Jakarta: Where Entropy Reigns, Motorbikes Are Omnipresent, And Kudus Have No Apparent Relevance

Cities, on occasion, intimidate me.  Jakarta is a big city.  If you've put my predicament together by now, kudus to you:

Kudus are more fun than kudos.  African ungulates > granola bars.  It's math.

In the five days I spent in Jakarta, I was occasionally intimidated in big ways.  I don't consider myself an easily intimidated person.  However, this city can cow the most valiant knight of whatever polygon table you prefer (rhombus?).

Consider:

This representative picture--taken in Jakarta-- isfrom allworldcars.com

You are walking down a street in Jakarta.  All around you is traffic.  The sea of motorbikes, buses, cars, and bemo taxis (three-wheeled vehicles that belong in Mario Kart) is never ending.  To your left is a "river."  This river is a suspicious aquamarine color, and it smells like some combination of iodine, cabbage, and month old milk.  The best word to describe it is "putrungent."  The cacophony of traffic, a chorus of horns, motorbikes, and shouting, is momentarily quieted when, out of nowhere, an ojek (Indnesian motorcycle taxi) careens through the air, pauses for a moment, suspended, and plummets into the "river" below.  In seconds, the ojek and its riders are stripped of metal and skin, too fast for the victims to even scream.  Not even a skeleton or steel frame are left.  The "river" fizzes and burps with inanimate glee.

End Scene.

That's right, Jakarta is built atop acid pits, streams, and creeks.  If anyone tells you otherwise, ask them if they have ever seen anything enter the suspicious blue/green "water" of Indonesia's capitol and lived to tell the tale.  If they have, lend them your kudu for a bit.

Your kudu is majestic.  Make sure to get it back.

A city of 8,490,000 people is bound to be intimidating.  It is doubly so if it is in a developing country, and triply (wow, that's a word?) so if nobody has any inkling of what a traffic law is.  Entropy reigns.  Sure, people drive on the left side of the street, but that's more of a recommendation than a law.  In Jakarta, motorbikes are the ubiquitous gnats of the traffic world.  They are everywhere: motorbikes on the sidewalk, motorbikes on all sides of your taxi, motorbikes in the "river," motorbikes on your eyelids, motorbikes in your nostrils. When I go outside, I am immediately covered in motorbikes.  This makes crossing the street incredibly difficult.

Crossing the street in Jakarta is akin to playing the super-duper-advanced-and-a-half level of Frogger with your thumbs taped to the palms of your hands, blindfolded, and upside down.  Yeah, it's hard.  Here is evidence.
 

 Not Pictured: motorbike death. *Thanks for the pic, Polly-Pocket.

Really, though, Jakarta is fascinating, friendly, and safe.  I managed a series of adventures and experiences--visiting the largest Mosque in Indonesia, Masjid Istiqlal, walking through Merdeka Square, shopping for dictionaries in the labyrinthine Gran Indonesia and Plaza Indonesia, browsing a local market in North Jakarta, walking through residential areas, playing soccer with some local boys and against our hotel staff, and shredding some karaoke--in the meager five days here. Also, Jakartans are nice.  They love pointing out to white people that we are, in fact, white (astute observation, my Indonesian compatriot!).  They do this by shouting bule! 

bule      n.      a term for a white-skinned foreigner; a variant of "bulai" meaning albino; a paleface

However, nine out of ten times, this doesn't seem to be meant offensively.  Rather, it's just an observation or an exclamation, like "what's good, vanilla face?"  Or, "I think you're trying to imitate a ghost.  Are you?"  Whities don't walk around this part of town a lot, so I guess when we do, it's important to point out to us that we look a little . . . different.  This interpretation of bule--as lighthearted commentary on racial difference--is furthered by the fact that Indonesians are willing to speak with a stammering, near incomprehensible, foreigner.  Here are some anecdotal illustrations:


Elena and I (a fellow ETA) decided to walk around for an hour or so before our next obligation.  We asked how to get to Kota, which is the old Dutch part of Jakarta.  Knowing full well we didn't have enough time to reach our destination, we set off in the right direction.  I immediately started sweating.

After about fifteen minutes we reached a stretch of residences where people were sitting outside as children, goats, ducks, and geese ran around.  The occasional motorbike would rumble down the street, weaving in and out of pedestrians, and the aluminum siding of the houses baked in the sun and gently echoed the evening call to prayer.  Elena and I tried to greet as many people as we could (selamat sore!).  As we walked past the residences, we came across a soccer field.  We made our way to a cluster of boys at the far end of the field to try and get in on a game or just kick around for a bit.  As we were walking there, an SUV that was driving around the field slowly passed us.  I was no more than a foot away from the vehicle, and as it slowly passed by, the back right window rolled down to reveal the comically round and chubby face of a three or four year old Indonesian boy.  He lazily looked at me, smiled, and through his rotund cheeks, seemed to burp bule!  His assessment complete, he rolled the window back up.

Coming back from Central Jakarta, two ETAs and I (Thomas and Victor) wound up in the Bluebird Taksi of Mahandi L.  Despite having an active vocabulary of about 45 Bahasa Indonesia words between us, the two other ETAs and I managed to communicate with Mahandi and share a few laughs.  He was floored that we were English teachers, he brought up the embarrassing story of Miss Indonesia not knowing enough Bahasa Indonesia to answer a pageant question (she had to have it translated into English), and enlightened us as to the basic religious breakdown in Jakarta.  This is just one instance of many where Indonesians took the time to talk to one or more foreigners, despite us not having a good handle on the language.  Parisians: take note.

Today we leave Jakarta and travel to Bandung, where we will complete our training over the next three weeks.  I fully intend to return, but for now, I am hoping that Bandung is weaker in the motorbike department, and stronger in the enthalpy domain.  If these wishes come true, I'ma give the whole damn city one big kudu.

Note: I took zero of these kudu pictures.  Kudus to those sources from which I borrowed.  If you want to know where I found them, let me know.