Bulkhead Blues 🚂 Surviving the Semarang to Jakarta Rails
If you believe that planning your travel six months in advance guarantees a seamless life, we have a bridge in Central Java to sell you.
We spent three weeks navigating the humidity of Indonesia, concluding with a tropical stint on Karimunjawa that left us smelling faintly of salt and coconut oil. The final hurdle? A 460-kilometre train journey from Semarang to Jakarta. We had a flight back to Rome shortly after, and because we harbor a healthy distrust of “winging it” when international departures are at stake, we decided to be organised.
Being organised, as it turns out, is just a way to ensure your mishaps are pre-paid.
Highlights
- Digital Gauntlet 🖱️ Booking 12Go
- Tawang Station 🚉 Semarang
- The “Executive” Reality Check 💺
- The Six-Hour Shuffle to Jakarta 🏁
- Is the Train to Jakarta Worth It? 🧐
- All Hotel Options in Semarang
- Purchase your Train Tickets Online
- All Hotel Options in Jakarta
- Our Complete Indonesia Itinerary
The Digital Gauntlet 🖱️ Booking via 12Go.com
We didn’t want to leave anything to chance. The thought of standing at a ticket counter in Semarang, mimicking a puffing train to a confused clerk while our flight to Italy soared overhead, was enough to trigger a cold sweat.
So, we turned to the internet.
- The Platform: We used 12Go.com to secure our passage. It’s the digital equivalent of a security blanket—slightly frayed at the edges but keeps the monsters away.
- The Damage: Two Executive Class one-way tickets for IDR 259,000 each (roughly €17).
- The Confusion: The seating diagram on the website looked like an inkblock test designed by a sadist. There were varying prices for seats that appeared identical on screen. So we did what any self-respecting traveler with a dwindling budget does: we clicked the cheapest ones and hoped for the best. What’s the worst that could happen?
The website spat out a PDF voucher with a barcode that looked official enough to get us through a border, or at least onto a platform. We were told we had to exchange this for “real” tickets at the station. We tucked the printout away, feeling smugly superior to the imagined crowds of ticketless peasants we’d surely encounter.
Tawang Station 🚉 Where the Future Actually Works
On the morning of our departure, we rolled into Semarang Tawang Station an hour early. We expected chaos. We expected sweat. We expected a queue that moved with the geological speed of a tectonic plate.
Instead, we met a security guard who was more efficient than a Swiss watch. He whisked our voucher toward an automatic ticket dispenser, scanned the barcode, and—presto—the machine vomited out our actual tickets.
We stood there, blinking in the fluorescent light. Compared to our previous exploits on the Indian rail network, where booking a ticket often requires a blood sacrifice and three days of meditation, this felt like stepping into the year 3000.
Pro Tip for Semarang: If you have time to kill, Tawang Station itself is a bit of a colonial relic. It’s grand, it’s airy, though with 45 minutes to spare we just found ourselves staring at our train, already waiting patiently at the platform.
Jakarta Train from Semarang
The “Executive” Reality Check 💺
We boarded the train with high hopes. The carriage was clean-ish, boasting that specific vintage charm that suggests it was last deeply scrubbed during the late nineties. Then, we found our seats.
Remember those “cheapest” seats we picked on the cryptic seating plan? We found them. They were located directly against the front bulkhead.
- The View: A beige plastic wall roughly four inches from our kneecaps.
- The Legroom: Non-existent. Unless we planned on amputating our legs at the shins, we weren’t going to be “stretching out.”
- The Realisation: Those slightly more expensive seats on the diagram? Those were the ones that didn’t treat your patellas like an unwanted guest. We sat there, folded like human origami, contemplating the €2 we had so “cleverly” saved.
What to expect in Executive Class:
- Climate Control: The air conditioning is set to “Arctic Tundra.” We recommend bringing a jumper unless you want to arrive in Jakarta as a human popsicle.
- Entertainment: A TV screen looped movies at a volume that ensured even if you didn’t want to watch, you were definitely going to hear every explosion.
- Power: To our surprise, each seat had a working electrical point. We could at least charge our phones while our circulation slowly cut off.
- Service: Stewards marched up and down with drinks and snacks. We declined, mostly because we weren’t sure we could reach our wallets without hitting the wall in front of us.
Jakarta Train from Semarang
The Six-Hour Shuffle to Jakarta 🏁
The journey from Semarang to Gambir Station in central Jakarta took just over six hours. We rattled through the Javanese countryside, catching glimpses of emerald rice paddies and swaying palms through the window—or at least, we did when we craned our necks around the bulkhead.
The train made three or four stops, each one a fleeting moment of hope that someone would get off and leave us a seat with actual floor space.
They didn’t. We stayed put, two grown adults tucked into a corner like forgotten luggage.
Semarang to Jakarta
Is the Semarang to Jakarta Train Worth It? 🧐
Despite our self-inflicted seating tragedy, the train remains the undisputed champion of Indonesian travel. It beats the white-knuckled terror of a long-distance bus or the soul-crushing traffic jams of the Java roads.
The Verdict:
- Efficiency: 9/10 (The punctuality was almost offensive).
- Comfort: 4/10 (Entirely our fault for being cheap).
- Scenery: 7/10 (Java is stunning when you aren’t staring at a plastic wall).
We finally rolled into Gambir Station, unfolded our cramped limbs with a series of audible cracks, and stepped out into the humid embrace of Jakarta.
We had 36 hours to see the city before our flight to Rome.
We were tired, we were stiff, and we had learned a valuable lesson: when a seating chart looks confusing, just buy the expensive one. Your knees will thank you.
If you enjoyed Jakarta Train from Semarang, check out our Central Java Travel Plan. You may also like:
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