W

hile most parts of Jakarta have been relatively quiet over the Idul Fitri holidays, many areas in the capital have seen an influx of unexpected guests.

These guests, coming from cities outside Jakarta, have flocked to the city’s hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues.

Cars with non-Jakarta license plates caused unexpected traffic over the weekend, even gridlock in several locations.

This was an uncommon sight since most Jakartans leave town to celebrate Idul Fitri in their hometowns.

These guests apparently came to Jakarta in the hope of enjoying their holidays here, assuming that the city would be nicer than their own towns, which have been taken over by Jakartans visiting family.

“It is nicer [in Jakarta]. Bandung [West Java] is packed with Jakartans,” 34-year-old Ari said, explaining why he had brought his family to spend their holiday in the capital.

Ari had brought his wife and their only child to see Jakarta for a couple of days, and decided to stay at a five-star hotel in South Jakarta.

Hotels in Jakarta also received a huge influx of guests over the holiday weekend, some of them coming from outside Jakarta.

“Our rooms have been booked out for these holidays. This also applies to restaurants in our hotel venues,” said Andry Kurniawan, a spokesman for Hotel Mulia Senayan in South Jakarta.

Meanwhile, businessman Daniel, 34, also took his child, wife and mother-in-law for a holiday in Jakarta.

Daniel shared similar views to Ari, saying that he was also trying to avoid the holiday brouhaha in his home city of Semarang, Central Java.

“Everybody seems to go to Semarang. It gets so crowded there,” Daniel said.

Besides getting away from Semarang, the family was also escaping their other nightmare of being left without domestic workers.

“Our staff have returned to their families for the holiday. So I decided to spend the holidays in Jakarta until they return,” he said, while waiting for his car in the lobby of a fancy hotel in Jakarta.

Daniel said he planned to take his family to some of the capital’s best restaurants that afternoon.

Ari, Daniel and many others like them were enough to make the holiday weekend no different to ordinary busy days in some areas of the capital.

Several roads were packed with cars, buses and motorcycles, while amusement centers such as Ancol Dreamland Park in North Jakarta and Ragunan Zoo in South Jakarta were packed with visitors both from Greater Jakarta and also areas outside the capital.

The management of these venues announced record numbers of visitors. Ragunan Zoo in South Jakarta, for example, recorded almost 100,000 visitors each day, while Ancol Dreamland Park in North Jakarta reported the most with more than 340,000 people over the past three days.

This situation saw the family of Nita, 32, enduring long queues during their visit to Ancol Park’s Fantasy World (Dufan) on Sunday.

“I only got to try three rides,” she said.

Nita, her husband and two sons came all the way from Palu, Central Sulawesi, to spend three days in Jakarta during the holidays.

The family plans to spend their time visiting all the entertainment centers and malls in the capital.

“Jakarta is a great place with high buildings and big roads, but that’s it. Nothing can beat your hometown,” Nita said.