Archive for the ‘Transportation’ Category

curious george town

Friday, July 17th, 2009

Everytime I open up “Curious George Gets a Job” to read to G, I love looking at this picture. It’s odd how close to our little town it is. I guess there are similarities between cities in Indonesia, and 1940’s New York City.

kota curious george

  1. Becak (Bicycle Cart): a little more expensive way of getting around town.
  2. Susu (Milk) Truck: we have our milk delivered to us too, but it’s by a guy in a motorcycle truck.
  3. Sampah (Trash): There is a guy who pushes a cart and collects our trash every other day or so.
  4. Angkota/Mikrolet: The local town transportation. $ .20 to go most anywhere.
  5. Sepeda Motor/Ojek: we mostly ride motorcycles everywhere. In our new town we’ll be able to hire a motorcycle driver to take us short distances.
  6. Taksi: They don’t have any in here in our town, but the next place we are going to move to will. They are just really expensive.
  7. Dokar (Horse Cart): G especially loves taking a horse cart places.
  8. Mobil pemadam kebakaran (firetruck): I’ve never seen one, but heard that one of our friends was side swiped by one and had to go to the hospital, so there must be some around. Since our houses are mostly made of brick (termites eat all the wood), there isn’t as much worry of fire.

But than again there are many differences. It’s fun to think of the similarities for a minute though.

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a motorcycle is a motorcycle…

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

A motorcylce is a motorcycle…unless you’ve had no wheels to call your own for two months. And then once the wheels were obtained, they had no engine to power them. And then came the day when the wheels and the engine were bought together–along with a pretty little seat and a horn. Now our little family is finally able to drive its little motorcycle off into the sunset…that is, when the storm clouds part long enough to see it.

at least it has racing wheels

at least it has racing wheels

UPDATE: here’s the asked for picture of our motorcylce. It is a small little thing (something like 125 something or others), it’s basically half scooter. We wanted to get something that I would be comfortable driving, but won’t stick out on the road. So far it has been fantastic; it can carry our little family easily, and as you can see it can also carry Michael and his dad.

We got our driver’s licenses last Saturday, and promptly bought a motorcycle Tuesday. Prior to that we were riding our bicycles to class (and other not so distant destinations). Nothing bad about that (mine is especially cool looking), but I didn’t like leaving 17 minutes early to pedal the 1 1/2 miles only to feel sticky and sweaty when we arrive there.

YES my bike has a doubling seat AND a basket!

YES my bike has a doubling seat AND a basket!

If we wanted to go anywhere else we would “naik Angkot” as G likes to say, or jump on the public transport. We loved the chance to talk with our fellow riders, but didn’t love having to tote our jugs of juice and milk from one end of the town strip to the other. Sometimes they were rather cramped–my record was 19 adults (plus one not so little G).

a special kind of "angkot"...its empty!

a special kind of "angkot"...its empty!

Imagine taking a bus around your town–walking to the bus stops, and then walking to the stores, and then walking back. I am still planning on enjoying the camraderie of the angkot from time to time, but for now, I am glad that we have more options. Here’s a great article about the angkot, and impacting people around you.

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thoughts on a new culture

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

I am writing this from Jakarta, Indonesia. Right now my computer clock reads 1:58 am, but my body doesn’t really know what to think. I am up with a sleepless G, and enjoying the chance to sort through my thoughts on the new things we are experiencing.

We had pretty good flights over here. But, the food left much to be desired (and I usually even like airplane food). I was disappointed to have orange juice from a tin can that reminded me of what we used to get in Papua New Guinea. So I just resigned myself to having the same yucky juice for G here in Indonesia. I was wrong…there are so many fabulous juices. Just look.

jakarta008-medium

Another difference I noticed is that G is a rock star here. When we got to the terminal in Taipei, he immediately had people gathering around him wanting to take his picture. He didn’t like it very much at first. He wasn’t too happy to walk down a hallway and have all of the shop people calling out to him, and smiling, and talking about him. He didn’t want to be in all of the pictures. Or have his skin patted and touched. But I told him that he always has to say “hi”. Now he won’t stop saying “hi” to anyone and everyone. I am sure he will get annoyed again. But right now he is enjoying the attention, and even asks that they will take his picture “more.”

Last night I heard my first call to prayer. It was so interesting for me to hear the voices mingling and competing from the different mosques around us. I am pretty glad that I slept through the morning 4:45 call. I am not sure i would have liked it as much this time around.

The biggest difference so far, though, has been the bathrooms.  I knew that I was in for a change when our hostess handed me a square of tissue, and told me to go into the left hand ones because they are the sit down ones, and not the squat ones. Then I went in and saw that everything was wet because of the sprayer that is used for personal hygiene, and for ablutions before the prayers. I still haven’t had to use a cold dipper shower. But that too will come with time. 

 Right now I am still at the stage where I can think, “cool, we’ll just adjust” to every new thing. Please pray for us because I know there is a time coming thatI will notice the differences, and just get annoyed.

I will work on getting pictures to illustrate what I am talking about. But I’ll post this for now. Check back later.

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