Jakarta

Very reluctantly I packed my bag to the last destination of the project, Indonesia! I heard volumes about the place, none of which motivated me towards the advent of the journey. If you have to do, you have to! This was one such trip, where I marched ahead because I had to. Having noted a couple of Indian eat outs, I decided not to roam around the place much. I reached the airport at 11:30AM. After getting the visa on arrival, I was wondering where the baggage chain is.. without realizing that I need to go through the immigration. The line for the immigration seemed endless. No wonder it took 2 hrs to finish the process and come out of the airport.

After a tough competition between the two parties, with my heavy eyes waiting to catch some sleep at one end and heaps of work at office not willing to let me rest at the other end, needless to say that the former lost the battle and I was at work by 3:00PM. But the war continued in the office and finally at 7:30PM it reached the yield point when the hunger in my stomach also aided my sleepy eyes. I walked across the street to a restaurant called "Ganesha", which is around 10 minutes walk from my office. Contrary to Singapore and Taiwan, this place is devoid of zebra crossing. I had to run past the junction to reach the other end safely. At the other end, there was a typical "awara" looking guy sitting on his bike and calling me towards him. I ignored him and reached the restaurant. I ordered a veg biryani and got it packed and set on my way back to the hotel so that I can relish my dinner taking my own sweet time.

At every 20 foot distance, there are a group of guys sitting on the bikes or standing next to them and trying to call me - 'hello miss!'. I ignored them all and walked as fast as I could to my hotel. It was a very different experience to have on the first day of your stay at any country. With all that I heard about this place, this wierd encounter made me dislike this place further. Had my veg biryani with various thoughts running in my head. I went to bed pretty early, giving the credit of the hard earned battle to my eyes.

Just like the popular news channels selling and reselling the same news again and again early in the morning till the viewers have it all in their heads word by word, I shared my experience with a few of my colleagues at office. One of them enlightened me - "Did u know something? Bikes are a mode of transportation here, just like the auto rickshaws in India. Those guys would have called you thinking you to be a prospective passenger to them - 90% probability. However, please dont go alone on the streets late in the night". Late in the night??? and 7:30 PM!! I was dumbstruck!