Jakarta After Nine : How A Girl Lecture Me on Culture And Things You Can Learn Only After Midnight

The day before,

I walked up to the train station that afternoon by myself to have a meet up with steemian from Jakarta. On the platform, I met a woman who was just as lost as I was.I sat by the bench and confused which train to take to reach the venue, I messaged one of steemian but my inability to convey what I wanted in the local language seemed terrible. Thus, I was still confused. I looked around, the train station was rather empty even it was Saturday. It was such an odd sight for myself coming from a place where the weekend was always crowded with tourists hunting pictures for their social media profiles. As I chewed my chocolate sandwich, a woman next to me began a conversation " where do you want to go?".

" I am going to kalibata city, I am rather confused as I was getting down this station last night"
" Oh, what are you doing by yourself in jakarta alone?" She further asked curiously
" I love traveling by myself, sometime I find a company now and then"
" Yeah, but Jakarta is dangerous for a girl to travel alone. How can you be so brave?" while she raised her eyebrows.
" Well, I have been doing this" I replied.

Jakarta, the city of hope might not appear to be friendly to some people. I heard stories and often it wasn't a pleasant one. I had the same idea that it wasn't going to be that safe to travel alone but it changed as I proved that it could be rather convenient as long as we know where to go and have a smartphone in hand. I was honestly jaded. What could be wrong? I had my fair share of near death experiences from traveling all these years and getting scammed.

The city welcomed me like I was just a local who seemed to know my way. I was pleased knowing my travel was unlike what I expected. However, during the last day of my visit, I witness how rough and unforgiving the city could be to some people.

The story began when I got my ticket back home as early as 6 am. I told Max that I would be staying in the train station instead of staying with him because I knew, I could never wake up as early as 4 or 5 am. I was hesitated at first but what could I do? I didn't want to miss the train.

I found myself getting on the train station around 10 pm it was still crowded and I was starving. I withdrew some cash and walked towards the mini market and got myself a cheese bread. Then, I sat inside the waiting room while my phone batter was only 40 percent left. It was about 11 when the officer asked everyone to empty the waiting room and wait outside.

I sat nearby the door and a woman in her early sixty asked me where I wanted to go. She was very cheerful and chatty. The was an strange thing that She and I were photographed by the officers. I knew this when two of the officers pointed their phone towards us. Then, one of it approached us and asked for our ticket, I simply handed it to him and the woman began a conversation with the officer.

" Why do you travel alone and carry so much?" Asked the officer
" Because I like it this way, traveling with my husband is such a hassle" She answered and began rambling about so many things.I began to lose my focus but then, a girl in her mid twenty looking lost and confused approaching me.

I was rather guarded. Who knew she could pose as someone that would kidnap me? She looked as shady as she could be. She made couple of calls and then approached me asking if I could order a grab drive for her. I did what she said and after knowing how far it was, she suddenly asked me to accompany her to go to the place. It was about 30km from the train station. Of course I said no to her, what the fuck was I thinking if I said yes? then, I convinced her to stay because it is not safe traveling alone at 12 am all alone. She somewhat listened to me.

Then, she moved on to asking another young man who were sitting next to myself, laughing his ass off to youtube video and didn't seem to care of what was going on. He started caring when the girl asked her to order a grab again yet she got the same response. Finally, she yield and another man, approached us telling a story of how he got mugged and almost killed.

" I would rather gave my things away than my life, I have a little son" he said while pointing out to the scar he had.

" so the story of how scary jakarta is could be true" I thought to myself.

The girl finally calmed herself and we began to have a conversation. She was talking so much that even now, I could not remember huge portion of it. Mainly it was revolving around how the Javanese are nicer than other tribes or how some tribes didn't want to move from their place. She also shared a lot of stories about her culture and asked why was I so uncultured about my place. I was honestly ashamed because I studied about them yet I could not tell it to her like she was five. She kept on talking and talking while my eyes were looking to the left side where I was sitting.

Another train had just arrived, everyone was moving around swiftly and just when I was about to look at my new companion, A security approached us and told to keep our bag securely. Apparently, a woman got her bag stolen as she was asleep and being careless. Everyone seemed to act normal as if that happens in a daily basis.

Even I seemed to move on from that events. The girl who I just met dominated the conversation by telling she had a restaurant business and exposed myself to a little bit of politicians behavior in her place. It was very interesting to listen all of her stories. She told me she had everything easy in her life for traveling, she would always have someone to pick her up and show her places yet that day it was unfortunate.

She rambled about how a man in her culture is valued and that a man is respected more than a woman in a courtship. It was like yada yada something as I was too sleepy listening to her. Long short story, I told her to not use excessive jewelery especially for traveling alone without a companion. She got very personal about her life but I was too tired and starving. Finally after 4 hours rambling about how a man is more valued in her culture,she was picked up by her friends and I was very happy to get an access to the charger as the waiting room was opened.

I think that was a great insights of what people have been telling me all this while about the capital. My amom was rather surprised when I told her I traveled myself to Jakarta but she use to it. Perhaps she often pray that I would always come in full pieces. Last but not least, I believe like @orangila mentioned once " Personally, I don't fear death but living a stagnant and dependent life".