget, excluding meals since it will depend on people :
Well, it's so cheap indeed, for food if you okay with street food might cost Rp10,000-30,000 and if restaurant/ food court might cost less than Rp50,000 and for nice restaurant might cost Rp50,000-100,000 sometimes more.
Enjoy Jakarta and thank you very much for reading! See you soon.
When this bus came out for the first time I already want to try this city tour bus but still haven't chance yet or more because too lazy to go to Central if I have nothing to do there :p This bus is 2 level and will be more interesting to sit on the 2nd level so we did that.
City Tour Bus will stop on some spots especially the touristy places like Old Town, Istiqlal Mosque, Cathedral Church, Pasar Baru etc. We alight at Pasar Baru, established in 1820 and it's one of the oldest shopping district in Jakarta, also my first time here.
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| 2nd level in Citytour Bus |
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| Pasar Baru since 1820 |
We explore this market but we only explore the middle or main road, maybe we will find more interesting things to see if we get into the alley but we pretty satisfied to check this market and prefer to explore another place.
I bought one of my favorites Indonesian snack named which is because of the shape, usually I call it Kue Tete and Tete means boobs, but actually this cookies called Kue Ape, this one is traditional pancake with soft and fluffy center surrounded with thin and crispy crepes which is so tasty, I usually eat the best for the last which is the fluffy one, yummy! Rp5,000/4pcs.
Finished until the end of main street of Pasar Baru we heading back to bus stop of City Tour Bus. Nearby Pasar Baru we also could see Gedung Kesenian Jakarta (The Jakarta Art Building). Built during colonial period in Batavia, Dutch East Indies and using for Concert Hall.
It was 6.30 PM when we took this City Tour Bus, I guess this is the last bus so they only take us to Sarinah which is fine because we can take Trans Jakarta to our next destination, Old Town.
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| Jakarta mascot, Ondel-Ondel |
There are so many museums to see in Kota Tua (Old Town) but since we will arrive at night so the museums already closed but strolling around Old Town is pretty fun to do.
I heard already that Government doing some kind of renovation there but I haven't been there after hearing it. Surprisingly there are some changes that I notice comparing with the last time when I came with friends. They have more cafes there not only the famous one, Cafe Batavia located just in time from the entrance.
There are so many people there, I felt this place was like Alun-Alun in Yogyakarta, people gathered there with friends, hang out, relax, chit chat or even playing guitar singing and dancing together. It was fun relaxing night to see all of them. We were starving and decided to go to that fancy restaurant, Cafe Batavia. The place was well organizing with really nice decoration. The service also good and well, the price is quite expensive.
We had Tongseng Kambing (Soup with Vegetables and Goat) and Quesadilla which the shape was kind of unique, it's more perfect to call it Burrito though haha. For 3 of us, cost around Rp260,000 so @Rp86,000.
The taste is good but I didn't feel having full and satisfied dinner so maybe we could find something else to eat again haha.
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| view from our table |
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| me, Franki and Ranah :) |
Jakarta is a big city in Indonesia because it's a capital city of Indonesia but no worries, you can still enjoying Jakarta in a cheaper cost and still fun though :). So, if you happen to come to this city, well, just have fun, explore and eat! haha.
Below I will breakdown how much cost for this Day Trip in Jakarta with a low budget, excluding meals since it will depend on people :
Enjoy Jakarta and thank you very much for reading! See you soon.
What a nice, fun, and nice article!
ReplyDeleteI've been to Jakarta some times and I found convenience when it comes to public transportation. But one thing I still can't hold is, the weather....it's so hot. There's no difference before-after taking a bath. Once I took a bath in masjid Istiqlal (heheh) and the water is warm. I got sweat right after went out from the masjid xD
I lived here like entire my life until now so I have no choice to get used to it..but I've been to city that hotter than here so feel grateful for it and always look for a place with aircon in it xDD that will help you to survive in this hot weather or dont go outside around noon..when the sun stay still above your head..ahh I never go inside Istiqlal though >< hope the weather won't avoiding you to come back here :)
DeleteI've been living in south Surabaya for 17 years before moving to Malang to study so I'm used to hot weather actually wkwk. But living in Malang for this (almost) 3 years make me not used to hot weather anymore XD wkwkw.
DeleteNo no of course. I love the hectic of Jakarta somehow, and the transportation and the high buildings.
Anyway it'll be great if someday you explore Malang heheh.
Ohh right Malang weather is so different with here and that's nice! Well..I'd love to visit it, there are a lot of cool places in Malang..hope can visit there soon :)
Delete