To "Jog-jakarta"

Dazed from the day's travel, and approaching late evening, we stepped out of the plane and into the eager clutches of the overwhelming porter touts, hotel touts, taxi touts, and money changer touts.  Having decided that Indonesia held so much else to see, we would fend off everyone and head to the nearest cheap lodging.  As many superlatives I heaped on Changi airport in Singapore, apparently there were none to spare for our first and only night in Jakarta.  The hotel was cheap (15 bucks), did not look too scary from the outside, but the room was just plain nasty -- the only fitting description for the bugs, mosquitoes, sheets, walls, and bathroom. Forget the bed check, it was all there.  Steph was glad to have her sleepsack with her.  With the 4:30 AM prayer call sounding as if it was happening inside the room, I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or relieved...

In the morning we made a beeline to the domestic terminal for a flight to Yogyakarta, on the Southern part of central Java.  The plane looked like something from several decades ago, but we made it safely despite the jarring landing and funny rattling.  A bit more used to the customary welcoming party, we quickly hopped into a taxi towards the city center along Jl Malioboro, the main shopping drag.  We quickly took up a room in the first good hotel.

"Jogja" is smaller and slower then Jakarta, but on a saturday evening it feels like all of Indonesia's 220 million people and their motorbikes are squeezed into its streets and sidewalks.  Stall after stall offers up heaps of batik, belts, shirts -- all of it about the same. Look at something for more than a split second or walk anything but resolute and purposeful, and someone will quickly take it as an opportunity to show, sell, or convince.  There are way too many becaks, three-wheel bicycle taxis.  They take up virtually any empty curb space and in a day's walk you can easily be offered a ride 500 to 1000 times... "Becak, becak?"

At night, the dim incandescent bulbs of the many warungs (sidewalk food stalls) turn on.  The food looks great and the choices are overwhelming.  We sit down for mie goreng, rice, fried fish, and chicken sate.  It's nice, but we eat quickly as every street musician, cigarette vendor, and beggar seems to head our way.  Of course there is time for fresh chicken lumpia on the way back.