Wednesday Walk- Racing Against Thunderstorm

Starting with a local common knowledge, Indonesian cities are not pedestrian friendly. When you travel across the country, especially in the city, there are less people walking and as far as your eyes can see, there are only motorbikes or cars. Walking around in most places is strange and there are only a few spots that are catered for walking such as parks or famous landmarks. People would prefer to use various online transportation, use their own motorbikes or cars. Somehow walking doesn't really have its place in Indonesian modern culture. I personally love walking and this has troubled some of my family and friends. They often give up when I prefer to walk for 2KM rather than taking motorbikes or any traditional vehicle. There are many times when I got honked at by impatient drivers, catcalled, and splashed on, especially during rainy days. I think those who like to walk have also shared a fair share of these problems especially when they live an urban life. That's why I rarely walk around and post about it because there's nothing interesting to see as it's mostly stores with disorganized wires. The only way to get some nice walk is either visiting a village or a part of the tourist area where the landmarks are around and is catered to actually be pedestrian friendly.

Today, I decided to take a short walk around Malioboro street. It's my favorite area in town because it's lively, vibrant and people are walking to get to places. It does not matter how many times I walk through or visited the place, it never bores me. There are fun things to look at or just interaction to see. Like the other time, I stumbled on a carnival fashion parade. This time though, just right after I got out from Starbucks and walked around, I noticed a group of young indonesians. They are tourist who probably come to the city for school tour or some sort. Then, two white guys were walking past them. Then, a girl talking to her friends in local language, " run after them just say take photo, take photo". Those guys definitely walk faster and completely ignored those young groups. I thought in 2022 I would never see this anymore but apparently, such thing still exist. In the past, it was much more common for such occurrences. Sometimes if you go to an English course,they'd ask you to interview random foreigners just to ask how Indonesia is. Obviously their answers were often good. So, you see it's fun to just walk around this part of town where you can meet all sorts of people from all over the world and witness some interesting interaction.

After the walk, I noticed a dark cloud coming from the north. I immediately booked an online bike and hoped that I would stay dry until reaching home. But I was wrong. In the middle of the ride the rain started pouring down. It wasn't the usual downpour but a thunderstorm.

The wind blows from north to south making it a dangerous ride as we ride to the north from the south. The road was foggy and even trees were swaying back and forth. In some areas that we passed through flooding was inevitable. It was somehow a dangerous ride as at any time, any trees could have fallen. I made it home safely, somewhat drenched and cold. Then I found that electricity was cut off while at the same time, a part of my bag was soaked. Thankfully though, some of my electronics are safe except my laptop charger which was worrying as some droplets got inside of it. I immediately ordered a replacement and had it delivered right away. In the end, I still had to deal with my bags and waited for hours just before the electricity was back on.