I mentioned in an earlier post that Beth suggested I should shoot some video of what it’s like walking down the street here in Jakarta. There’s no way I could describe the mayhem in words. So I shot some footage with my GoPro camera, just holding it in my hand. I hope you watch the video and you’ll see what it’s like.
Also, even though the last one is a major street for this neighborhood, it’s not major in overall Jakarta. It only has (in theory) one lane in each direction, which means most of the time there are only two cars, three or four motorcycles, and two pedestrians abreast on the roadway. Also, believe it or not, traffic is actually pretty light at this time of day.
Street naming is wacky here. They name all the streets in an area the same thing, and then number them to differentiate them. If there are two that have the same number, then they add a letter to the end to differentiate them. I have no idea how taxi drivers can figure any of it out. The video starts with us walking down Jl. Bangka XI A, and then we turn right onto Jl. Bangka XI, and then turn left onto Jl. Bangka Raya.
Squeeze and walk single file.