Jakarta, pollution, taxi drivers, me love you long

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  Jakarta, Java, Indonesia
Tuesday, August 19, 2008

So i left my beachside hammock just as the sun set on independance day, having watched the local kids march in time to a percussion band, there were lots of activities and stalls and competitions going on to commemorate the annual bank holiday where indonesia proclaimed itself as an independent country and each and every year they love to wave their flags about and have a good knees up, just like we do in england, so proud of our.....oh wait no thats been hijacked by right wing twunts with twisted idologies and overly liberal paranoid bedwetters afraid of any form of national pride/patronism. Anyway Jakarta yes...

So anyway the bus snaked its way through the countryside overnight and landed smack bang in jakarta. where id did little else other than eat, apply moisturiser, apply exfoliator to my heavily blistered shoulders, drank beer and talked to the locals, expats and other travellers. I shouldnt complain the company was good, the settings however were a differant story.

Argh what a crap hole, i tried not to have too many prejudices before arriving but jakarta justified them all and then some, aside from my friendly hotel owner who managed to score me a cheap coach ticket onto sumatra the place was a typical large asian city, full of smog, bar girls, girls who didnt work in bars but accosted you anyway (sod off!) chancers, dancers, taxi men and general scum.

The first of which was a taxi driver nicknamed toad, i call him toad because thats what he looked like, i imagine from eating lots of lovely weary western tourists and their backpacks when they refuse to give in to his montary demands that i was about to be exposed to.

It went like this:

"Hi yeah, id like to go jalan jaksa, how much?"

"ooooh do not worry my friend cheap price"

"right....so how much?"

"my friend my friend my friend, we do not need to arrange price i am always the cheapest driver for you"

"how much?"

"250,000 rupee" (roughly thats 13 quid, more than a days budget. it should be 40,000, add on "tourist" tax and your pushing 60,000. It was 5am no other tourists about....great!

This should of put me right off but as i said, no other taxi's about just great, i hadnt come in on a tourist bus and thus the taxi drivers were elsewhere, foolish me thinking i had given them the slip!

We settled on a price, 55,000 which took about ten minutes and involved him mocking a heart attack when i mentioned a price as if to indict i was killing him
.
After driving around in circles for about an hour, with me biting my lip and trying not to provoke him we pulled over

"200,000" was the only thing he said.

"look be fair we've set a price et al" was my response.

"OH ME NO SPEAKY ENGLISH"

"ok well fine then il just get out of the taxi and leave shall i?" i said not moving an inch

"No no no you have to pay first" he said, suddenly grasping a firm grip of previously unspoken english

He wouldnt settle on 55,000 and wasnt taking me there till i paid 200,000, the situation i had was vice versa, there was not a chance id pay 200,000.

And so he figured on intimidating me, ok i take you. Didnt trust him a bit. We cruised along for ten minutes and pulled up in a local slum. Cars dont come here, outsiders dont come here full stop. We soon had an audience.

"if you dont give me 200, 000 i leave you here, they steal you and stab you and bad things will happen"

Id like to thank my parents for having the foresight of raising me in yorkshire, for giving me the arrogance and confidence to simply turn round and say

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH" in a mocking fashion then laughing my head off and sneering at him. Id been in worse places in India, and it was light now so i bit my thumb at him (pure class in a glass!!), gave him a wink and told him to shove his money up his jacksy and opened the door, he hadnt planned on this happening.

 "No no no money you give me you give me!"

At which point i simply got up grabbed my stuff and took the twenty minute walk back to the main road where i got a public bemo. The guy was half right, he left me there, jaw open, his little plan had backfired. The locals were beyond curious, i doubt they'd seen a westerner before. but they didnt "steal me" or "stab me". I had a few locals attempt to "have a word" as some might say but seen as those words werent anything i understand, it could of been anything from "oh really wow i love your skin what moisturiser do you use" to "give me your bloody money or im going to shank you". Needless to say im still here and everything is just gravy.

Sumatra next.

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