[Sm00thy]

Back in those days, Blok M free lance bars were also thriving with lots of sexy girls and was far superior to now. You could go from Top Gun starting at 6 pm, to Oscars by 11, then to Lintas Melawai late at night and it was never disappointing at any of those places. I can't recall ever going home alone without a hot little chica as company. Now, if I go to the blok, the chances of finding a hotty are quite low and I am more than likely to leave there without a girl in tow. I still think it's because of the exit of a good majority of in town working western expats and the shift toward local and Chinese tastes as well as sex tourists interested in brothels. Places such as the nicer brothels like Hotel Classic and the various sex massage spots are popular now rather than free lance spots. We had the down market brothels but the free lance scene did seem to die out when Hotel Classic and the various upscale massage places opened.

However, I don't think it's any coincidence that the fact that the number of expats working in Jakarta also drastically decreased around the time that the free lance scene died out. When I first came to Jakarta, there was a huge number of expats working in the oil and gas industry. That's not the case anymore. Back in those days, you rarely met someone visiting Jakarta for a sex vacation. It was pretty much all guys there for work. Back then, we always used to say that Jakarta was the world's best kept secret. But the internet changed that and it's not true anymore. Then again, although it's not a secret anymore, it's nowhere close to as good as it was back in those days for free lance fun.

Enough reminiscing about the good old days. Although there are no good free lance places anywhere near there anymore, yes, the Aryaduta is a decent location to stay if you are hitting the brothels up north. The Aryaduta is somewhat worn down these days and not as nice as it used to be, however, it used to be much more expensive to stay there as well. So it's much more economically feasible as a moderately priced hotel option these days.