Sunda Kelapa, traditional harbour in Jakarta

On early May 2010 at weekend, some of us who like taking pictures went to explore Jakarta oldiest part accompanying our friend from Lausanne, Swiss who's interested in exploring Indonesia. Departing from hotel at 09:00 we directly went to Sunda Kelapa, at present is an active and an inter island port in Indonesia. It's crowded with many trucks unloading their commodities.


Formerly Sunda Kelapa, better known as Pasar Ikan (meaning fish market) is located at the mouth of the Ciliwung River. The fish catch of the day was auctioned in the early morning at the old fish market. The harbor is still one of the most important calls for sailing vessels from all over Indonesia. The magnificent and brightly painted Makassar schooner called Phinisi is still an important means of transporting goods to and from the outer islands. This is one of the best touristm place in Jakarta.


We parked near the traditional big boats, it's rather cloudy at that moment, so we could not get a clean blue sky, anyway there were so many objects that're good to capture. An old man followed us wherever we took pictures, he kept offering us to ride a small boat along the harbour with Rp. 40.000,- for 3-4 persons/boat. There were 6 of us so we decided to take two boats.

There was no special ladder or stair to go down to the boat, so we had to climb the wall and jump to the boat carefully. The boat was not steady enough, so you had to maintain your balance avoid failing down to the water while you had to take care your camera too from water splashing.

Fisherman village was the first place we visited, the people were living on the boat and floating small house. Everyday they find fishes for their living, some fishermans were fixing their nets, cleaning the boat, tuning their motor boat to prepare for sailing. Some childrens were playing on the boats, or just chatting with their friends.

The water is not clean at all, it's muddy, sometimes oily from the boat fuel, I don't think that we could get a fresh fish here. Our sailor kept sailed toward the firth, it's quite a long journey. After around 30 minutes sailing, we could see a big wave at our see sight, the sailor didn't dare to go through the sea, because our boat was small and we didn't have any motor, it's only manual sailed. They were turning back, return to the way where we were.

All of us had taken many pictures, although it's cloudy, we still felt burning on our skin, so in the middle of the journey back, we decided to stop. We stopped the sailing and went through the gap in the middle of big boats who berthed on the piers. When we walked back to the car, we've just realized that it's still far from our destination. We're very thirsty, but we're satisfied of taking pictures and experiences the boat riding.

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Old city area in Jakarta - Fatahillah Museum

In our company some of people who love photography create a club. We invite some professional photographers to teach and share their knowledge, also we go together to some places to practice and share skills or even we volunteer to cover company's events/activities. I joined them to the old city area in Jakarta on Saturday morning. At 07:00 o'clock in the morning we went directly to "Museum Fatahillah"; An impressive, classical-style building, surrounded by several other museums also in classical style, the former City Hall is now a culturally protected historical treasure. The records show that it took three years to build; construction began on 25 January 1707 under Governor General Jan Van Hoorn and was completed on 10 July 1710 by Governor General Abraham Van Riebeeck.




I'm still amateur, I don't know how to use manual mode in camera. I use a pocket camera, Canon Powershot S50. At that time, I didn't dare to play with manual mode, just playing with angle and objects using auto mode. The sky was clean and blue, there was no cloud at all, so it's a good time to take pictures. Although the museum was closed, there were quite some people on the yard. We'd just known that there would be a parade to celebrate Jakarta's birthday.


Some "ondel-ondel", Jakarta's trademark were also prepared for making the parade merrier. Ondel-ondel is a big doll with ± 2,5 meter high and ± 80 centimeters diameter, made of bamboo which is enable people to carry from inside the doll. It's wearing very colorful clothes. Formerly it's only used to refuse danger or ghost, but now it's common for launching new office, welcoming guest or celebrating a traditional party.


One of our colleagues became a photo model, she had to take some poses under sunbeam, it's quite exhausting, hot and also wasted some energy. Thanks to her that she didn't complain and she enjoyed it. One of my friend bought her an ice cream to cool down, but you know what happened; he selected the colorful ice cream, so she should pose too during eating the ice to get a wonderful picture, poor her :-)

After taking pictures from different angle of the building, we continued walking to explore the old city area along the river. Quite surprising that the river was clean enough, although it's rather smelly. At least when we took pictures, people won't smell it through the picture ^_^


We were surprised that we met other photographers group. It seemed that most of them are very professional, they brought a large screen to manage the sun light, also some professional models with many costumes. A couple riding a bike in front of the building described a western man costume with a chinese woman costume. The other group had a beautiful woman with a cute boy around 4 years old. Also two girls which took each other pictures and took turns as the model for the other.

Although some buildings were not used anymore, but the scenery is still quite good to explore by whomever wanted to feel the history. A good cafe, called Batavia still operated in front of Fatahillah Museum. The ambience of the cafe is quite nice, if you go to the restroom, it's quite surprising. All the waiters are wearing traditional costume, so if you want to feel old Indonesian environment, you should visit this cafe.

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