In Reply to: jakarta posted by allhugpick on Tuesday, 23. June 2009 at 16:06 Bali Time:
I live in Jakarta.
Whatever you do arrange your flights to arrive when its not peak hour, then the traffic isn't so bad on the way into the city from the airport. Give or take the trip from the airport on a good day will take about an hour, on a bad day it might take you 3 hours.
Travel only in Bluebird taxis, either the blue ones, or the Silverbird (which are a little more expensive) and are black in color.
As Janoo said, it depends on what what you want to shop for. Electronics? Clothing? Then you can pick your hotel etc. There are a whole lot of malls in Jakarta, and they keep building them..
If you only wanted to do some shopping in Jakarta I'd recommend stay at least 3 nights. Day one is spent mostly traveling from Bali and to the city from the airport. The 2nd day you'd have free to shop all day, then maybe return on a late flight back to Bali the next day.
Fridays are bad for trying to get taxi's or going from A to B as around lunch time the taxi drivers all stop work for their friday prayer. The traffic is worse on Fridays because everyone tries to get home early for the weekend, and everyone at the office decides to have a long lunch. If I can, I avoid going out on a Friday altogether.
If you have more time, try to get out of Jakarta and visit Puncak or Bandung about 2 hours drive away or there are some lovely small beachside towns, however these are a little bit further, a good 3 or 4 hour trip by car.