get a call from the internet mob today.
caller:"blah blah blah, you have bill for 417,000 rupiah ?"
me"yes, i know, it's a promotional price for unlimited usage, so it's always that price."
caller"for december bill?"
me"yes i know, it's an automatic debit from my bank account"
caller"yes, but its 417,000rupiah"
me"yes i know but the bill is not due until the 20th, and its a set amount, same every other month, and its automatic debit."
Hmmm, so what was that all about? A sudden out-of-the-blue reminder to make sure I pay my bill? Which I've been doing every month for the last year and a half on the same set price? And actually they collect my bill each and every month anyway....
December 16, 2007
November 26, 2007
MRT - Mass Rapid Transportation system, Jakarta Style! :(
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....
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....
November 12, 2007
Jakarta Bintags vs Malaysia Warriors, what a wet day!
We hosted the Malaysian team to come over and play some footy (AFL). There was a game before between 2 under 18's teams; the British International School team and the Depok (locals) team. The sun was belting down, and most of the blokes were busy applying sunscreen, by the time we started our warm up it was beginning to rain a little.
In the third quarter we actually had to cease play for about 10 minutes due to some close hitting lightening, by the end of the game the field was flooding!
And about 40 minutes later the sun come out!
In the third quarter we actually had to cease play for about 10 minutes due to some close hitting lightening, by the end of the game the field was flooding!
And about 40 minutes later the sun come out!
October 30, 2007
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???
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???
October 20, 2007
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