Train to "Prawn City," Cirebon, Indonesia

We took a 2-1/2-hour, 185-mile train ride from Jakarta to Cirebon. Only two nights here as I planned the stop just to break up our travel from Jakarta to Yogyakarta. We love train travel, more than air or bus travel. Yesterday's train ride did not disappoint. Our seats were roomy and comfortable enough. No security screening, the station signage was clear, and the train left exactly on time. The only difference between yesterday's train and European and US trains is that Indonesia uses narrow gauge tracks.  Instead of 4' 8" apart, the tracks here are 3' 6" apart. Narrow gauges allow tighter curves, smaller tunnels, and lighter rails, making them cheaper to build and operate. The downside is that the ride is less stable, with more swaying and jerky train movements. It wasn't too bad, just a different experience. What wasn't different as we were leaving Jakarta, was the mass of vehicles waiting at the crossings for the train to pass.

Jakarta had a haze across the city. We at first thought it was just from all the cars, but from the train, we saw that locals burn their trash, so part of the haze was actual smoke.

Once out of the city, rice fields were numerous. These fields were nearing harvest, so flags were placed in the field to keep birds away.

Because this is a tropical area, we passed rice fields in all different stages, including the newly planted flooded stage.

We couldn't assume that all flooded fields were rice, because we also passed fish farms. We knew what these are because we were up close to them on a motorcycle ride in Vietnam a few years ago.

Most of the rice fields that were being harvested were done by hand by groups of workers.

We did see a few fields that had mechanical rice harvests. 

Our hotel in Cirebon was just a few blocks from the train station, so we walked to it. In most cities, the neighborhood immediately next to a train station is not the most picturesque. So, Phillip was concerned about my judgment as we walked, but once we turned on the main road, he was relieved to find a really nice hotel. A 3-floor hotel, it had been remodeled in 2025, so it was extremely clean and well-equipped. The lobby and main hallways have koi ponds!

This morning, we walked south on Cirebon's main street for about 3 km to the historic palace area. A portion of the road had the sidewalks elevated by over a foot, with business driveway entrances at street level. We were constantly walking up and down for this portion of the stroll. 

Between our hotel and downtown, we saw a building that had shrimp decorating its fence and walls. This building is the office of the Mayor. Cirebon is a coastal city and that means fishing is a big industry. An official nickname for Cirebon is "Prawn City."

When we entered the downtown area, the sidewalk became quite a bit more crowded.

Before the palace area, we came across the city's Chinatown area.

Cirebon's Chinatown was much cleaner and more pleasant than the one in Jakarta had been. 

We kept walking and made it to the palace area. However.... If you were thinking Buckingham Palace or even Kensington Palace, you would be way off. Four palaces (called kratons or keratons) were built here in the 1700-1800s when the royal leadership split into four royal houses. The Dutch were in control for a while during the city's history as the area was a Dutch protectorate. These four palaces, which were never grand by European standards are today in various states of decay. 

A goat wandering around the palace

According to Google maps, this is one of the palaces.

Each palace had a palace square, which showed on Google maps as a park. This palace square was a concrete slab inside an ornate wall.

Being a bit underwhelmed by what we found so far, I didn't try to find more palaces. Perhaps we just didn't walk to the right entrance or the right palace, but we were hot and sweaty so we headed back toward our hotel. We took a slightly different route and came across different vendors. Used tools, anyone?

Farther down the sidewalk, we noticed a few blocks of jewelry stores. In the same blocks, but not directly in front of the jewelry stores were individual glass cases, about 3 feet tall with a person sitting next to each of them. Visible in the case was just a calculator and a scale. Over a dozen of them along the sidewalk. I used Google and "beli enas" translates to "buy gold." This is where the jewelry stores got their stock, from locals selling their valuables. 

Tomorrow, back on the train for four hours, traveling to Yogyakarta where, among other activities, we have a cooking class!