My previous opinion of Jakarta was biased.

I arrived at Gambir station, heavily laden with an ever fattening bag. I ate some substandard fastfood noodles, then set off to figure out just where I was supposed to go; there was a metal grate over the entrance to the platforms. Jakarta has so far been one of the more difficult places to navigate as most-all signs are in Bahasa Indonesia and very few people speak English (except the touts who are only occasionally helpful). Nevertheless I found a staircase nearby that apparently led to the platforms, which were mysteriously above ground. Not sure why, in a country where earthquakes are not uncommon, a major train station would be built precariously above ground. I arrived at 4:30 in eager anticipation of boarding my train, but i discovered that unlike the trains in Thailand, and especially Tokyo, these Indonesian trains are not punctual. All the announcements preceeding each trains departure were in a foreign dictum and so I had to rely on the advice of other travelers (none of whom spoke english well enough to help too much). Trains came and went. 5pm came and went. Announcements were made. I left my headphones in on 'loud' setting.
After each train arrived I would board and ask the sometimes hard-to-find attendants buy holding out my ticket. The would motion that mine was the next one (an interesting kind of hand movement).
Finally, around 5:45 my train arrived. The hull of this steel contraption had seen better days. Peeling paint, rust taking over, some cracked windows. The footrest at my seat, 6D, was hanging at an odd angle and the magazine stow on the back of the seat in front was gone altogether. I managed to fit my bag in the overhead compartment (most just piled their numerous bags and boxes in the aisle), then settled in for a 7hour slumber. Off we went, high in the sky over the downtown streets. Eventually we drifted earthward, safe from earthquakes now. We gained speed until it seemed as if we were on a Japanese express train, like the one to Fuji from Yokohama. It wasn't long before the city that i raved about in my previous entry was long behind, having been quickly replaced by tinshack slums. Buildings hugged the tracks, which served now as a bit of a garbage dump for the locals. Rooves were secured in place with bricks, sealed with tarps and scraps of plastic. This poverty lasted well past sunset (which was unbelievable! I regret missing an opportunity to photograph it) and into the night.

(I have just become aware that the guy sitting at the front counter of the open-air internet cafe is playing the first 10 seconds of each song. It is growing more and more unbearable!!!!)

Despite living in a veritable wasteland (whose buildings looked like the victims of a bomb attack, crumbling brick walls and collapsed roofs and the like) the people here lived their lives in what looked to be a happy manner. Uniformed children walked home in groups, singing and skipping. A teenage boyfriend held his cute girlfriends hand tightly as they crossed the tracks adjacent to the one my train was on. Elderly men peed off the embankment onto the tracks. Women huddled in lanes over steaming pots, cooking a nights meal over a fire burning collected scrap wood and other combustibles.
It is images like these that I will remember.

In the dying light i could see the reflection of the rusty sky in the rice patties interspersed between the slums and piles of garbage.

It seems that Jakarta is not as idyllic as it first seemed.

In the train vendors sold Nasi and Mie Goreng, drinks and snacks for inflated prices. Later a meal was served, complimentarily. It was not very good. I still do not know whether the meat-like substance was chicken, fish, or perhaps some other obscure meat. Maybe it wasn't meat at all. I still ate it.

The woman in the next seat was tremendously inconvenient for me. Her child (though is was more likely her grandchild) was of the utmost importance and thusly she didn't feel to concerned for my wellbeing. I tolerated the baby sleeping half on me, though was happy when the woman lay out some newspaper on the floor and sprawled out. I sat semi-contently and listened to Reuben' MP3s and read a March 2003 copy of National Geographic that Rudy-from-Oregon had very kindly given to me.
Between short naps i became aware of the overly abundant baby cockroaches that had taken over the train. Inside the arm of my seat, all over the carpeted wall and window, hanging from the drapes, crawling - wait - yes over my feet. When a big one walked by on teh wall I flicked it, with intent, towards the seat ahead of me. Eventually i realised that I would never win and just tolerated it.
About an hour after we were schedule to arrive in Yogyakarta the attendant came by and tapped my shoulder: we were there.
I detrained. It was around 2:30am, but the station was full of half-sleeping queues. A tout with a spider tatooed on his neck approached and I actually had a nice conversation with him. He directed me to my hostel, Losman Anda, which tuned out to be very nice. The manager struggled to open the locked door and I checked in, then immediately showered the days sweat from my skin.

I had expected travel to be much better in Java, what with the heavily centralised government. Not necessarily so...