Nerves of Steel

Yogjakarta is by and large a pleasant city. The people are friendly, the pollution is manageable, and the pace of life slow. While there are traffic jams during the peak hours, traffic does not grind to a standstill like in Jakarta.

However, outside of downtown, Yogja, including Jeremiah's neighbourhood, is not easy to traverse on foot. First, there are usually limited pavements to begin with and pedestrians often have to jostle for space on the road with cars and motorbikes.

Second, there are limited traffic crossings and utilizing them is not for the faint-hearted. Pedestrians have no right of way at junctions even if the lights are in their favour. While crossing, pedestrians would have to constantly watch out for vehicles turning left; even if the lights are red, vehicles can still turn left. One would require either nerves of steel or sufficient acclimatisation to make the leap of faith that the vehicles turning left have seen you and would take reasonable care to slow down.

Taking the next least costly mode of transport, i.e. the trishaw (becak), is not exactly smooth on the nerves either. The photo above was taken while Jeremiah was in a becak. It seems ok, except Jeremiah was travelling against the flow of traffic on a one-way artery where vehicles were going at over 60 km/h.

Jeremiah recalls the "solo walks" he used to do when he was a police cadet. Such walks were supposed to make the cadets bolder. Perhaps a better form of training would be to traverse Jeremiah's neighbourhood on foot.