Indonesia

October 5–10, 2013

It’s so hot in Indonesia that cars don’t even have heating built in. Feeling cold? Turn off the AC.

Electoral campaign ads have a nail in the box next to the recommended candidate instead of the familiar check mark.

Indonesia doesn’t have sidewalks in the usual sense. There are certain raised patches delineated with curbstones, but they’re not meant for people to walk on.

Indonesian sidewalks are meant for growing flowers.

Or simply guaranteed leg-breaking.

You can set up a shop, sidewalk café, or construction supply warehouse over the entire sidewalk. Half the photos in this story contain sidewalks that further illustrate this surprising ethnographic fact.

I came across some beautiful old Dutch post boxes in the streets (some of these still exist in Curaçao and Aruba as well).

The modern post boxes aren’t quite as interesting.

A payphone half-booth.

A payphone booth.

A license plate.

Every off-road vehicle has a stencil with its technical specs (like in Vietnam or Trinidad and Tobago).

Indonesia has a well-developed rapid bus transit system (like the ones in Curitiba, Guatemala City, Lima, Bogota, Quito, or Teheran). One of its characteristic features is that the bus doors are located a meter above ground level, so you can only board from specially designated stops.

Naturally, the bus stops span the entire width of the sidewalk. No one in the country walks on the sidewalks anyway, so why waste space?

Arrows.

Crossing pedestrians are always reaching forward confidently with their right hand.

Caution, children.

Slippery road.

Post office.

A digger.

Railroad crossing gate ahead.

Train.

Gas station.

Jakarta

There are giant advertising billboards everywhere.

German plastic blue and orange trash cans everywhere.

A fire hydrant.

A tuk-tuk.

A banner calling to put a stop to corruption. Of course, banners like this only appear in countries where the situation has become hopeless (like Haiti, Uganda, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, or Colombia).

But at least they’ve broken free of their chains!

Jakarta’s main problem is the traffic. The traffic-jams are so all-encompassing and horrendous that you can barely manage to get half a thing done a day if you’re traveling by car. You simply drive out of your hotel and come to a total stop. And stand there for one, two, three hours.

The rapid-bus-only lanes offer a small bit of hope.

Buildings are numbered, which is rare in many countries.

Some of the parks have free Wi-Fi.

A spiky rebar obstacle on a utility pole (like in Tel Aviv, Ankara, or Peru).

Your package is on its way.

Bicycle helmets resemble the pith helmets of colonial troops, only these are made of plastic.

The fixed-run taxis are painted a baby turquoise.

Overall, the city is quite unpleasant.

Yogyakarta

A lively place.

Tourists fly in from all over to see the Borobudur Buddhist temple.

Borobudur is just as much of a tourist trap as the Taj Mahal in Agra or the peeing boy in Brussels. It’s just a big stone thing in the middle of a large-ish park.

All right, so it’s big, but it’s just one thing. And it’s obviously not worth flying anywhere in the world to see. It’s not like the endless gorgeous stupas in Bagan or anything.

So let’s go back to Yogyakarta and stop listening to the tourist hype. The streets are decked out with flags on sticks.

Light blue concrete stumps mark the location of fire hydrant valves.

A pretty street sign.

A pretty traffic light pole.

Tree trunks painted with a signature pattern.

A city trash can.

License plates being manufactured and sold.

A fire hydrant.

Traffic.

The gilded youth of Indonesia.

The Carnival has begun. The entire city drops everything to don costumes and participate in the parade.

People and beasts flock to the streets.

And now, please welcome the Straw Fan Krewe!

A driver repairs his vehicle while hiding from the glaring sun under a broken-down cardboard box.

Bali

A strange place.

Here, coolness is measured by who has the biggest, tallest water tower.

There’s lush vegetation everywhere.

Giant straw decorations stand on every corner.

Buildings and gates have black stenciled plaques with the building number and other details.

Street trash cans are made of some sort of rubber (kind of like in Siem Reap).

People come to Bali from all over the world to seek enlightenment. The waste management system aids them in this pursuit: there are separate barrels for organic and inorganic waste. Although I had an F in chemistry in high school, I always throw plastic bottles into the organic container.

Every street is a mystery.

Indonesia is a Muslim country, but Bali practices its own variety of Hinduism.

From the early hours of morning, its residents perform special rituals: they read prayers, place flowers on the road.

This is one of the most superstitious and mysterious places in the world.

I’d really like to spend a couple of months here, to observe the daily manifestations of the most archaic aspects of human culture.

After all, the older generation still feels perfectly comfortable walking around topless here.

And the waves aren’t too bad, either.