Jacque in Jakarta: The perils for pedestrians

As promised in a previous post, I am now going to address one of the "cultural quirks" about life in Jakarta: Pedestrianism. Or, to put it more bluntly, the lack of access for those who wish to be a pedestrian. Not only are there not proper sidewalks, i.e. flat, even surfaces for people to walk, there are additional hazards such as motorbikes and floods that prevent people from walking even the shortest of distances.

Since arriving in Jakarta less than four months ago, I have purchased three pairs of shoes. First let me say that I'm not much of a shoe horse. Although I have thirty pairs of shoes waiting for me back in Arkansas, those shoes have been accumulated over the course of about fifteen years and the majority have been given to me by my grandmother. I hold firmly to the belief that if I keep them long enough they will eventually come back into style. So for me to purchase more than one pair of shoes in ninety days, I assure you there is a good reason.

The first two pair that I bought were on a two for one sale. Ask most anybody who knows me and they'll assure you I'm a sucker for a good sale. Thus, I had no choice but to purchase two pair. I assumed they would get me through my entire year hear in Jakarta. Well, you know what they say about assume. After about six short weeks, one pair of shoes had broken....in half.....from the sidewalk. Merely walking on the Jakarta pavements caused a pair of shoes to fall apart. Therefore, my husband forced me to the shoe store to buy another, more proper pair of shoes for this environment. If only the uneven, broken, damaged sidewalks were my only concern, then I might still hazard a stroll down the road.

However, there are also the motorbikes. Lots of motorbikes. They don't follow the so-called rules of the road, and I'm increasingly doubting Jakarta even has rules of the road. People don't seem to stay in lanes when they're driving, and I have yet to even see proper lines down the road to mark lanes. But the motorbikes seem to even have different "non-rules" as compared to the automobiles. Motorbikes don't always stop at red lights, they drive down the wrong side of the road, and sometimes they even come up onto the sidewalks. There is no safe place from the motorbikes.

And last, but certainly not least, the rainy season. Not rain as in a miserable British summer. Rain as in torrential monsoon downpours. Add that to the ever increasing litter problem and you get floods. Monstrous, jaw-dropping, see-it-to-believe-it floods. And since a picture says a thousand words, let me say no more than this:

This is what it's like to be a pedestrian in Jakarta