For those who don’t know, Jakarta is the second of my childhood Southeast Asian homes, and between Singapore and Indonesia, Jakarta is the one I have far more memories of and frankly consider “home” (my family has kept up some of the traditions we picked up, including making soto ayam every Christmas instead of more traditional western food). It’s taken me more than twenty years (and several trips to SE Asia!) to revisit but now that we’re back, I frankly want to come visit much more often.

Spoiler alert: this blog is more a collection of my own personal memories and reflections than a true “travel blog” (most of the sites described won’t be of interest to anyone visiting themselves), but I feel like I owe it to myself to capture them separately from our more touristy time in Jakarta (look for the “Kota Tua / Central Jakarta” post for that!). Jakarta has helped me uncover and legitimize a part of myself that I’ve downplayed and ignored for a long time. It’s difficult as a young kid to move from someplace like Jakarta to Middle Tennessee – and even harder to explain to others how you grew up and why the transition was so difficult (not to mention, how to explain the culture shock!). In many ways, it almost felt like I was “pretending” to have loved Jakarta all these years, having so few memories of it – in a way, visiting and seeing that yes, these places and memories are real, has helped me reconcile some of those questions of identity, belonging and personhood (and yes, I’m getting slightly teary in the beautiful hotel restaurant typing this, although a persistent mosquito is trying its best to harsh my vibe).

SO, long explanation. We arrived in Jakarta and, after declining multiple prefabricated tour options, asked our hotel if we could just book a driver for a personalized itinerary to see some of the places I remembered (with some ideas from my parents as well!). Thankfully, our hotel was able to book us a Silverbird “taxi” (aka a luxury minivan with a dedicated driver) to take us to all of my childhood sites.

Our driver, Pak Tohari, accepted this bizarre mission (I’m sure he was given 0 clarity on why we wanted to visit such a non-tourist locale) with grace. For some context, most of the luxury hotels (which are cheap by US standards, about $80-100 a night) are located in the Central Jakarta area; Pondok Indah in Southern Jakarta is located about a ~30-minute drive away. Since this neighborhood is relatively expat-heavy, there is also a fair amount of security at each stop.

First up was my childhood home, located at Jl. Bukit Hijau VIII, #31. Growing up here in the early 2000s, the street was filled with a variety of vendors (including an organ grinder with a spider monkey, like something out of the nineteenth century!).

Of course, we weren’t able to go inside, but some things never change – there was a street vendor right outside, as well as a horse-drawn carriage being shown to the children of the neighborhood.

We then continued on to Pondok Indah Elementary, which is where I attended school in Jakarta (it apparently is now part of Jakarta International School!). Somewhere between my childhood home, PIE and the main JIS campus, Pak Tohari said in the silence, in his broken English (better than our Bahasa!), “You see memories!” I said “YES” and he made it happen. He pulled up to the main school, sweet talked the guard, and got me in to see the main staff, who were so kind and welcoming to an alumna (are you an alumni if you only graduate the second grade?).

Similarly, Pak Tohari helped us sweet talk our way into the lobby area of the Krystal Hotel, which is an “executive apartment” style “hotel” for long-term stays. My family lived here briefly before we settled into our house, so I wanted to ensure I at least stopped by.

From there, we headed to lunch at a hotel that features prominently in my childhood memories, the Dharmawangsa Hotel. In my childhood recollection, we’d visit for Sunday brunch and then head across the street to the American Club, where we’d swim and escape the heat.

The hotel is still beautiful, although they appear to have stopped lining the hallways with baskets of jasmine flowers. The Jakarta Room restaurant offers great Indonesian food and we tried a number of items, including: Gado-Gado (an Indonesian salad consisting of bean sprouts, fried tofu, hard boiled egg, and peanut sauce); Nasi Timbel (a rice-based dish which includes shrimp and petai beans, fried chicken, fried tempeh and a sweet and sour soup with jackfruit and corn, as well as a variety of crackers); Nasi Campur (aka a mixed grill rice-dish, which included fried beef with a delicious green chili sambal, a grilled prawn and a variety of veggies); Beras Kencur (a rice and galangal drink that was delightfully aromatic and incredibly refreshing!) and a variety of crackers (nut-based, rice-based, shrimp crackers and a funnel-cake type cracker).

Afterwards, we packed back up and headed back towards our hotel in Central Jakarta, heading to one final stop: the Pasaraya Block M mall, which is well off the beaten path for tourists (we could tell that Pak Tohari was incredibly confused by this request!). This mall holds special significance for me as my family used to come here to shop and generally hang out, as is normal in SE Asia. We’d grab delicious frozen yogurt and otherwise peruse the variety of wares (today, all that is left are the souvenir-type shops, but back in the day, this was 5+ floors of incredibly artisans, clothing boutiques, furniture stores and snack shops). We only popped in for a couple minutes, but were able to buy a beautiful new tablecloth from the same vendors who sold us the one we’ve been using for 20+ years!

Overall, a great first day in Jakarta and such a wonderful treat to visit some of these childhood treats! On our second day, we visited many of Jakarta’s “tourist” sites of interest, so look out for the “Kota Tua / Central Jakarta” post for those.

Logistical information: to pay it forward, we absolutely would recommend Pak Tohari to anyone visiting Jakarta and would hire him the next time we visit. We hired Pak Tohari for both days as our driver in town; he works for Silverbird Taxis and his direct Whatsapp # is +62 812-1204-7265 – highly recommend him if you find yourself in town!