Jakarta

It's always a pleasant surprise when you reach a destination that you have not rated highly in your mind only to find it well above expectation.  That was how I found Jakarta.
Jakarta has a population of close to 11,000,000 (yep you read that right) and Indonesia is the fourth most populated nation behind China, India and USA. Indonesia consists of approximately 14,000 islands (yes, you read that right too). Jakarta is on the island of Java. The government is making a concerted effort to clean Jakarta and I have to say for a city as large as this one, it is very clean. Enough geography....
We arrived into the busy industrial Port to the the sound of music coming from the terminal and were given a wonderful display of dance by the Indonesian women in their colourful costumes. It really set the theme for the rest of the day.

The tour we chose today was "Beautiful Indonesia Miniature Park".  This park, set over many acres, gives the tourist a history of Indonesia in a condensed form.  The first place we visited was the museum with fabulous displays of the different national dress from formal to bridal.  There were also displays of musical instruments and of course displays of the well renowned shadow puppets.

The wedding outfits that are worn by the bride and groom in Jakarta

We then went on to a miniature village that showed us the different types of homes built for different purposes. There were lots of people wandering around the village and food vendors were kept very busy.

It was then a short walking distance to the Papua museum that seemed very familiar to us after visiting PNG a couple of years ago.  The displays were well set out and informative. At the Papua Museum we were greeted with a welcome dance and farewelled with another dance.

We are doing this cruise in the middle of the monsoon season so we expect rain and high humidity and we are well prepared for it. It was very humid today and fortunately the rain didn't start until we were back on board the ship so we were lucky.
Back on board the ship we had a late lunch of burgers and fries and then a nanny nap until cocktail hour at 5.00 pm.  No dinner for us again tonight as the canapés that we have delivered to the room are very filling.
Just as an aside, we had a chuckle as we watched the Japanese passengers trying to kill the mossies that were inside the bus that took us on tour.  Honestly, they are terrified of the little blighters and it was like watching a Kung Fu movie as they tried in vain to get rid of the mosquitoes.....

This is the view from our balcony.  Jakarta is a very busy port with the cranes loading and offloading  containers off the hundreds of ships waiting in the harbour