Jakarta

Its hot. With the humidity of almost maximum. Our first impression after stepping out of the airport was that we had arrived home, as that is what we had planned since leaving Asia the last time. In the first couple of minutes before taking a local bus to the city centre, we had never seen so many smiley faces. Once again after withdrawing just under £50 in Indonesian rupees we became millionaires.

After getting the bus to the central train station we met a Dutch couple and a Slovakian guy who wanted to head down to Bali. Together we decided as it was a national christian holiday that it would be better to sleep on this idea and decide where to go next in the morning. As they were travelling for a month and we were planning to stay in Asia longer, they opted for a good night sleep and we found the cheapest place possible and didn't sleep. That first night cost about £4.50 and although the owner was very friendly the hostel was the worst place we had ever stayed. By the morning the Slovakian guy who only had a week until he had to be back in Jakarta had flown to Bali. We met with the lovely Dutch couple Rabin and Tosca who were trying to get tickets to another city Yogyakarta. They had met a really friendly local who was driving Rabin around on his scooter to find tickets. When they returned the Indonesian guy who unfortunately never told us his name, basically planned our trip for us.

We stayed one more night in Jakarta in a hostel that was 50 pence more, filled with Indonesians seemingly staying there long term. The guys in the reception were really nice and after Jack rolled them some cigarettes, he painted us each a lighter one with 'Jack' and the other with 'Scorpio' as Marianne was a little long. Because of our experiences in Thailand we were worried the guy was going to ask for money, but the Indonesian people we have met have all been sincere without looking to get anything out of you. We had a little walk around the town but the weather had other ideas and a storm forced us to head home.

The next morning we took the bus to the coach station and got an economy bus to Puncak. The inter city bus in Jakarta is ridiculously crowded and we felt quite bad as with our backpacks on we not only took up more space, but also posed a danger to the slightly shorter locals.

Our first yummy street food in Indonesia