How to enjoy #Gojek in #Jakarta!

How to enjoy #Gojek in #Jakarta!

On the sixth day of my stay in Jakarta I decided to go to the #Freedom Library because I’ve heard the building is nice to see. I checked the map to see if I can go there by bus or taxi but it was already 10 in the morning and this means, you would stuck in heavy traffic for more than an hour on the main streets of the city. The traffic would start from 9 in the morning to 2 or 3 pm and then starts again at 3 in the afternoon till 10 pm. I tried to think of other ways to get my self to the interesting library and the Gojek (the #motorbike) came to my mind! To get one all you need to do is to download the application called gojek and order a motorbike by locating the starting point. They usually come very fast and ride even faster! The price also is way cheaper than getting a taxi (around 1 AUD to 5 AUD, no matter how long the distance is but taxi fares starts from 7AUD). So I ordered one and waited for it to come. While standing by the street in front of the 7 Eleven shop I started counting the motorbikes passing on the street, and at the same time hoping that the bigger and newer one would be the one taking me! I couldn’t keep on with the counting, cause there were a lot of them passing by at the same time in a row (as if they are setting off for a speed motor racing) but I continued wishing for the best of them to take me to the library.

After 15 minutes a noisy old black and red Yamaha was coming closer to the sidewalk, the driver was looking around in search of something. I just guessed that it would be him and waved my hand. He approached me asking “Eli?” with a smile. I thought to myself “great! he knows English” (An #Indonesian friend has told me the gojek drivers can’t speak English at all). So I happily said hi and hopped on the motorbike. He started to talk in  Indonesian spoken language (called #bahasa) of what, I had no clue, I showed him the side of the street and repeatedly said “park, park”, he did park and we tried to communicate; moving hands in the air, pointing to ambiguous directions with the head and eyes and finally pointing to the address on the Google map application on my smart phone. The driver looked puzzled he sighed and took his phone out of his pocket, it was a blue Samsung, he asked me to put the address in his Google map so we can get to the library. He sighed again while activating the “data” on his mobile phone; perhaps he didn’t want to use up the data. I didn’t have enough data but I showed him my phone and said “on my phone”, he smiled again and sat on the motorbike. Finally after 10 minutes the journey started from the National archive library to Freedom library in #Tugu Proklimasi (Proclamation monument). I have never had a slightest idea how it is to ride a motorbike.


My driver was so skilled specially in skipping the traffic lights and also when we were stuck in the traffic jam. He sneaked through the cars in traffic jam and tailgated with the #mini-buses just to get me to the library as fast as he could, even without me asking him to! At some points when he wanted to pass a car at a U-turn, he would get so close to the right side of the car and then kicked his left food to the front door of the car stop the car fro making a turn, then speeded up and made the turn. I felt my knee would feel the street ground or slide along the cars’ doors. 

I closed my eyes at times like this and screamed in his very ears, then he would laugh hard and repeated something in Indonesian which sounded like: “kmamanj”! When we had to stop at a big junction (that rarely happened because he took short cuts from narrow allies to avoid stopping at the lights!) he would turn his head backward as far as I can hear him saying the same word as above, and all I could do was smiling and nodding my head up and down (I have no idea why)! 

But I do know that I was so scared that I put my hands around his waist and when I felt we are crashing into cars and other bikers I subconsciously pushed my nails as hard as possible into his sides screaming “slow, slow” and he would laugh aloud and ride even faster than before. As my head was down I opened my eyes and realised we were on the “khusus bus” area (only buses) there was a huge bus behind us trying to get through no matter what. Again screaming was the only thing I could do, I even thought of jumping off the bike to the bus stop, but miraculously he managed to get out of the bus zone at a where the curb separating the bus zone and the rest part of the street, was damaged. I turned my head back to see how far we are from the bus and started to smile triumphantly as if we won the race, I honestly had this hidden feeling of joy that “we made it”. But then I realised I didn’t even look around the streets, sidewalks and other drivers from the moment I got on the bike. At that moment I had this paradoxical feeling of being scared and at the same time excited to be so close to other motorbike drivers, cars and the pedestrians. As I was looking around I saw a scooter riding very close to us. There were a lot of stickers and some initials sprayed all over the left side of the scooter (like a #graffiti design), the girl rider seemed so cool, She was in a long black dress with a placket on the side and a jean jacket, there was something like a chain floating from her left boot (I couldn’t see her other side), and she had her guitar at her back. I thought to myself it must be hard riding a scooter holding your heavy instrument while everyone is gazing at your skirt Placket. On our left side there was a huge (nice!) white and blue motorbike with a big Suzuki logo on the bottom of the right side. There was a little girl in front of the driver without wearing any protective clothes on and another girl at his back in her school uniform, she looked 10 and was singing in Indonesian. When our eyes met she waved hand for me shouting something in Indonesian, I just smiled at her and waved back.

The most interesting motorbike driver was a lady in front of us that we could catch up with her at the traffic light, she wasn’t wearing a helmet, and her motorbike was so old and shabby. It looked like one of those rusty motorbikes left from the 1970s. She had small long eyes, her face was so small, I could see some wrinkles around her right eye and also around her cheek, she looked more than 40. But in the colourful floral long traditional Indonesian dress with a bright pink scarf worn loosely on the head, she seemed as lively and energetic as a 20 year old would be. She was also wearing purple pants underneath the dress and yellow #clogs (Indonesian traditional shoes). The lady was talking on the phone so loudly that almost everyone around us was looking at her, I tried to ask my Gojek driver what she is talking about but as expected we couldn’t even start the conversation! There were boxes tightly fastened by rope on the back of the motorbike as if she is delivering mails and boxes. There was also a small basket in front of her that she has fixed it rightly with some plastic wires in the middle of the two handles bellow the bike’s horn. I could see a sandwich wrapped with wrapping rolls and a bottle of water next to it, there were also some papers and an open booklet like a receipt book piling up in the basket. The interesting thing about this lady was that she has put two small speakers on the two sides of the basket connected to a small mp3 like device hung on in front of the basket. The sound of #Azan (to summon Muslims to do their prayers) from the speakers was as loud as her voice on the phone. It is a great pity that I was too scared to let go of my hands from the drivers’ waist to take a photo of this interesting lady and other many motorbike and scooter drivers on the streets.

    

We arrived at the library after 30 minutes of breathless motorbike riding which could have taken me around two hours by bus or taxi. I paid him 5 AUD and he was smiling at me repeating, “Photo miss photo miss”. I liked how friendly he was and even though we couldn’t communicate verbally we managed to use body language or even Google the thing we wanted to say and tried to use online translation websites. This is how I could understand how much I should pay. We took a picture together but he didn’t want his motorbike to be in picture! I found the time suitable and tried to ask him what the word was that he kept saying while we were on the way, finally with a help of a taxi driver who could understand English a little, he remembered the word: Anak Manja meaning you are spoiled!

After this amazing, terribly frightening ride, I realised how fun it could be to ride a motorbike on busy streets, sliding between cars, buses and people, in your own traffic rules: just ride until you literally can’t. But definitely the fun part was only for me cause riding a motorbike for a person living in Jakarta means a lot more than that. It is a part-time or full time job for the gojek drivers, the cheapest and fastest means of transportation for people who don’t like to stuck in heavy #traffic jams on the way to work in the morning and on the way back home in the afternoon, they don’t even need to worry about finding a parking lot because they park at any spot that’s empty. And also it is an #economical way to #transport small packages and letters with a lower fare and in a shorter amount of time compared to transporting companies. Riding a motorbike is also very economical for students and employees with low incomes for they don’t need to worry about the commuting fares at all. In general #scooters and motorbikes for everyday people (similarly for both males and females) residing in Jakarta are the most economical, fastest and convenient means of making money and transportation.

The Gojek driver and me