Briefs In Passing (Jogja)

Twenty three dollars per night buys you a large room, Queen bed, aircon, window & b/room. Cigarette stains atop the cistern, without the associated stench thankfully. No hand basin, though there is a mirror in the corner. Seven o'clock breakfast comprises an omelet, 2 bread slices, butter & teh on the little table outside the door just as the little hand reaches the top of the dial. Someone said they were slack and undependable in Indonesia. Not where the Sultan rules the roost. 
         Yudohonyo and his federal gang must defer to the local power on this territory, royalty fetching back to the time of Adam. Fine people at reception: Hotel Kristina on Jalan Dagen one hundred metres off Malioboro. Good wifi; bedbugs seem to have been frightened off by the north-easterly monsoon—mercifully little in evidence as yet.
         Lunch on day three was at a little cart on Dagen near the head of Malioboro: half-serve rice, vegies, tempe of some sort. Seemed to be meat free, though the transaction pleasurably fraught as usual. Almost 10,000 rupiah; fetching a dollar. Watching the woman serve the customers a little guffaw could not be suppressed. A spoonful here, there, clasps with the forefinger bringing it safely to plate.... Improved behaviour for the tall bule in the panama. 
         How they would be horrified in Singapura. Care with tap-water has been recommended.
         Trishaws with the fiacres on Malioboro and down in every side street. Corpse figures getting some shut-eye, smoking, chewing the cud with a pal. The Chinese straw rice-field head-cover common, many of them painted in impressively lurid colours. Plastic sheeting comes down over the paying guest in the rain. Older men rather than younger, most in fine physical shape. 
         Magnificent craniums. The kind of feature and expression that can stands for endurance, acceptance and resolve. Difficult to walk pass a single specimen without close scrutiny. One peddler particularly caught the eye traipsing back to Kristina after a spot of correction. In this case for his resourcefulness rather than the captivating visage. Dagen always congested. Usually easy enough to negotiate. However with traffic in either direction care is required, the trishaws needing to pull over regularly and watch for pedestrians. The Jalans were not built with the motor car in mind of course. To date there had been no example of the Singaporean kind where the high and mighty car driver careens across the path of peds with only the blaring of the horn to sound warning. Not to be risked in Indonesia this traveler would warrant. Still, some little tooting here and there, both on Malioboro and the side jalans. This particular afternoon the same in Dagen. In the hundred metres from Malioboro there would be perhaps forty hotels and guest-houses; tour buses at a couple of the larger establishments. Tinkling bells, little rubber trumpets as well as the light touch on the car horn. The chap pushing his trishaw in front this afternoon had rigged up something different. Hanging from beneath the larger wheel of his chain down in front of his pedals there was a little rusty tin-can laced with a string line. One heard the brassy rattle before laying eyes on the source. In the congestion a little kick of the foot on the downward cycle produced the warning to the vehicles and pedestrians ahead. Clutter, knock, bang. There exist old films of marriage wagons, fiacres indeed, rigged up in this same fashion racing into the happy future with tins rattling off the back axle as the credits roll. What more was needed?