tangerang: where everything’s a mess and that’s kinda awesome

i just came here by accident really. wasn’t planning to go to tangerang but then i read up on some random review that said the airport area is ‘so chaotic it’s kinda exciting’ or whatever and i thought, why not. turns out it’s exactly what i needed because i’ve been craving chaos lately or something. i just checked and it’s 28 degrees here right now, feels like 32, which is fine i guess. the humidity is so thick it feels like i’m swimming in a sauna. hope you like that kind of thing.

so first thing i did was try to find the maps.google.com thingo by messing with numbers until one worked. i embedded that iframe thing here which is probably not helpful but i’m too lazy to figure out a real format. here’s the map:

. don’t judge me.

then i started taking pics because i always do that. i found three unsplash photos that looked like ‘tangerang stuff’ and i just uploaded them without checking if they’re accurate. first image is cars parked randomly on a road next to some highrise building. second one is water surrounded by trees, which i think is supposed to be the nearby beach or something. third one is a crowd walking down a street, which might or might not be at the airport. idk.

anyway, tangerang is basically one big industrial zone with like 1000 factories or whatever. i didn’t go into any factories because that sounds dangerous and also i’m not a detective. but someone told me that if you walk around during the day you might see workers inhaling smoke from giant chimneys and that’s just the normal here. i dunno if that’s a good vibe or not. also there’s this airport called soekarno-hatta which is super busy. i took a cab there and the driver was speeding like he was trying to outrun his own life. traffic here is worst than you’d imagine. expand toll roads? sure. expansion doesn’t help when you have commuters trying to escape jakarta every single day. i saw a guy trying to push his scooter through a traffic jam while eating inplace. he looked like he was in a movie.

the beaches nearby are whatever. tanjung pasir is two hours north and anyer is three hours west. both are just places with resorts and hose vendors. i went to tanjung pasir and there were all these guys selling seafood on the side of the road. one of them tried to hawk some grilled fish to me and he kept shouting in this accent that was 60% bahasa indonesian and 40% ‘whatever floats your boat.’ i bought nothing and left. there were also rumors of gangsters hanging out near the beach. someone told me that. i didn’t ask for details because i don’t trust rumors.

food in tangerang is like a confusing middle school lunch. they have nasi goreng and soto betawi which isfine i guess. but nothing special. seafood near the beach stalls is the only thing that’s remotely good but it’s overpriced and the fish smells like last week’s gym bag. i tried kerak telor which is this scrambled egg thing and it tasted like regret. also no one here seems to care about famous dishes. it’s just everything you’d find in jakarta but with more traffic and fewer cool cafes.

yeah, population is over a million here? that’s insane. i saw this plot of land with 50 houses all built in a week and each one looks identical. i guess it’s because everyone here is either working in factories or commuting to jakarta. the people are middle to high class in some areas with fancy malls and schools but then suddenly it’s just industrial zones with bad air. i passed a factory called jatake and the air smelled like chemicals and despair. i walked past for 10 seconds and felt like i needed to squat for five minutes. that’s probably normal.

in terms of culture, it’s a mix of javanese and sunjewnese people? whatever that means. everyone seems to speak a version of ba Sa. there are also a lot of people from outside indonesia working in factories. i don’t know why. the city’s vibe is dual: half is trying to build this upscale satellite thing called alam sutera with fancy malls and the other half is just factories and new housing developments. i saw this new housing area and it looked like a theme park for people who don’t want to live in jakarta. mansions everywhere. meanwhile, in the other district, there’s a guy fixing a sewer pipe with his hands and a hose. no hard hats. no safety gear. just pure chaos.
it’s also super hot all the time. like, just hot. 28 degrees and you’re sweating inside. i wore a t-shirt and shorts and by 3pm i looked like a drowned rat. the only thing keeping me sane was the fact that there’s no winter here. no problems.

i got bored at one point and decided to drive to jakarta which is 25km away but took three hours because of traffic. if you get bored, dmz or anyer is a short drive. i didn’t actually do that because my car died. again. sumando traffic is like a video game where you never win. there’s also this thing where if you want to leave the airport area you need a guide because the roads are confusing and the signs are in bahasa. i asked a random guy for directions and he pointed me to a random tunnel and then kept walking. i realized later it was probably a scam.

i didn’t find any famous people from tangerang. like, no idols or politicians or anything. maybe because it’s an industrial city. i did see this old guy selling street snacks and he claimed he was the ‘mayor’s cousin’ or something. don’t believe that. the only celebrity thing here is the airport. soekarno-hatta is the biggest airport in indonesia. i took a flight back and the plane was full of people from jakarta with suitcases. everyone looked stressed. i looked around and realized i’m stressed too.

overall, tangerang is whatever. it’s not beautiful. it’s not romantic. it’s just a big, loud, hot city with factories and highways and people who are stuck in traffic. but maybe that’s what makes it interesting. i don’t know. i’m probably leaving tomorrow and never coming back. unless there’s a firework show or something. i heard something about that but i’m not sure if it’s true. i also didn’t check the weather forecast because i forgot. take that with a grain of salt.

i should probably stop rambling now. i have other things to do like unpack and almost immediately fall asleep because the air is too hot. if you’re thinking about coming here, bring tissues for your eyes from the industrial smoke, a bottle of water, and a sense of humor. or don’t. i don’t care. it’s messy. it’s loud. it’s tangerang.

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