In and Out

Some days ago I went on a road trip – an inner city road trip though. From my place in Grogol, West Jakarta, to Utan Kayu, East Jakarta, and back it took me more than six hours. And only to pick up a book – On Photography by Susan Sontag (on my way back I finished half the book). Heavy rains were pouring down. Motor cyclists were seeking shelter under flyovers, leaving only a single lane for cars and buses, causing major congestion all around this mega city. The good thing of traveling by bus is that there is always live music and many kinds of snacks and drinks available. Often I am warned against taking the bus, supposedly because of the many pickpockets, so far so good I must say (and I feel safer here than in Amsterdam). And the funny thing is that the ones who warn me do actually not use public transportation (and they make it sound like as if all poor can be thieves, that being poor is already considered an immorality, because in a meritocratic society everyone is supposed to have an equal chance to become rich, the rich want that their wealth is justified gathered through hard labor and being poor is then due idleness).