Selamat pagi!
Satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima….
Yep, I’m here, in Indonesia. Lucky me you may think but no, I’m not chilling on a beach with a mojito on a tropical island, I am in sweaty, stinky, noisy, busy and crazy Jakarta. But quite frankly, I am lucky because thus far I really like it. I like the heat, the sweat, the noise, the people and the craziness!
You may wonder what I am doing in Indonesia, and why Jakarta. Well I am here for uni, I am part of a program called ACICIS which basically places students in their field of work in Indonesia – for experience, academic record and fun times.
I am doing an internship at a newspaper called the ‘Jakarta Globe’. I don’t have to write in Indonesian (thank golly) but will be learning it in the next two weeks then off to the workplace for four weeks of writing and photographing (I hope!)
Yesterday was a bit of a struggle, my flight left at 6am and instead of being the usual disorganized and rushed person that I am, I decided it would be better not to miss this flight and get to the airport on time. So I woke at 4.15 and was there on time, weary eyed, dazed and ready – yes, I was ready, quite possibly the first trip I have been ready! And guess what? My bag weighed a miniscule 11.8 kg! heck yes!
So hung around Melbourne for a couple of hours, savored my last soy latte for a while and proceeded to line up with all the other jetsetters. As my flight went via Bali you can imagine the people I was lining up with: bleach blonde, brown babin’ Aussies so I felt quite out of place in my Muslim respective get up.
The flight was ok apart from the first hour or so… crying baby. What was that mother doing to that baby? Seriously, it sounded like it was being strangled. The other few hours were ok though, watched an inappropriate movie full of murder and sex, trust me to pick that film when I am surrounded by cool kids.
Five long hours later (but pretty cool that you can get to Bali in five hours!) I arrived in Bali, had a few hours wait which soon turned into a few more hours due to delays. I was able to adjust to the sweat, the people and the feeling of being away from home. This is not Australia!
and there are smoking rooms!

I finally got my flight and arrived in Jakarta delirious and drained I was set to meet a guy at the airport I had met on Facebook – no, it wasn’t like that, he is also on the course I am on. Unfortunately we hadn’t taken into account that we were arriving at different terminals so I caught the bus to his terminal, remember I was also an hour or so late – go figure Ella, he would have left! Anyway, we organized to meet at McDonalds which doesn’t exist so I wondered around in a daze looking for a guy I had never met before… didn’t find him.
So I caught my first Indonesian taxi through chaos, calamity, noise, traffic, people and boy oh boy I was excited, I wanted to stop and explore but decided that 6 weeks was plenty of time to explore. So here I am now, in the taxi, relaxing. I have been here for a full day now, looking for accommodation and meeting all the cool people that are also doing the course. But that is another story and a whole lot of pictures!
i was checking out cute kids in the airport...