Mangga Dua

On Sunday morning Catharina and I visited the supposedly cheapest market in Jakarta, Mangga Dua. It was a fascinating experience. We live in South Jakarta and Mangga Dua is in the northern part, so the taxi ride there was a pretty long drive on the toll road, but only cost us 5 euros altogether. We passed one of Jakarta's main streets and I almost got tears of joy in my eyes to see that the main street was cut off from motor traffic at that time as it was the "car-free Sunday". Bicycle riders were happily driving on the huge street and for those few hours, the air finally smelled like something else than Diesel. Maybe there is hope for Jakarta after all?!

Mangga Dua is a huge, confusing complex of cheap stuff and a mecca for pirate or fake products' friends. The market is an indoor one, the vendors have their small stalls there and keep shouting to get you come look at their products. Lanes between the vendor shops are extremely narrow and absolutely crammed with people. So you want to go to Mangga Dua with a whole lot of patience and good nerves. But come to think of it, you actually need good nerves everywhere in Indonesia.

In Mangga Dua they have separate markets for cheap electronics or cheap "other" stuff and this time, the "other" stuff market was our main destination. We were on our best bargaining mood but unfortunately we discovered that this market really had quite a fixed-price policy. In the market they sell mainly cheap (read: fake) bags and shoes, watches, jewellery, DVDs and CDs and there was also a section for Christmas decorations where we had some confusing moments staring at Christmas tree decoration balls bigger than our heads. I bought two nice watches for less than 10 eur and miraculously they are still working now after 3 days :) There were no other westerners at the market that day so obviously we heard several "hello misters" again. This time, after we got extra many "hello misters" from a group of guys, we looked at them suspiciously and questioned: "mister? You sure?" and the whole group burst in laughter, correcting themselves: "hello Sister! Sister!"

Our main interest in Mangga Dua this time was the scarf-department. I always freeze in our airconditioned office and therefore bough a 100% pashmina scarf which cost around 7 euros and I also got a really pretty scarf, made of an interesting silk/pineapple fabric, for grandma. We were also really happy to find a local candy store, even if the only country selling truly good, tasty candy is my beloved Finland, Indonesian dried mango and different kinds of peanuts are not too bad either. To end the shopping experience, we went to pick up some fast food in Tony Jack's. And this story is worth sharing. Tony Jack's is an Indonesian fast food chain, cheaper than McDonald's (a Big Mac meal equivalent costs around 2,20 euros) but nowhere as good. The story with Tony Jack's is that the manager of McDonald's in Indonesia got into some kind of argument with the McDonald's corporation and therefore decided to change his McDonald's restaurants into Tony Jack's restaurants. In October this year, 13 restaurants in Jakarta were changed like this. In real childish spirit, even the slogan of Tony Jack's goes Better than the "other one". Again, welcome to Indonesia!