Getting your drivers license in Jakarta the easy way!

I know we shouldnt support KKN (Korruption, Kullusi, dan Neoptism) but I've heard stories of even Indo friends being given the run around when doing to get their license. (one chinese indo friend took 3 days to get her drivers license).

Using agents may cost more, but it gets the job done.

This year, I used a local friendly sergeant in the area.

For 600,000 rupiah, I had a private police escort, we took the tollways and busways, drove through every red light.

At the office he jumped every queue and it literally took me 29 minutes from start to finish!

Road Rage - Wonder Warrior

I hate leaving late for work, the traffic gets blocked up, if i leave at 6.30am the red route outlined is basically empty, if I leave at 6.45 the the traffic is backed up at least as far as the start of the red lines i've indicated.

The road leaving the roundabout has enough room for one car lane, the road entering the roundabout has room for 2.5 cars.

I'll let you figure what usually happens. Anyway today I'm just about to enter the roundabout and some Indo clown comes tearing up the inside lane, he had to stop right next to me (but had jumped at least a half dozen places in the queue.) So then its stop start with the car in front of me, and him trying to push his way in front of my car.

In indo its all a game of bluff, dont hit the other cars, but try and get your car as close as possible to the car in front, dont even leave a 30 inch gap that the other car can nose into.

Anyway, the inevitable happened, our side mirrors brushed, he had to give way, since he was hard against the shoulder, and I was slightly in front.

Nothing more said or down, in fact when we had brushed I'd looked over at him, and he just stared straight ahead, no acknowledgment no eye contact. Mind you he probably cannot see into my car, it has very dark tinted windows.

Ten minutes later, I am turning into my workplace so indicate early, I suddenly hear all this commotion car horn blowing and blowing, someone screaming, I look in the side mirror this same bloke is hanging half way out his drivers window wearing a shit eating grin to flip me the bird, up and down up and down like a fuckn deranged yoyo all the while leaning on his horn as he goes past me.

WTF?

Too scared to make a fuss until he knew I was gone?

Suddenly just thought of that reaction ?

He'd been stewing on it for the last 10 minutes and just suddenly snapped.

The security at my work asked me if they wanted them to stop him, but i dunno what for, extract some money, he has scratched my car after all.... but its only the plastic side mirror. I told them not to worry. I'm wishing i had not now, I should have go them to stop and detain the idiot, and I could have demanded money from him .... (well, maybe i'm dreaming, its always the westerners fault)

I was just too surprised to do anything, and by the time i realised it was me it was pretty much too late.

What would you have done?

Driving in Jakarta

Driving in Jakarta can be quite stressful for those not new to it. Often appearing to have a lack of road rules, it is not for the unwary.

YouTube - Jakarta driving - roundabouts and bikes.3gp

YouTube - Jakarta driving - red & white flags line the streets.3gp

YouTube - Jakarta driving - pedestrians walk all over the road.3gp

YouTube - Jakarta driving - off the main road- motorbikes and vendors.

These driving definitions may be of some help, originally published on 4/11/1988 in the San Francisco Chronicle, written by Jon Carroll.

THE ROAD. Includes not only the paved portion of the highway, but also what we might call “the verge”, “the curb”, “the sidewalk”, “the front yard”, “the roadside restaurant”, and “the monastery”. The paved portion of the roadway is generally one lane wide. Not one lane in each direction: one lane.

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RESPECT. All animals are granted the greatest respect in Asia. It is presumed that being highly evolved creatures, chickens and dogs and the like know how to sidestep a Mitsubishi going 78 mph on a for-shrouded road during a national religious holiday.

This same position of honor is granted to small children, cripples, men with 30 pounds of hay on their heads, unattended oxcarts and elderly women in mystic trances. Slowing or swerving to avoid these beings would cause them dishonor.

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DISHONOR. Getting from morning to evening while remaining in the same incarnation.

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LANES. These colorful white and yellow markings wish a hearty “Selamat datang” (Welcome) or “Hi!” to every traveler. They have no other function.

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PASSING. The national sport of Asian drivers. Observant motorists may encounter the vertical triple (passing three vehicles in one acceleratory movement,) the horizontal triple ( passing a vehicle that itself is in the process of passing a vehicle,) or even the rare double-double (passing a vehicle at precisely the same time that another vehicle, coming in the other direction, is also engaged in the act of passing.)

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TAILGATING. What to do when not passing.

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BEING PASSED. An insult not to be endured. The greater the differential between your vehicle (say, a broken tricycle) and the passing vehicle (say, a Boeing 747,) the greater the potential loss of prestige. The owner of the less powerful vehicle must always do everything in his/her power to thwart the attempt to overtake.

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SEATBELTS. Absolutely unnecessary. Not only are they not worn, they are not even provided. Passengers are fully protected by the horn (see below)

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LIGHTS. Rapidly blinking the headlights can mean many things, including “OK to pass now,” “dangerous to pass now,” or “may you find the thread of gold in the linen of existence.” It takes years, sometimes entire lifetimes, to learn this subtle and intriguing intuitive nonverbal communication skill. Generally, however, you have about three seconds.

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THE HORN. When sounded loudly and frequently, the horn sets up an invisible energy barrier protecting the vehicle and its inhabitants from all harm. The faster the vehicle is going, the better the horn works. This is the central concept of Asian motoring.

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ACCIDENTS. Rare. Usually the result of a malfunctioning horn.

Off to Burma again to play cricket, almost thwarted by bladdy Indo traffic!

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This weekend I am playing cricket and golf in Burma with the SiamCC. Now two years ago when i flew there to play cricket I missed 2 flights and ended up paying for multiple tickets to get there, much to the amusement of my mates.

So I didnt want to miss any flights again this time. I ducked out of work early, left home at 4.30pm (that's leaving an hour and a half plus the two hours early at the airport... plenty of time! .... one would think ! )

Peak hour traffic in Jkt sucks big time! Even more so if you have a flat tire!

flight leaves at 19.50 - 2 hours from now! and we are still an hour from the airport, with a flat, so we had to leave the tollway! and stop to fix it.

Easier said than done,

I had to show the driver how to use the jack,

then which way to twist the wheel nuts, then which way to use the lever to get the wheel nuts off!

grrrr...

some other random guy come and helped also! In all the process took 30 mins!

and then the spare was bladdy flat also!

so we then had to drive futher to find a stall selling compressed air, fortunately we did, I got to the airport at 7.10 - check in was closed.

Fortunately, they opened when they saw me and allowed me to board.

MRT - Mass Rapid Transportation system, Jakarta Style! :(

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Most Asian countries these days have some sort of Mass Rapid Transportation system, Hong Kong the very efficient subway, Shanghai - the excellent monorail, Bangkok - the MRT subway and the BTS overhead railway...

Jakarta has long had a traffic problem, so the Indonesian solution.......

Busway!

What is a busway i hear you ask?? Well subways and monorails etc are too expensive for Indonesia so we get the busway.

Yes, yes, yes, but what is it?

Well, you cut a major arterial road in half, place some bluestone blocks in the way to keep cars out of it, and then run ordinary 'special' buses along this 'dedicated busway lane'. Mind you at crossroads and the start and end of each busway the said busses still have to fight with the traffic, oh yes and funding to actually provided buses to travel these routes is somewhat limited. But never mind, Sutiyuso, previous major/governer of jakarta allegedly made US$ 8,000,000 in bribes and kickbacks per busway line he signed off on, hence the possible reason he signed off on as many as possible before his term of office expired.

And what do you think the result of cutting roads in half is.....? Yep, worse traffic. :(

Here's some pics of the magnificent busway being built......

I didnt mean to capture a pic of the worker sleeping, but its perhaps rather appropriate of the Indonesian work ethic....

and almost complete busway in Pondok Indah area.... nice innit?

oh sorry didnt realise, the raised concrete thingy next to my (stationary car) is the busway lane!

actually, those pics were taken in Pondok Indah, which is an area of a lot of new money, palatial OTT mansions etc, locals call them Rumah Pembantu, which translates as the maids house, cos most of these people are never there anyway, just the house staff.

Anyway - these people protested the most out of everyone against the busway being built in their area, so last week some important person sat down and negotiated with them, end result, cars can use the busway line in Pondok Indah during peak hours......

Leaving the rest of us confused as to the point in spending all of that money to put in this lane in the first place....

Adventures in an ordinary day.

Today started out like any other day, alarm goes off, breakfast, shower dress, travel to work. However, I needed to go into town to pick up some plane tickets, no they couldn't deliver if I wanted to pay by credit card, have to pick up in person!

OK, ok. So after a barrage of calls, emails and sms's I arrange to pick up the tickets Tuesday morning since I have several free hours in the morning. I am to meet this travel agent at a mall near where she works in South Jakarta, and she'll take me there.

Well, I live a good hour away from South Jakarta. So I make my apologies and I leave at work at 7.30am, first mistake, my town/suburb, turns out to be very congested at this time of the morning trying to get out.... grrr. Anways, I send an sms to the agent to say I'm with my driver can you just give me the address and we can meet you there?

Just as we are getting close to the mall in question, I send another sms to this agent since she hadnt replied to my first one that morning. Turns out she is already on the back of a motor bike and headed towards the office already, ok, I hand over the phone to my driver who briefly talks with her while dodgy motorcycles and buses all over the road.

We are still headed North, in fact Jalan Sudirman, a major arterial road has a regulation designed to decrease congestion a ban on all cars carrying fewer than 3 people during peak hours..... and you can bet there will be dozens of police officers on patrol to catch motorists and extort a fine, never mind any criminals that they ignore, car owners obviously have more money that can be extorted.

well this has only served to create a new profession, that of the "street jockey" - hundreds of people line the streets prior to the main roads with their thumbs out as if hitch hiking, however, you have to pay them, they will sit in the car to make up the number, and then get out after the restricted area and travel back to their point of origin to repeat the process. All for a few thousand rupiah (about a dollar).

Since it was only myself and my driver we needed to pick up one, however, this young man and a few others like him didn't really thrill us.


Fortunately we found a well dressed man instead, we were making good time, (relatively speaking, I've been in the car over an hour already) but it was still getting late, turns out this bladdy travel agent is in the North of Jakarta!!!

So we drop him off, of course the cheeky git wants extra money.. "tiga ribu lagi pak!" I suspect because I am 'bule'.

We have arrived at the correct street, we drive in the service lane looking for the travel agent, chinese style shopfronts, numbering not easy to find, looking for numbers here and there.

As we were going through an intersection a disinterested copper waving traffic almost gets knocked over by us, uh oh, we went supposed to be going then he was waving the opposite traffic, that was a red light we went through, uh oh, this street is now one way only, the police man is blowing his whistle and yelling at us to stop, a motorcycle nearly hits us and my driver begins to stop over the otherside of the intersection, I just tell him to go, so he does, at about 80km/hr. still up the wrong way road.

We've definately gone passed the travel agent now anyway, my driver turns down a street and we are now in the back streets, the irate policeman left behind. The traffic is really snarled up down here, cars blocking the road, ignoring red lights all over the place, we spend 15 mins to drive around a block only to find that we cannot turn left to get to where we want to go, so back to do another block again, I get the travel agent back on the phone to speak with my driver again, about the exact location of her office.

He sort of pulls over to speak on the phone.... in front of 3 more police, who gave us a good stare, fortunately they dont seem to be bothered to hassle us for money.

Drive up the same service road as before, this time I get out and walk to almost exactly the same spot we had almost knocked over the irate policeman, lucky he didnt recognize me (well, it was almost an hour later.

The agent in the shop hasnt bothered to print the tickets yet because she was worried the details might be wrong, never mind the 60 million emails we had exchanged already! Its now almost 10.00am

I offer the travel agent a lift back in my care to the original mall she was supposed to pick me up at. I ask her why this office was so far away, and she proudly explains that her office is more expensive and that she has found me the cheapest travel agent in all of jakarta .... by about $10 or $20 ... ! WTF!

So I wasted an entire morning getting a ticket for $1160 instead of $1180???

Going to the Football

(local) Football in Indonesia is a serious affair, supporters clamour onto busses trucks etc all dressed in their teams colours and the already busy roads became even worse (if that's possible in the Big Durian)

I'm not all that certain its particuarly safe, look at this picture, the bus inside is virtually empty and this, presumably poorly maintained rattle trap, is chugging down the highway with about 25 kids on the roof!

Thai New Year & Dangerous Roads

bloody song kran and idiot thai morons and alcohol, i bladdy had a bad feeling about my g/f going home for song kran this year, i told her over and over not to ride motorcycles in her village etc, to the point were she was well sick of the subject, i just 'felt' like something was gonna happen, had a dream about it last nite, i just got news that my g/f has been in an accident and is now in hospital..... feel useless a 1000 miles away! Damn thai's and song kran and drinking too much! stupid bladdy corrupted festival - should be canceled!

*sorry, rant over.*

but wierd how this year, as opposed to every other year i really felt worried abt it....

i think she ok now, she was walking home from the market and a dickhead on a motorcyc collected her, she went to hospital and has concussion and some cuts and bruising on her head, face and arm.they want her to return tomorrow to double check.so lucky I guess. coulda been a lot worse.

the situation was only made for difficult because my stoopid bladdy landline phone has decided in the last 2 days that her thai number is engaged.I can ring on my mobile, but its prepaid and costs around 40bht per minute, so tends to run out bladdy quickly.She sounded pretty shaken up, (as you would be I guess) but ok.

bikes and alcohol, just fills me with fear... I gather now that she is mostly alright - a bit sore and a big fright. dont have much more details at this stage cos of the stoopid phone thing.

i worry wheneva she drives, but at least you have a tonne of steel around you in the event of an accident, motorcyc its all hard gravel.but this time the poor gal was a pedestrian, (mind you i do know what thai pedestrians are like....) - but being song kran and all i'd be willing to bet a beer that the driver of the bike was a 14 year old whiskey guzzling twit speeding down the road..... anyway i just spoke to her again and she says she pretty much alright just feeling a little bit jeb. (thai word for sore!)

spoke to her again, she's just sore and bruised all over, the accident was 2 young drunk blokes (surprisingly enough) on a bike, after the accident they picked up their bike and fled the scene. fortunately her brother was nearby and took her to the hospital.

No wonder so many Thai’s are rubbish drivers!

The other week my significant other decide she wanted to get her car licence. So she rang up a car driving school and signed up for 10 hours of lessons. This school (perhaps they all do) also included the chance to complete the drivers test also.

The first question she was asked by her driving teacher was “do you want to do the test or just pay?” !!!Now I’m no newbie to Thailand and its system of bribes – but that just appears a little bit too systematic to me rather than a few (well very many) people making a little extra on the side whenever they can!

A week or so later she announces that she is doing her test WTF ? – that’s fast! She got it to, so now my g/f is able to drive a car through-out Thailand. Now I’m not saying she’s stoopid – far from it – she’s a smart gal – but in farang land ( I know I know TIT ! ) but in da west – one generally needs to complete something like 10 times that number of hours learning how to drive – just to gain confidence, read traffic, road rules? Ability to respond to different driving conditions (ie rain, fog, night) (all her lessons were the middle of the afternoon.) ability to calmly respond to emergency situations that may arise.

Most of which can only be leaned through experience and TIME spent driving!She decided she only wanted to get her automatic licence – tho I convinced her to at least get some lessons in a manual ( turns out she had a total of 10 minutes – before the instructors car broke !? and only managed to use 1st, 2nd and 3rd gears!)

Apparently she never learnt how to reverse ( and by implication reverse park!) Anyway I own a manual 4WD – u guessed it she wants to drive it now, ok ok I’ll sit with you – show me how well you can drive. Feck me – she accelerates hard straight at a brick well in our apartment carpark – I slam on the hand brake and have a wee chat with her which consisted of you don’t need to go fast in the carpark – and her saying I wasn’t going fast.

OK – its Sunday morning – should be light traffic – overshoots the driveway exit leaving the nose of the car in the middle of the road – lucky no traffic was coming past, overcorrects the corner so we end up on the wrong side of the road.Couldn’t stay in the white lines down sukhumvit road – generally accelerated towards cars that where already braking despite me asking her to repeatedly to “Chaa Chaa!” (which means go slow go slow!)

We arrived safely – I promised some more lessons at a later date, – while filing a mental note to check my insurance cover! If this in any indication of the general population - its no wonder they all drive like feckn maniacs!

optional road rules

forget how come the thai's drive ... they are fckn orderly to the point of being British compared to the Javanese....

anyway, i read in the paper today, sorry no link since the jakarta post website barely resemebles the paper it produces each day...

anways - i read in the paper that the Police chief has decided enough is enough and do something about the 5.2 million motorcycles clogging the traffic with their mental driving in the Big Durian.

1. Motorcyclists need to turn on their headlights during the day....

2. Motorcyclists should keep the to left lane only on about a dozen major roads...


sounds good you say ! - he then went on to say that these new laws would be 'optional'

WTF ?? optional traffic laws?

only in asia !

A day at the Zoo

Lonely Planet guide book describes Ragunan zoo as "a nice place to spend a few hours'

they forgot to mention not to go on a national holiday, particularly the end of Ramadan because every good muslim is supposed to spend time with their family and since just about everything is closed the only 2 places in the entire country to go with the family are the zoo and Taman mini (another post and another day!)

though since I ignored a friends warning not to go I dont think I would have listened to the LP either....

traffic was diverted a little to get to the zoo...

this was about 3 kms along and the hawkers selling shit were walking faster than the car....

after a fair bit of travel we arrived, first we saw this happy smilie white tiger...

did i mention there was a lot of people there ??

then the missus got hungry, well we had walked for 15 minutes or so and seen 2 or 3 animals so we stopped at a little kitchen that did Bakso and Mie Ayam.....

here's the crocodile cages.... theres a couple of animals in each pen.... this guy is a big bugger, but clearly unimpressed with the rubbish throwing...

I think the sign above says "dont throw rubbish at the animals you stupid gits" - but as you can see the indonesian's reading skills are not much better than mine!