City Guide: Jakarta

Jakarta is a reflection of true Indonesian life.

If you want to experience Indonesia with all its ups and downs, there is no escape from its capital - Jakarta. Sprawling for miles, this city at first reminds you of another smoggy metropolis, but afterwords turns into once in a lifetime experience.

A gateway to Indonesian lifestyle, Jakarta is as must. Your trip there have never been easier than now with Booked.net. Be it a room in cheap hotel in Jakarta to one packed with luxuries all available at Booked.net. Our listings include maps, photos and secure forms.

Jakarta evolved into a city of cultural happenings from a cluster of cheap dining choices in Chinatown to its notorious bars after-dark. Anything but sensible by night, Jakarta makes up for it by day with a host of famous museums and galleries.

Attractions include;

• Museum Nasional has rich collections of prehistoric, ethnographic and archaeological relics

• Monas, the most famous monument in the center of Merdeka square

• Presidential Palace, an official residence of the Indonesian president

• Jalan Surabaya offers shopping experiences at the open-air antique market

• Ragunan Zoo covers 185ha of land with more than 3,600 species

While touring Jakarta, you will notice that all its places gradually provide an insight to its bygone days. The city of Jakarta was brought to life by a brave campaign. As soon as Prince Fatahillah captured the Portuguese fortress in 1527, this place has won its name of Jayakarta meaning "great victory".

Not long from its Portuguese origins, Jakarta changed hands to the Dutch. It brought changes like intensive trading, a series of canals and railways to the city. Despite the business, the relations grew strained and led to a massacre of 5000 Chinese by Dutch residents. The tensions were solved with the independence in 1945 when Jakarta became a capital of independent Indonesian nation.

During the years of independence Jakarta suffered the most from the meltdown in the 1990s. Public demonstrations and food shortages hit the town. If in its early years Jakarta was a point of troubles, today it has turned in to the epicenter of renewal projects.

Jakarta's skyline gets its second wind today and reflects true Indonesian identity. The point is that Jakarta is anything but monocultural and instead it is a real melting pot of Maluku, Balinese, Madurese and Timorese cultures.

Diverse in both culture and architecture, Jakarta is a bustling city to tour with Booked.net.