How To Spend 48 Hours In Jakarta

Few cities incite such love-hate feelings as the bustling Indonesian capital. Here’s how to get under the skin of this sprawling metropolis with this ultimate 48-hour itinerary.

DAY ONE

Fans of Jakarta claim that its nickname, the Big Durian, is a nod to NYC (others say it refers to its many and varied aromas).

6am

Rise early to experience the frenetic clamour of Jakarta’s oldest traditional market.

Pasar Ikan fish market (at Jalan Pasar Ikan) is the perfect place to get a feel for the hectic, pulsating heartbeat of this city of 10 million.

Fresh fruit at one of Jakarta's many street stalls. — Fresh fruit at one of Jakarta’s many street stalls.

Later in the day souvenir vendors will turn out to meet the late-rising tourists, but take the opportunity to visit at first-light and you’ll be warmly welcomed by smiling stall-holders.

9am

Kick-start your trip in classic style at the spot where modern-day Jakarta itself got started.

VOC Galangan Cafe (Jalan Kakap) stands on the premises of a wonderfully renovated Dutch warehouse. Sip your morning cup of Java in a building that dates back more than 350 years or on the sun-blessed terrace, which doubles as a parking place for a 1926 vintage Ford and a horse-carriage.

10am

There can be few places that encapsulate the diversity of the world’s most populous island nation in quite the same way as Sunda Kelapa harbour does.

The sweeping bows of majestic timber schooners throw shadows across the dock as tattooed Dayak wharfies from Borneo and swarthy Bugis deckhands from Sulawesi offload trade-goods from all over the islands.

One of Jakarta's many tuk tuks. — One of Jakarta’s many tuk tuks.

The ghost of Joseph Conrad seems to drift evocatively through the scent of cloves and timber.

1pm

Flag down a bajaj (a motor-rickshaw taxi) and head back past Chicken Market Bridge – the last remaining Dutch drawbridge – to Daoen Sirih.

This large bamboo-roofed food-court near the backpacker ghetto of Jalan Jaksa retains a mostly local clientele and is a good place to chat with locals while you tuck into tasty goat satays or mee goreng (fried noodles).

Meals start at about $2, so don’t hesitate to be extravagant!

2pm

If you’re still feeling adventurous go for an aprés-lunch buzz on an ‘ojek’.

These motorcycle taxis are about half the price of a bajaj and their riders blast through traffic jams like crazed horsemen, so it will only take you a few minutes to reach the Museum Nasional (Jalan Merdeka Barat 12).

Taman Mini Indonesia (Little Indonesia Park) is a cultural showcase for some of the great diversity of cultures in Jakarta.

Built in 1862, this is the most extensive museum of its kind in the country. It closes at 4pm, so if time is tight make a beeline for the ethnology section, which has a mind-boggling collection of artefacts from as far afield as Sumatra, Flores and Papua.

6pm

Enjoy a traditional sun-downer at one of the many bars that liven up in the late afternoon around Jalan Jaksa.

Melly’s Garden (37–39 Kebon Sirih Timur Dalam), with its atmospheric courtyard, is the most peaceful, but for unbeatable people-watching and live music, head for Memories Cafe on Jalan Jaksa itself.

8pm – late

Dine in classic style at Cafe Batavia on Fatahillah Square (a short bajaj ride away from the neon-lights of Jaksa).

This wonderful old mansion of a cafe is Jakarta’s second oldest building (after the Fatahillah Museum just across the road).

The restaurant upstairs offers a good mix of Indonesian, Chinese and Western meals and the atmospheric saloon below will force you into having a last night-cap on the way out.

There’s live music most weekdays.

DAY TWO

7.30am

If yesterday was all about Jakarta’s rich history then today is about getting an insight into contemporary Indonesia.

Dining among some of the archipelago’s fine art at Lara Djonggrang.

Start your day with the commuters on a train ride to Jakarta Kota Station (itself a 100-year-old Art Deco gem).

Take the north exit and after a 10-minute walk you’ll find yourself at Petak Sembilan Street Market.

Located in a traditional residential area off Jalan Pancoran, this market is almost 100 per cent local and a great place to grab a table at a roadside kopi stall and watch the city start the day.

9am

Flag down a taxi – Bluebird Company is the most reliable – and ask for Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (Jalan Raya Jagorawi).

This massive 100-hectare cultural theme park is 18 kilometres from the city centre, but the ride should only set you back about $9.

With attractions representing most of Indonesia’s major tribes and ethnic groups, this is a fantastic way to gain a feeling for the wonderful diversity of the country.

Culinary influences from all over the country also mean that it is a great place for lunch.

2pm

Head back to the city centre for an afternoon stroll through Merdeka Square.

The green heart of the city, with its lawns and tree-shaded parklands is one of the biggest squares in the world and is a playground for Jakarta’s inhabitants.

There is a deer enclosure and you can watch locals playing football, badminton, or the dramatic foot-volley game known as sepak takraw.

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4pm

Walk to the very centre of Merdeka Square to the National Monument (‘Monas’ to locals).

Dubbed as ‘Sukarno’s last erection’ this 132-metre tower took 14 years to build and is topped with a symbolic flame (leafed with gold) that would supposedly shine a metaphoric light that would unify the entire country.

Indonesia’s cultural theme park, Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. — Taman Mini Indonesia Indah is a massive 100-hectare cultural theme park is 18 kilometres from the city centre, but the ride should only set you back about $9.
With attractions representing most of Indonesia’s major tribes and ethnic groups, this is a fantastic way to gain a feeling for the wonderful diversity of the country.
Culinary influences from all over the country also mean that it is a great place for lunch.

It closes at 5pm, so leave enough time to join the queue and take the elevator to the observation deck, which offers phenomenal views from 115 metres up.

6pm

From nearby Skye bar (on the 56th floor of Jakarta Menara BCA Tower) you can sip cocktails while you look down on the aforementioned National Monument.

This is the place to be seen with a frosted sun-downer in hand while you schmooze with the nightly gathering of starlets, pop stars and sundry millionaires of modern-day, boomtown Jakarta.

8pm

At least a few of the most discerning diners in Jakarta are sure to be heading for Lara Djonggrang (Jl Teuku Cik Ditiro 4), and this lovely restaurant is highly recommended if you want to see how far Jakartan chic has come.

Jakarta market — Rise early to experience the frenetic clamour of Jakarta’s oldest traditional market.
Pasar Ikan fish market (at Jalan Pasar Ikan) is the perfect place to get a feel for the hectic, pulsating heartbeat of this city of 10 million.
Later in the day souvenir vendors will turn out to meet the late-rising tourists, but take the opportunity to visit at first-light and you’ll be warmly welcomed by smiling stall-holders.

Owner Anhar Setjadibrata is a celebrated antiques collector specialising in wonderful works from all over the archipelago. If you ask for a table in the romantic back room, you’ll find that the surroundings are as tasteful as the cuisine and as eclectic as the vibrant city that you might just have fallen in love with.

Where to stay

Shangri-La Jakarta is in the business district, a short drive from Merdeka Square.

The exclusive Horizon Club on the 26th floor provides afternoon tea with incredible views over the biggest city in Southeast Asia.

Some of the most luxurious suites in Jakarta are available from $287.

DoubleTree by Hilton Jakarta is perfectly located in the heart of Jakarta’s CBD.

Facilities are unbeatable with a choice of restaurants, award-winning spa and a 100-metre pool.

Room rates start at $117.

Artotel is a wonderful boutique hotel that was designed through a collaboration of Indonesian artists.

It has some of the most fascinatingly quirky suites, lounges and dining areas in the city.

Rooms start at just $75.

After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?

In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.

Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?

Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?

How tourism is changing in Nepal

Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.

Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.

“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.

Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”

Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”

CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.

A new generation demanding more

Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”

We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”

Boudha Stupa's prayer wheels — Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…

bouda stupa prayer flags — Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.

Boudha Stupa vendors — Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.

A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.

Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.

Life unfiltered in the Terai region

tharu woman — Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.

Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.

Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.

Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.

On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.

community homestay entrance — A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.

The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.

In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.

food at community homestay — Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.

The power of community homestays

community homestay owners in Nepal — Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.

“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”

The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.

Sonara community room — An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.

Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.

CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.

“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.

In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.

“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”

Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”

Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.

Few cities incite such love-hate feelings as the bustling Indonesian capital. Here’s how to get under the skin of this sprawling metropolis with this ultimate 48-hour itinerary.

DAY ONE

6am

9am

10am

1pm

2pm

6pm

8pm – late

DAY TWO

7.30am

9am

2pm

4pm

6pm

8pm

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