I arrive in Jakarta around 6pm; catch a local airport bus to Gambir station, 6pm is pretty dark in Indonesia thus fortunately I met 2 girls and share a taxi to Jalan Jaksa, the Backpacker area. What awaits me is fully booked hostel that is almost impossible to get a mattress for a night. Thank goodness, my friend, Widi which I met few months ago when I was backpacking in Thailand made a phone reservation on behalf for me. Since it’s the peak season, not surprising lots of Dutch people spending their summer holidays in Indonesia which was once colonizes by the Netherland. I checked into Borneo Hostel, (Note that the name, Borneo embedded my surname Neo) put down my bag and decided to unravel around my location.
The first thing that caught my ear is the prayers chanting through the loud-speakers from the mosque or should I say mosques. It’s everywhere and almost amplifying the Quran verses at the same time in the whole nation.
I had my dinner, Indo mee, it’s like the instant noodles except you don’t have to cook it yourself. When I return to my hostel, I saw a Middle Eastern looking young man, asking for a room but was declined. As a traveler, I can empathies going through one hostel after another to look for a night to stay. Besides, I got a twin sharing room and I’m compassionate ;) so I took the risk and ask if he would like to share the room with me. We’ll split the cost of the accommodation. (That’s actually my hidden agenda, to save money, 40,000RP is not much but a little goes a long way ;)
He said why not, I’m astonished by my open-mindedness, never once I’ll invite someone to share a room with me; usually it’s voluntary like dorm. I get into the bed early while he’s out till late night. Seriously, I didn’t get much sleep because I’m concerned of what kind of trouble I’m bringing. Nonetheless, the shocking revelation comes on the next day…
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