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Comment by itake | Hacker News Reader

I spent a month in Jakarta earlier this year and wasn't impressed.

Traffic was terrible. I almost missed my flight due to taking a bike over a car, but then it started pouring rain and I had to huddle under a bridge while I waited for a car.

Jakarta has a noise problem. The temples blasting the prayers is disruptive to sleep and inner peace. The traffic does not make anything either.

Also, Indonesian food IMHO is at the bottom of SEA food culture. MY has wayyy better food (both in quality and diversity).

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>Also, Indonesian food IMHO is at the bottom of SEA food culture. MY has wayyy better food (both in quality and diversity).

I won't speak for the quality but this seems like an extremely dubious statement. Malay cuisine is certainly diverse, owing to settled migrant populations from other parts of Asia, but they don't have the dizzying array of indigenous cuisines on offer in Indonesia, many of which aren't readily available in Java.

> Also, Indonesian food IMHO is at the bottom of SEA food culture. MY has wayyy better food (both in quality and diversity).

Agreed! Malaysia is really underrated, or at least it was by me. Now it's one of my favorite spots in the world, food is great (not as Thai's but comes close), wonderful sea, wonderful jungle, Kuala Lumpur is becoming a really nice city and CoL is value for money.

The teh tarik tea (served in a glass mug! paper cups don't count) is my favorite drink right now.

Also Malaysian Indian food is one of my favorite foods (especially the sweet roti).

Putting Indonesian below Filipino food is quite something.

I'll see anything you get in Indonesia, and raise you Balut... Or Betamax... or Helmet. Their national dish was designed to hide the aroma of rotten meat, FFS.

lol... try being in poultry. Every time you go to the Phillipines it's: all Balut, all the time.

To be fair, this describes any sort of preserved or "reuse" food: toast, pickle, …

True. I forgot about Filipino food. Filipino bbq pig was good tho

Made me remember again how disappointed I was (food-wise) that time I went backpacking in the Philippines after backpacking in Thailand. Most days we had to choose between dry rice with tasteless fried chicken, or tasteless fried chicken with dry rice.

> Indonesian food IMHO is at the bottom of SEA food culture

I take it you haven't been to Burma / Myanmar

haha, I have not.

???

Burmese food is absolutely delicious. Burma Love in SF, Rangoon Bistro or Burma Joy in Portland. They're some of my favorite restaurants.

Burmese food in the US is very different from the food you encounter in the country itself.

Not only is Burmese food in Myanmar far better, but even the small, modest restaurants bring out a whole spread of complimentary small dishes (pickles, salads, crunchy snacks, all kinds of delicious little sides) before the main meal. It's just built into the dining culture there, and it's incredibly generous compared to what you see abroad.

Not sure if it's still there, but Burma Super Star is the one I go to and it's good.

Those restaurants had none of the food I ate in Burma

Nice. I'm an ex-tour guide, and had many jovial discussions with a colleague who toured Myanmar and LOVED the food - he knew I thought it was pretty average, at best.

Of course, that crazy guy didn't really like Thai food...

Having been to both Indonesia and Myanmar, I can say confidently Burmese food is much better. The one exception is the dessert Martabak you can get in Java is to die for.

Lived in SE Asia for well over 15 years, and Burmese food is great.

A little tip for your next visit to Jakarta :

- Indonesia is a tropical country, and Jakarta is in the vicinity of the sea, so depending on the month of year, it can rain anytime on the day. So, if you are not comfortable with rain, always use a taxi/grab/gocar to go around.

- If you are pressed for time, I suggest you use airport train to go to the airport. At least you won't get stuck on traffic.

- About the noise problem, I think it won't be a problem if you sleep in a tall building. The last time I go there, I sleep in a relatively good hotel and deliberately choose the higher floor. And the noise doesn't become a problem for me.

Hope this help and you can get a nicer experience on your next visit

    > Jakarta has a noise problem.

I offer a practical template: <Large city in developing country X> has a noise problem.

When you say "temples", do you mean masjid (mosque)? It is pretty normal anywhere in the Islamic-majority world to sing prayers over a loud speaker a few times a day.

This is an appeal to normality fallacy, just because something is normal doesn't mean it's good, or in this case that it doesn't disrupt sleep.

U.S. cities have noise laws.

I don’t think Tokyo is considered loud.

Yes, temples blasting prayers.

I can tell you that Tokyo is very loud. Constant road traffic noise everywhere, drunk people singing on the streets, pointless warnings from the local municipal office on the public alert system, noisy street advertisements, constant announcements in train stations, bousouzoku gangs constantly revving their bikes in silent neighborhoods every night, flight traffic noise, railroad noise of the trains passing, level crossing barriers constantly ding-donging, etc

noisy street advertisements.. and jingles... shops of all shapes and sizes blaring music...

I live in Japan and this is something that I will never get used to. Yes, the people are quiet, but shops are ridiculously loud. Go to any supermarket and there are seven different jingles playing in parallel! Honestly, I don't understand how the employees don't go crazy.

I've known a few younger people who can't go into shops they used to do their part-time work (バイト) at, simply because the looped jingles did, in fact, drive them nuts.

That is sad, but kind of expected.

But seriously, why do the shops do that? Why does nobody complaint? Do Japanese people really like those jingles?

I've heard that some places, such as train stations, did away with jingles (etc.) to bring more silence. The feedback was that those places felt "lonely."

Tokyo isn't loud at all. Go 2-3 blocks from any major street and they are practically silent.

> drunk people singing on the streets

never seen this

> bousouzoku gangs constantly revving their bikes in silent neighborhoods every night

seen this maybe twice in 25 years

> flight traffic noise

do you live next to the airport? this is not a thing relatively to any other major city I've lived in

> railroad noise of the trains passing, level crossing barriers constantly ding-donging

This is only a thing if you live next to a track which is like 1% of housing

Well, then it's clear you don't have enough experience to objectively judge the situation.

I lived near 5 different stations in Tokyo in 10 years and all of those were how I described it.

I also lived in Saitama and Kanagawa. It's the same there too.

Maybe you should get more exerience first and live longer in Japan?

I lived in Japan 2x long than you. You just said you lived near stations so there you go. Of course it’s loud next to the station. Walk 3 minutes perpendicular to the station and it’s silent

Neither the US, nor Japan are considered developing countries. I'm confused by your comment.

Cars and mopets have a noise problem not cities.

But I guess the mosque doesn't help.

Catholic churches ring bells twice a day. It's less then mosques that do their call 5 times a day both as non-religious person both are disappointing to me.

> Traffic was terrible. I almost missed my flight due to taking a bike over a car, but then it started pouring rain and I had to huddle under a bridge while I waited for a car.

I guess people perceive this very differently. One sees it as an adventure while another one sees it as a hustle. Jakarta is a hustle. Some people like it and make them feel alive. If you don't enjoy it, it'll make you miserable.

> Also, Indonesian food IMHO is at the bottom of SEA food culture.

I agree. I hate the food but Malay food is similar. What Malaysia has is two other major races (Chinese and Indians) and a strong expat community (ie: Thai, Viet and Japanese) that bring lots of food diversity.

Rain, noise, traffic... welcome to SEA

The regional abbreviation, or the airport code?

.... what? Either works?

Seattle's not really known for noise. The opposite, if anything. Rain (caveat it's not the rain it's the dark and it's mostly mizzle blah blah blah) and traffic though, sure.

And homeless drug addicts.

I’ve never been there, but the US version of the tv series The Killing is so great and it sure gives a grim impression of the weather.

Not that serial killers are any better on a nice day in pleasant weather.

Man if you think Seattle has too much noise and traffic you should stay away from basically every other mid-large sized city anywhere in the world.

I presume they mean South East Asia.

Bangkok doesn't have nearly the noise issues of Jakarta; the traffic proceeds without every vehicle beeping most of the time in Bangkok. Also no prayer calls.

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