Batavia is favoured in that it has a choice of several good hotels. Whoever selects the Hotel Nederland or the Hotel des Indes will say that the other "best Hotels in the Far East" have something yet to learn in the accommodation of visitors, general cleanliness, and moderation of prices.
One of the first things one ought to do after arrival is to obtain the "toelatingskaart," at the Town Hall. Armed with this document, which, most probably, he will never be called upon to show, the tourist may travel in the interior. Without it, he may have trouble.
Batavia shares with the French ports of Saigon and Hanoi the honour of more resembling a European town than any other ports in the Far East. This, of course, is a matter of opinion, though it is based on acquaintance with every port of importance from Yokohama to Penang, including the principal ports of the Philippines, and we were somewhat surprised, therefore, when expressing this opinion to a Dutch friend, with his reply:
"When I left Singapore, with its fine buildings I felt I had said good-bye to Europe!"
A little probing soon showed that it was only the two and three-storeyed houses that created this impression.
HOTEL DES INDES.
One has only to stroll along the Noordwijk in the afternoon and evening to appreciate the difference between Batavia and Singapore. After sundown, so far as Europeans are concerned, with the exception of the little life seen under the electric light of Raffles Hotel and the Hotel de l'Europe, Singapore is a dead place. Hongkong is no better. In Batavia it is different. Up to the dinner hour, and after, there is a considerable amount of life and light and animation, and if it be a stretch of the imagination to compare the Noordwijk or the Rijswijk with the Boulevard des Capuchins in Paris, or its open air restaurants with the Café de la Paix, it is at least within comparison to say that the resemblance to a Continental town is sufficiently marked to be welcome, while one can have as choice a dinner or supper, with superb wines, in Stamm and Weijns or the Hotel des Indes as in the best restaurants of London and Paris. Not the least noticeable feature of all to the observant visitor will be the punctilio and excellence of the waiting of the Javanese table boys. When one saw the carefulness with which each dish was served, and the superior nature of the side dishes, one thought with a shudder of the sloppy vegetables, the dusty marmalade, and the slipshod waiting of the China boy in some of the hotels it had been our misfortune to patronise in British Colonies.
In this quarter, the wives and daughters of the Dutch and foreign merchants drive in comfortable rubber-tyred carriages, having first driven to the business quarter to bring home the "tuan besar" or head of the family. Greetings are exchanged with friends by the way, and, while the young folks stroll off in happy groups, the elders alight to drink beer or wine at one or other of the famous open-air restaurants. There is a general air of prosperity and a spirit of gaiety which one does not usually associate with our Dutch cousins in the depressing humid atmosphere of Holland. One soon catches the spirit of the place the more readily if one has spent any time on the Continent.