We arrived at Sukarno Hatta Airport in Jakarta around 10 pm. The first thing we needed to do was to look for a taxi. There was a taxi counter where I met a Dutch backpacker couple. A taxi to Jakarta costed Rp 200.000,-- or € 13,-. Not too much for European standards.It was late and not too many taxis around and the few which were there were firmly in the hand of touts.
In order to catch a proper taxi we needed to go on the street and wave a taxi. The touts screamed very agressively at us because they felt their business slipping through their hands. They offered the taxi to a family and they were gentleman enough to leave us the taxi.
Different from the well-known registered taxi companies like Silver Bird and Bluebird, these taxidrivers are not always trustworthy. And they deliberately drive slowly to increase the price, so the best way would be to negotiate the price in advance. We agreed on Rp 70.000, less than half the price of the agency. As these taxis didn't have a GPS we needed to guide him through to Melati Mas near BSD city in the Tanggerang area.
I lived in a fairly new and quite safe area in Melati Mas. You need to pass a guarded barrier to enter the area. There were just few shops around and quite a few street vendors selling vegetables and meat. Since our house was in a very new street, the vendors didn't show too much interest to come directly to our house. The supermarket "Giant" and the other shops and restaurants were located about 1/2 hour walk from our house. Somewhat tiresome from somebody who is vision impaired with arthritis.
The main road to the shopping complex was busy and the pavement started just close to the supermarket. At the beginning of the street cars were just parked recklessly on the pedestrian path. Pedestrians didn't receive much respect from cars and motorcycles, so if you walk around these cars you very well end up as minced meat.
Taxis refused to ride such a short distance and there were no bajais, a kind of motorised rickshaw in Jakarta. The only means of transportations were the ojeks or motorcycle taxis. They did not wear helmets and drivers were usually very uneducated and agressive. Where ever I walked, they offered their ojek in a pushy manner and if you ignore them they started yelling at you.
I spoke to many well-to-do Indonesians who just hopped on and off their Mercedes. They had no understanding for the pedestrians and could not imagine the hardships they had to endure to cross the street.
Every morning I used to walk to the internet cafe or warnet because I needed to do my online and offline work. This internet cafe was open for 24 hours, quite convenient where the client had their own cabin with a fast operating system. The food was excellent and incredibly cheap, so normally I could survive on roughly 1 € per day
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