What to do when your Taksi driver removes his glasses to eat fried rice.

Oh, wait.  That was supposed to be a question.  What do you do if your taksi driver removes his glasses to eat fried rice?  On a busy highway?  Without a fork?  I just sat there and hoped he understood my directions.

I was going to write a post about money, but my ride home made me change my mind.  See, I’ve been having some difficulties getting home.  Going to work is never a problem.  I walk about 3 blocks to the nearest major intersection, passing an alley full of food stalls and lines of ojeks (motorbikes).  The ojek drivers call out to me, asking if I need a ride, and I just smile and yell “Hallo!” back to them.  NO WAY IN HELL am I getting on the back of one of those death-traps, with or without a helmet.  Granted, the traffic probably never exceeds 30 mph, even with the ojek weaving between lanes, and traffic accidents are very rare in Jakarta (which amazes me, considering that Jakartan drivers squeeze an extra lane or two out of just about any road and considering that traffic lights are non-existent), but I can’t get past the idea.  I’ve read a few ex-pat blogs where the writer swears by his or her personal ojek driver.  I’ll pay the extra fifty cents for a taksi.

So anyway, I walk to the nearest major intersection.  Here, in lieu of a traffic light, you will find a teenager directing traffic.  Seriously.  In exchange for about ten cents, he will literally stop three lanes of traffic to hail you a cab.  He’ll do it for nothing, actually, but the ten cents goes a long way in traffic karma.  The only cabs you should trust are Bluebird (blue in color) and Express (white in color).  This morning, I made the mistake of simply accepting a blue cab, and I realized about halfway to work that it was not a Bluebird, only blue in color, by noticing the way the meter jumped randomly. Bluebird drivers will never ask you to go “off meter,” and the charges are based on mileage rather than time (which goes a long way in crazy Jakarta traffic).

There are two major differences between the ride to work and the ride home.  First is the cost.  A ride to the Mall takes between 5 and 25 minutes, but the price will only be about $1.20 because the ride is only 1.2 km.  The ride home takes between 20 and 30 minutes, and because of the road design, is 5.8 km or $3.00.

The second and more annoying difference between the ride to work and the ride home is the directions.  The ride to work is easy.  I get into the cab, say “Mal Taman Anggrek, silakahn,” and away we go.  Once we get to the mall’s entrance, we pull into a security stall, the driver pops the trunk, and a guard checks for God-knows-what.  After that, I say “Matahari!” and point to the department store entrance because this cuts about 5 minutes off of waiting in line at the entrance.  The driver crosses three lanes of traffic without a light, and Bob’s your uncle.

The way home, on the other hand, is a beast in itself.  I’ve had a printout of my address to show drivers, but many drivers look at the address, shake their heads, and then drive off.  I have to approach an average of 4 drivers before one will shake his head but still give me a ride.  Last night, my driver explained that the address is written wrong.  He explained what I should write, but he explained in Bahasa, so I have no idea what he said.  I am nothing if not innovative, however, so today at work, I went on Google Maps, printed the route map very large, and wrote the address as it appeared on my Kost’s webpage.  Ingenious, right?  Yeah, except for that my driver looked at my map and then looked at me, and then back at my map, and then back at me. 

He didn’t know how to read a map.

He pulled over a total of three times during the trip to look at my map and scratch his head, and I kept pointing at the main road, repeating, “Tomang Raya,” and saying “maaf” (sorry) when he would ask me questions.  He pulled over to ask questions, mind you, but he did not pull over to reach over to the passenger-side glove-box (which is the left-side, by the way), take out his rice, remove his glasses, and begin chowing down.

Luckily, I was able to convey the name of the large road by my Kost, and once there, I was able to point the directions home. 

Well, that’s my taksi post.  Any suggestions for a future post?