Blue Birds of Paradise

Blue Birds of Paradise

Well, we're deep into Ramadhan now and all seems pretty
peaceful after the bombers' violent prologue. The FPI (Islamic
Defenders Front) have been up to their old tricks to a certain
extent although, interestingly, local people finding themselves
under the FPI cosh seem to be fighting back this time around.

Two other clouds on the horizon though, threatening to dampen
people's holiday spirits, are the price hikes and spiraling
inflation. The latest increases this week were implemented by
Jakarta's taxis, the second fare hike this year, and apparently
people are deserting the city's cabs in droves, no longer able to
afford them. A recent ride I took from Blok M to Kota cost me
over Rp 50,000 and that was at night when there was little
traffic.

Jakarta's cab drivers are generally nice chaps a recent,
rather belligerent anti-cabbie opinion peace on the front page of
the Sunday Post notwithstanding. They will usually chat happily
with you, giving you a good opportunity to practice your bahasa.
They also seem generally to know where they are going and won't
usually rip you off. Note, I used the words "generally" and
"usually". In addition, they're often willing to wait for you for
simply ages while you get dressed, down another ten beers, go
shopping or finish retiling the mandi.

Personable fellows the city's cabbies may usually be, however,
the condition of their cabs and often the drivers themselves can
sometimes leave room for improvement. Many of the taxis are not
particularly well-maintained and when this is combined with the
fact that most of these old cabs have driven the equivalent of
the distance to the moon and back since rolling off the
production line, safety can be compromised.

I was driven down Sudirman one rainy night in a taxi with
wrecked suspension and threadbare tires and we ended up doing a
360-degree spin in the fast lane before coming to rest on the
central reservation, thankfully without injury to either myself
or the driver. On another occasion, a drowsy driver drove me into
the back of the car in front after nodding off at the wheel
momentarily. These guys deserve our sympathy on the whole though.
My lethargic driver had probably just put in an 84-hour non-stop
shift in order to make ends meet. I guess it's these long shifts,
in combination with broken ACs, that also account for the
appalling, eye-stinging body odor that taxi drivers
intermittently have here.

I knew a Westerner here who once took pity on the driver he
had decided to keep for the whole night and took him into the
nightclubs and bars that he was cruising around as well as buying
him a few drinks. Apparently he had a wail of a time.
Occasionally, as a solo Western male in a taxi at night, you come
across a driver-come-pimp who will talk dirty to you and offer
you girls. Something along the lines of, "Mr, you looking woman,
you want the woman? I take you woman yes?" I shudder to think
what strange fate would befall someone who ever took up one of
these Blue Bird Mac Daddies on their kind offers. I have visions
of clucking chickens scattering everywhere in some far-flung
suburb while a white man in his underpants is chased down the
road by angry locals.

There are unquestionably a few bad apples at the bottom of the
cab driver barrel of course and stories continue to filter
through of people (mainly women) being robbed at knifepoint by
criminal drivers and their gangs. Recently, police have been
looking for a gang of who have been painting and modifying
ordinary cars to make them look like genuine taxis and then using
them to pick up and rob passengers. The only con trick that I've
experienced in a Jakarta cab, other than the ones that have
meters which gallop like Olympic stopwatches, is the driver who
turns around about five seconds after you've paid him claiming
that you haven't paid him enough. He then shows you a Rp 5000
note when you were sure that you gave him a Rp 20,000 note. Of
course, the crafty devil has switched notes and you can never be
100 percent sure that you didn't give him the Rp 5000 instead of
the Rp 20,000. You can never be sure... unless, of course, the
driver tries the same trick twice on the same fare: switching
notes a second time and claiming that you still haven't paid him
enough. When a driver was stupid enough to try this one on me one
time I twigged what was going on and told the cheeky swine to get
stuffed. I should have kicked his ass all the way back to the
depot. -- Simon Pitchforth