Jakarta

The most atmospheric corner of Jakarta is Kota Tua, the old town that was the heart of Dutch-colonial Batavia. Its centre is the cobbled Fatahillah Square, ringed by handsome early buildings now housing the Jakarta History Museum, the Wayang (puppet) Museum and the Fine Art and Ceramics Museum, with colourful rental bicycles and street performers filling the square and the famous Café Batavia overlooking it. A short way north, the old harbour of Sunda Kelapa is one of the city's great sights — a forest of masts where towering wooden Bugis pinisi schooners still load and unload cargo by hand, as they have for centuries. Nearby Glodok, Jakarta's Chinatown, is a dense warren of temples, herbal shops and some of the best street food in the city. The area is best explored in the cooler morning before the heat and crowds build.

Jakarta's monumental centre is Merdeka Square, an enormous park at whose heart rises Monas — the National Monument, a 132-metre marble obelisk crowned with a gold-leafed flame, with a lift to a viewing deck and a diorama of Indonesian history in its base. Overlooking the square stands the vast Istiqlal Mosque, the largest in Southeast Asia, open to respectful visitors outside prayer times; directly opposite, in a deliberate symbol of religious harmony, rises the neo-Gothic Jakarta Cathedral. On the square's western side, the excellent National Museum of Indonesia holds the country's foremost collection of antiquities, sculpture and ethnography — the best single primer on the archipelago's cultures. For a contemporary contrast, Museum MACAN in West Jakarta shows world-class modern and contemporary art, including the famous infinity-room installations.

Day-to-day Jakarta lives in its markets, malls and food stalls. The mega-malls of the 'Golden Triangle' business district — Grand Indonesia, Plaza Indonesia, Pacific Place — are more than shopping: in a hot, traffic-bound city they serve as the social and dining heart, full of food courts, cinemas and people-watching. At the other end, traditional markets like the textile halls of Tanah Abang (Southeast Asia's largest) and the antiques and curios of Jalan Surabaya reward a wander. But the real pleasure is the food. Jakarta is a street-food paradise that gathers the whole archipelago's cooking — nasi goreng and mie goreng from the roadside carts, satay grilled over coconut husks, fiery Padang food from West Sumatra, soto soups, the sweet folded pancake martabak, and the kerak telor egg-and-rice speciality unique to the city. Eating from the warungs and night stalls is the most authentic Jakarta experience there is.

When the megacity becomes too much, Jakarta has its escape valves. The Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), a chain of small islands in the bay reached by fast boat from the northern marinas, offer white-sand beaches, snorkelling and quiet resorts for a day trip or overnight away from the crowds and concrete. Inland, the cooler hills of Bogor — with its famous Botanical Gardens and the presidential palace — and the tea plantations and volcanoes of Puncak make a popular weekend retreat (traffic permitting). Jakarta is also Indonesia's main international gateway: from Soekarno-Hatta Airport (CGK), the rest of the archipelago opens up — the temples of Yogyakarta, the beaches of Bali, the wildlife of Sumatra and Borneo all a short flight away. Many travellers give Jakarta a day or two to soak up the capital before moving on.