Lickable Wallpaper

So after absolutely loving Hong kong and wishing we had more time there, we landed in Jakarta on Monday night and I got a bit fat dose of the Western guilts! We had read in the Loney Planet that we should go to our hotel with the reliable Blubird taxi company, so we had our eyes peeled for the ‘Bluebird’ signs as we left the airport, only to be greeted by countless non-Bluebird taxi men all offering their services. We started with the ‘”No, thank you’s” as we looked for, and found, the Bluebird queue – it was the line of white people headed by a smart looking man in a suit. I was wondering if they had all read the lonely planet too or what was the story. The Lonely Planet has a lot of power. It seemed really unfair that most of those taxi men were finding it hard to get customers, when probably 99.9% of them are decent self-employed men and not trying to kidnap you or anything. But once the seed of fear is planted, it feels too risky to take a chance. So we headed off in the fancy (by local standards) car owned by some big company in search of our hotel which had not actually held our room! Anyway, we didn’t spend long in Jakarta, just found another hotel and the next morning we boarded the train to Yogyakarta.