Train to Jakarta

It was a comfortable train with loads of legroom and nasi goreng brought to me as we passed through gorgeous hills with terraced rice fields. It took just over three hours from Bandung to Jakarta.

Jakarta is the largest city in Southeast Asia and has a reputation for being hectic and not very nice but lots of people dislike and dismiss Bangkok and Saigon without giving them a change, so I wanted to try it out. At the very least, there must be loads of great food here! My initial impression was that it's not as hectic as I was expecting. Maybe I'm just used to busy cities now.

I booked in to a popular but cheap hostel (private room, I'm too old for dorms) and gave in my laundry. In Bandung I'd spent a lot of time looking for somewhere to do my laundry but not only was everywhere extremely expensive (charging per item rather than by weight), the fastest place said it would take four days (when I was leaving in two). One place said it would take them seven days to do my small bag of clothes. What could they possibly want to do with my clothes that would take that long?

I walked around the local area, had some tasty food but mostly stayed in my room doing some work.