21 January 2006 Saturday

the streets of Jakarta

i’d say the most adventurous thing we’ve done on this brief trip to Jakarta, is to have willingly gotten into cars that have gone on to do battle against the mass of other cars, busses, vans, tuktuks, motorbikes, pedestrians, etc… Malaysia’s pretty absurd when it comes to driving/traffic behavior, but Indonesia takes my cake. they don’t even bother painting lines on most of the roads, cuz where a 4-lane road may be, we’ve watched a full 11 vehicles share the space, and the “lanes” quickly change, as motorbikes carrying full families (mother in back carrying baby, while another child sits right behind father driving.. i saw a guy playing a guitar on the back while his friend drove, too.. and there was also a pair on a motorbike, carrying a car door between them) and huge buses weave through as if this were all very reasonable.. and cars pass within mere inches of each other—sideview mirrors would crash frequently if the cars didn’t miraculously curve away from each other at that last minute. really, the cars come up so close that i can reach out through my window and make thumb prints all over their glass.

mom—the native malaysian driver—closed her eyes several times in the car today, to block out the crazy closeness of the surrounding vehicles.

we are so very brave.