Jakarta is kaleidoscopic Indonesia in the making, a city of multiple cultures and moods that can defy you one day and haunt you the next. For those who take the time to get acquainted, it is ''a city of serendipities,'' an Indonesian said; a city of neighborhoods that lead like stepping stones across hundreds of years of history.

Jakarta is kaleidoscopic Indonesia in the making, a city of multiple cultures and moods that can defy you one day and haunt you the next. For those who take the time to get acquainted, it is ''a city of serendipities,'' an Indonesian said; a city of neighborhoods that lead like stepping stones across hundreds of years of history.

Jakarta, steaming away on the edge of the Java Sea, doesn't regard itself as a tourist attraction, except to people from the Javanese countryside and the Indonesian archipelago beyond who come to get a glimpse of modern living: escalators, skyscrapers and such. Most foreigners bypass it on the way to Bali or other designated vacation spots. Getting to know Jakarta is therefore a do-it-yourself operation, and the discovery can be made in a day or two, if that is all the time there is. Some people who have lived here a decade -not all of them foreigners - say they never stop finding new, always unadvertised corners.

To explore Jakarta in its own footsteps, from trading port to capital of the world's fifth most-populous nation, start at the seafront - Sunda Kelapa, the ''coconut'' town. From the 12th or 13th to the 16th century, a settlement here near the mouth of the Ciliwung River served as an international trading post for the Hindu kingdom of Sunda. It was a humid, pestiferous port - the kingdom's capital was a sensible two-day boat trip upstream at Pakuan-Pajajaran, near the present hill town of Bogor. Ships sailed to Sunda Kelapa from China and India to pick up spices and agricultural products. The port fell into Moslem hands in 1527, when it was conquered by an alliance of Javanese sultans. They renamed it Jayakarta, the Javanese word for victorious. A century later, Europeans came along.

Most historians say there really isn't anything left of Sunda Kepala or Jayakarta that wasn't built over by the Dutch. But there are memories here. Go to the long quay where the wooden sailing boats called prahus from Sulawesi (the Indonesian name for the Celebes) and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) dock to unload their cargoes of timber and other products of the sparsely settled outer islands. The sailors are often fierce Bugis, conservative Islamic people who share and carry on the old seafaring skills of Arab traders from the Indian Ocean.

Now and then whole families seem to live aboard the prahus of the Java Sea: you can see them cooking meals on deck, or coming ashore to stock up on provisions before setting sail again.

From this quay the visitor can also look across to the remains of an early Dutch fort, warehouses and a lookout tower with a fine view of the old port. Before setting off to see them, it is useful to pause and take in the setting at a little distance. From here in the early 17th century, the Dutch began to consolidate their rule over what was then known as the Netherlands East Indies.

Across the harbor, visitors can climb the lookout tower for views to the sea or inland, to what is now one of the densest and poorest - as well as noisiest and most malodorous -parts of the city. Jakarta's fish market, the Pasar Ikan, is nearby, and the lanes leading into it can be hard on the faint of stomach. But for those who love Oriental bazaars at their most authentic, this one is a winner. Small shops sell everything from chandlers' goods to cooking pots and underwear.

Off the lane is the entrance to both the lookout tower and the Bahari Museum, a collection of traditional sailing vessels and other maritime paraphernalia housed in an old godown, or warehouse, from the days of the Dutch East India Company. The museum is worth visiting if only to study its construction. It is a 17th- and 18th-century building of solid timber and plaster construction, and a climb to the third-floor galleries reveals the building's solid wood skeleton. The building, a warehouse for copper and other metals that were precious at the time it was built, runs along what was once the old city wall, with a parapet overlooking the bazaar to one side and the museum on the other. Aside from its maritime paraphernalia, the Bihari has maps showing the progression of Jakarta inland over the centuries.