Photos

This is another shot from the hotel room in Jakarta, taken yesterday after dark. Unfortunately, the street billboards are very large and very bright, reason why they look overexposed. Since I refer to Jakarta in the photo title, I decided to re-print the info about the city included in my previous post. I hope you find this photo more attractive than the other one.


Jakarta is the capital and the largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of the island of Java, Jakarta has a population of around 10 million people.

The first recorded settlement was the port of Kalapa, near the mouth of the Ciliwung River which can be traced as early as the 5th century.

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Kalapa in 1513 from Mallaca, which had been conquered two years earlier by Afonso de Albuquerque. In 1522, a treaty of friendship between the King of Sunda and Portugal was signed and the Portuguese received the right to build a godown (warehouse) and to erect a fort at Kalapa. The actual port of Jakarta is still called Sunda Kelapa.

In 1527, the city was conquered by Fatahillah from the Muslim Kingdom od Demak and he changed the name from Kalapa to Jayakarta, which means “victorious and prosperous” in Javanese.

In 1619, the forces of the Dutch East India Company conquered the city and renamed it to Batavia. During the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the British captured Java in 1811 and occupied the island for five years before returning it to Dutch control.

During the World War II, Japan took possession of the city in 1942 and renamed it Jakarta. Followed Japan’s defeat in 1945, the Dutch reoccupied the city and ruled until the independence of Indonesia in 1949.

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Para todos os portugueses que lerem esta nota, é interessante observar que a nossa presença nesta parte da Indonésia desde o tempo das descobertas é quase desconhecida e bastante ignorada pelos historiadores. Contudo, é perfeitamente racional considerando que Timor foi território português durante 5 séculos.