In Reply to: a indo story (long) posted by Allan on Sunday, 23. November 2008 at 20:10 Bali Time:
I lived with my indonesian wife in a rental property at Bintaro, Jakarta for a few months, helping her run a shipping business.
Jakarta, being indonesias largest City, it is absolute CrAzY ! Millions upon Millions of people and the traffic, traffic jams etc. can be Chaos !
Bali and other smaller rural towns and villages through Java etc. are a paradise compared to JKT, apart from the bright lights, huge mega shopping malls, I did not like it much.
Imagine me, a big size foreigner guy, about 6'2" tall riding on the back of my wifes little scooter, she's very small.....me hanging on for "Dear Life" OMG I must have sweared a lifetime of swear words and "Hail Marys !" when riding with her dodging through the peek hour traffic in Jakarta for the ride home about 1 hour away from JKT CBD !
I've had a horror ride with a JKT taxi too, from the airport to Bintaro, I speak limited indo. but even had our home address written etc. for him. The taxi ride usually takes less than 1 hour, but this time he got lost (maybe on purpose to get a higher fare?).
I called my wife on the cellphone for her to explain to him, but later after 2 hours the batteries were flat on my phone, and he did not get me home until about 3 hours driving all over Jakarta !
Geesh ! I was so mad with him !
Think I ended up having to pay him about 300,000 Rp !
My mom passed away whilst I was there so we had to quickly return to Aussie, and that was my wifes 1st trip to Australia, she liked it here and has made Aussie here home now.
When back in JKT a few months later organizing spouse and work visa for my wife, guess what....we went to the Australian Embassy in the afternoon and the following day was when it was BOMBED ! So lucky we went the day we did !
I have another story about being in a traditional wedding group, where a Aussie guy married a muslim indo girl, friends of ours.
I'll post that later if anyones interested.
Cheers.