Tropical transport traumas

If there are two things in this world that wind up my husband, it's paying too much for transportation/parking and a meal without enough carbs (we'll come back to the carbs some other time - today is all about transport).

This normally patient, reasonable man pushes the boundaries of sanity when confronted with an issue of 'over-priced' transportation.  He brooded unhappily for hours (and still frequently re-lives) a traumatic parking experience in downtown Chicago. He actually did the math on how much a parking space at Bloomingdale's makes in a year (depressingly, it makes a lot - more than me if occupied nearly 24 hours a day 365 days a year).

There was the $7.00 taxi ride in Laos that threatened to destroy (and according to Ian, bankrupt) our entire holiday and there are the unwitting taxi drivers in KL that occasionally take him for a tourist and try to get him off the meter (insert here a long string of expletives in an English accent).  There's also the far-reaching conspiracy to make access to London's Heathrow airport cost the equivalent of a large diamond ring.

Over the years, we have probably saved upwards of $10 and lost nearly 20 hours of our lives over by taking a firm stand against corrupt transportation.

Then we went to Indonesia.

Now as I mentioned before Yogjakarta is a touristy town with touristy hassles.  Yogja has a complete over-abundance of becak drivers.  Becaks are the Indonesian of equivalent of the rickshaws and tuk-tuks that ply the streets throughout the rest of Asia.

 Becaks in Indonesia are typically un-motorized - they are almost always comprised of small carts attached to the front of a rusty old bike, pedaled by a poor, sinewy, sun-tanned man ranging anywhere from the age of 20-60.  Occasionally you may get one that is pulled by a horse.

 It's a thankless, hot job and with there being so many becaks, you'd think that competition would be fierce - and it is, when it comes to stalking and harassing tourists.  It's hot, you're tired, you relent.

Okay, okay to the kraton, how much then? 
20,000 rupiah.
You're joking.
No, 20,000.
No.
How about 10,000?
No.
Seriously?
No.

At this point I probably have to forcibly restrain Ian and drag him off down the street.  He mutters obscenities under his breath, I comment on how the exercise is good for us anyway.

No doubt you're now wondering, well how much is 20,000 rupiah?  It's a lousy $2.00.

But, let's put this into perspective.  A school teacher in Indonesia makes that much in a whole day of teaching - and this guy who has been having a siesta under a frangipani tree all morning wants that for 20 minutes work.

It's a tough call.  In local terms that ride should cost between $0.30-0.50 - so $2.00 is a hefty mark-up.  I'm usually pretty happy to pay a bit of a tourist premium, but more than quadruple is irritating my sense of fair play.  Also, I suppose with such an over-supply of becak drivers that these guys probably go without a single fare for a day or two at a time.

The thing that I find most surprising (and what Ian finds more irritating) is that they won't come down $1 - they'd still getting double to triple the amount they'd get on a local fare and aren't having any of it.

A few of these encounters put Ian off Yogjakarta entirely and nearly Indonesia as whole.

There was one insolent driver who dared take my husband for a fool and wanted $5! This was the straw that broke the camels back - Ian launched into a five minute diatribe on how it wouldn't even cost that much to go twice the distance in KL where everything is doubly expensive and in a real car, not a rickety old bike.

The man probably spoke less than 25 words of English, so I let it slide.  I'm also pretty sure he got the message.

Every time someone asks Ian about our trip it begins, 'Oh it was amazing, but . . . '

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For those you accessing this blog through the Register-Mail you can read more about my past exploits and adventures at www.wherecanigetadrink.blogspot.com.  You can also view my photos of Yogjakarta.

I welcome comments, questions, ideas and suggestions about this and future blog posts.

Indonesia: Yogjakarta

Continuing on with our Indonesian adventures, it's now time for a stop in the city of Yogjakarta - pronounced Jog-ja-karta and often shortened to just 'Jogja'. Despite its relatively small size at just under 400,000 people, Yogjakarta is without question the cultural epicentre of Java - and Indonesia as a whole, overwhelming even the capital city of Jakarta which is home to over 10 million people.

The best possible way to sum up Yogjakarta is that it's cool. It's young, it's trendy, there's fantastic public art, museums, street dancers, musicians and a thriving industry of both authentic and knock-off local arts and crafts (artistic attractions that are often in short supply in Muslim societies).

It's as set-up for tourists as anywhere in Indonesia (outside of Bali) which naturally brings with it all the hassle and annoyance of any touristy place.

You could spend weeks just getting dragged around batik shops (batik is an Indonesian/Malaysian art of painting cloth with odd pipe-like tools).  Most batik is dreadfully tacky and overpriced. Fall victim to a smooth-talking member of the batik mafia and you could find yourself back home with a skinny wallet and piece of cloth so ugly it's not even fit for displaying in the basement.

But learn to tune out the noise and Yogja is a rather special place.  It's clean (but not sterile), a wander down the less hectic residential lanes is as pleasant as a stroll around the neighbourhoods of Paris (if you can stand the heat).  Old men playing chess, kids flying kites, becak (tuk-tuk) drivers enjoying a mid-afternoon siesta and countless flowers in bloom set the scene.

The centre of the city is surrounded by run-down white walls within which lies the 'kraton' - the sultan's palace. The sultan still resides here and it has all the third-world, banana republic charm you would expect.  Thanks to a long colonial legacy, the palace is thoroughly European - and much like the colonial administrators must have done, you can visibly see the palace wilting in the tropical sun.   Baroque architecture and furniture were not made for the tropics.

The kraton is generally unimpressive, but the east meets west contradictions are thoroughly amusing.  The accompanying museum is mind-blowing.  Room, after room, after room of dusty cob-webbed furniture (European of course) chipped porcelain dolls, stained wine glasses and  . . . dirty oven mitts, sieves and cheese graters - some possibly dating back as far as 1975.

In all seriousness, this may have been the highlight of the trip.  Those cheese graters and sieves would be uninteresting if they had belonged to Elvis or the Queen of England - but the Sultan of Yogjakarta?  This is a public official so minor that I can't even remember his name.

I've been to a lot of crusty old museums all around the world (Russian museums in particular come to mind) but this was pretty special.  We giggled over it the rest of the afternoon.

More on Yogja in the next instalment - negotiating transportation and dodging food-poisoning.