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Jakarta to Dieng Plateau Central Java
Dieng plateau on Central Java to Bali

INDONESIA

Mar
2004-09-14 16:42:50

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place a huge wooden plate behind some plastic chairs so that one can eat privately, sitting faced to the car and so close that you can touch the showcase with your nose. More than 'in the background' we hear the speakers going on. This time it sounds like a general speaker testing day, a family has grapped the microphone of one of the mosques and all of the children may test how it would feel to be an imam themselves. Praying becomes screaming and screaming becomes yelling. The microphone is handed over from the one to the other child. We walk back to the guesthouse. Two children are carrying a goat head, heavily bleeding and leaving drops of blood on the pavement. The Jakarta Post estimates that the amount of goats that have been offered today will be around 7000. A total of 249 people have died today during the yearly Muslim event in Mecca, of which 44 from Indonesia.

Cycling out of Jakarta's city centre

(7/2/2004) We cycle out of Indonesia’s capitol with 9,5 million inhabitants. The traffic represents this quantity, especially the motorcycles and Baja’s (three wheeled scooter taxis for two people). As in Bangkok and other large city centres, the trick for cycling out of Jakarta is... just stay on your own lane and cycle in the middle of it, not on the side so that somebody can push you off. Just adopt speed and copy the behaviour of the motorcyclists. We are getting even better in this than locals. It's all a game of 'being there first', wherever there is. Expect people to be so surprised to see a foreigner on a bicycle that they don't watch the traffic themselves. As a principle, busses will always stop abruptly in front of you after they've passed you. Sometimes we see a lonesome police officer trying to regulate the traffic. Nobody listens to their whistles. I notice a very small officer amidst a U-turn. After looking carefully it appears he is so small because he ...