I left my hotel and turned towards (what I thought) was the way out. A few twists and turns later, I pedaled out into traffic. Indonesia, like Thailand, is one of those places where they drive on the wrong side of the road. Fortunately, two and a half years in China had prepared me for just this moment because in China, they bike on the wrong side of the road, too. Only in Indonesia, I noticed, while they drive on the wrong side, they almost never drive on the right-hand side. They also wear helmets, by and large, and they also obey traffic signals, but I'm still not sure how they see them, because they do ride all up on them to the point of being, well, just beyond them.
The problem wasn't the pedaling, either. Yogya is a little hillier than Beijing, but I've been cycling a pretty constant 5k a day since August. And my bike was a 10-speed. No, it wasn't the left-hand thing or the hills, it was the motorbikes.
So, eight years ago might have been a great time to pedal around the city, but no longer. Now it was just another two-stroke engine fueled city.
After an hour, I figured out where I was (but not how I had gotten so lost, that would take two more days to decipher). I found town, but I neglected to stop at the electronics mall — even though as an Asian, I knew it was the electronics mall and would have what I needed. I have no excuse except that I was still mostly unsure of where I was. I was also looking for these supposed bicycle parking lots. (Turns out, they don't really exist any more. They are all motorbike parking lots, and they might let you leave a bike.)
So, I mostly road around all day. By the end of the day, my knees ached and I was done with the motorbike fumes. The next morning, I had the desk clerk call me a taksi.
- Do you really care this was posted using BlogPress from my iPad?
Location:Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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