The Old City

Restless again.  Where can I go to shoot some photographs with my new DSLR camera?  Then someone asked me if I'd seen the Old City in Jakarta.  There you go!

So off I went to look for the Old City last weekend.  Fortunately it was a long weekend as Friday was a public holiday here.  Well I went around looking for the place and to my pleasant surprise, I used to pass by the place regularly when we were still using Bank Niaga as our banker.  It was near the old Railroad Station at the end of the Glodok area.  There were several museums in the area, most notable of which is the Fatahilah Museum.  There were also a Ceramic Museum and a Puppet Museum.  In front of the Fatahilah Museum is a park where people can hang around or ride a rented bike with.  The building in the photo is not the Fatahilah Museum.  It is just one of the old buildings in the area.  But as you can see, there are bikes for rent in front of the building.

They called it the Old City (Kota Tua) precisely because it was the origin of Jakarta as a city or Batavia as Jakarta was then called.  Some of the buildings were built during the Dutch regime while others were modern ones which were simply dilapidated.

What surprised me was how crowded the area was on a holiday.  I asked some of the hawkers there and they confirmed that it is usually the case on weekends.  My problem is that the crowd and the hawkers ruined the view of the old buildings I wanted to take pictures of.  So I had no choice but to shoot the buildings with all the crowd in front of them.  I was glad to know that the place was a favorite for photographers both professionals and amateurs.  There were a number of professional looking photographers walking all over the place, shooting here and there, some with models others just shooting anything in sight.

Then, there were these old buildings such as the one I shot, which were rented out per hour.  You can rent a room in the building to shoot a model for Rp. 75,000.  Quite pricey.  There was even a vintage car to rent also for photo shoot purposes.  Evidently, the place became popular among photographers about two years ago.  So they rehabilitated parts of the area and it became a tourist attraction.

I had a good time looking around the place.  I just wish the place was deserted so I could take better pictures.