31 Days In Jakarta Day 5
(Miss D is a brilliant writer and she contributes to this blog every now and then. No, we do not pay her to do so, if you ask. She does it for the fun of it. So here she goes. Happy reading!)
Happy Friday, everyone. Hope you enjoy my first post on MidNightVisitor. There will be many more to come. I am looking forward to meeting you here.
During our stay in Jakarta, the D family has found lots of peculiar things. And here’s a list of them…
1) There are no dishwashers!
No matter how hard we tried, we can’t find any dishwashers! We tried every possible store we could find, but nothing. All there was, was washing machines, microwaves, vacuum machines, TVs… anything electronically possible. But no dishwashers! Now we regret not taking our dishwasher to Jakarta…
Why they don’t sell dishwashers in Jakarta? Well, we figured out but that’s just us. Do you know?
2) No lawn mowers!
Do you know what people use to cut the grass? Scissors! Yes scissors. Or any hacking tool in this case. Just take a knife from the kitchen and hack away!
(Gardener with edge trimmer)
Occasionally, we do see gardeners use Edge Trimmers, but guess what, they use that to mow the entire lawn, not just the edges!
3) No toilet paper! (Eww…)
Well, of course in the shopping malls there is toilet paper, but in more local places or sometimes in tourist areas, THERE IS NO TOILET PAPER! And further, you have to pay Rp 1000 (about US 10 cents) just to pee!
4) No bus stops!
Well, this isn’t actually true… Technically, there are bus stops, and proper ones too. But sometimes people are just running a little late or need to catch a ride, so… the bus stops in the middle of the road! In fact the bus drivers welcome people to catch the buses in the middle of the road (mainly to earn the ticket fare)!
Absurd, right?
(Jakarta bus, the door is always open, and it stops in the middle of the road whenever someone wants to take a ride)
If you think this is absurd, then wait till you see all the vendors with their toys, water bottles, newspapers, magazines, snacks amid all these traffic chaos.
Yes, here in Jakarta people inside their cars can stop and buy from these vendors while waiting for traffic lights. What a wonderful service!
(Accessories seller on Jakarta street)
(Man selling snacks in middle of Jakarta road)
5) Jumpers and Jackets
You might think, 30 degrees, who would want to wear a coat? Wrong. In Jakarta the average temperature is around 30 degrees (all year round). And people still wear coats!
Hmm… interesting, would you wear a winter coat in 30 degrees weather?
(Motorist in brown winter coat in 30 degree sun)
(Family of 4 on one motorbike, this is quite normal here.)
(Motorist with mask, also normal street scene)
There are heaps more fascinating things about Jakarta. Perhaps one day, we might increase this list. Stay tuned.
What is interesting about your country or city? We would love to know! Just send in a short comment or email. Thx. Miss D 😀
Midnight Visitor 
I’m loving this.
I’ve wanted to visit Indonesia, these kind of things do not discourage me, a friend of mine was there for a month attending a Yoga conference, he loved the place, he described as chaotic but you learn to love it.
Thanks for sharing.
Thx. Glad you enjoy the read. We love Jakarta. The people here are so nice!
Thanks for visiting my site. This was interesting. I’m glad I visited you. I’ll be following.
Welcome to Jakarta 🙂
Thx, stellycious. Nice meeting you!
Hi! I wanted to thank you for visiting my blog. I’m loving your 31 days series. It is very interesting!
Thx, Adriane.
They probably don’t have dishwashers because everyone tends to have a maid to wash them. That’s how it is in Hong Kong and Singapore, makes sense that it is that way in Jakarta.
That’s what we thought. No need for a dishwasher here for sure.
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Very Interesting! I just moved from Ontario, Canada to Kansas, USA, and i thought we had a few interesting differences… but nothing like that! ha ha
Makes life interesting though 🙂
Would love to see what the interesting differences you find, Mary. Jakarta is a totally different beast! Life is indeed interesting here…:D
Wow, I love this post! I once cut my own lawn with a pair of scissors, I was living for a month in mexico and I didn’t have any tools at all, so I decided to give it a shot since the lawn was only about 2m x 2m. Let me tell you, I should have asked a neighbor to borrow a lawnmower, becuase it took me an hour!!!
Hi, Christiana,
You had really done this? Cutting the grass with scissors? That takes forever! No joking. 2m x 2m is huge once you start scissoring it!
We were totally stunned when we first saw how people (gardeners) do their lawns here.
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