Day 155 - Last day

This is my last day in Jakarta. Leaving on Singapore Airlines tonight at 8:15pm. Stop in Singapore and a 2:30am flight to Moscow. Refuel, change crews and then on to Houston. Here are some final images during my travels today.

 Front lobby of the Dharmawangsa. I was sitting waiting for my driver and the porter to retrieve my luggage.

This is the "restaurant" at lunch today. One more helping of Soto Ayam (chicken soup with rice.) The rice is kept in the large white container. The soup is out of sight but you can see the ladle.

And here it is. The custom is to ladle the soup onto the rice. Use a fork and a spoon.  The blue bowl contains chili sauce. I put one spoon in to spice up the soup. Quite good. Interesting, but I found that soda does not go well with most Indonesian fares (my normal Diet Coke or Coke Zero). I drank bottled water with most meals.

Leaving a Junior High School.

This is a cemetery we passed every day. Usually there were some young boys playing soccer. This afternoon the two ladies were walking along the road.

Riding side-saddle. Many use their motorbikes as a taxi service.

Lost in thought while walking.

This young lady was smiling at a friend passing on a motor bike.

Boys will be boys.

This is a common scene. Mom and her two kids. We saw up to four on a bike this trip and it's not uncommon to have 5 on a scooter at one time.

These girls were walking home from school.

This time a father with son and daughter.

This elderly lady caught my eye as she walked by.

This guy is compacting the trash as he collects it.  We saw several places where people make their living by sorting the trash and salvaging anything they can -- bottles, cans, paper and cardboard amongst notable items I could see. 

The blue colors caught my eye. As I recall she is stopping at a street vendor.

A food vendor washing dishes. Just clean water. I don't recall seeing soap or at least any suds that would make me think of soap. 

Talking on her cell phone while waiting for a bus. A passing motorbike almost obscured this image. I missed several good images from passing bikes. Just one of the hazards taking images while driving.  She is looking back at me with probably just as much curiosity about who I am as I capture this image.

Two of the poor I noticed on this route. Poor perhaps, but still a bright disposition. A good example for us all.

Some boys heading home from school.

Typical emissions output from the older city buses. It's not uncommon to see people wearing a mask or holding a hand over their face to help alleviate breathing some of these fumes.

A case in point. This young lady was holding her hand over her face just prior to my taking this image.

This woman was one of many beggars seen throughout Jakarta.

High rise apartments as seen on the way to the airport.

In stark contrast are these shanties with corrugated roofing along the waterway not far from the high rises. And this is one of the nicer ones.

It was hard to capture an image through the guard rails of the freeways, but you can just make out one of the humbler abodes.  I remember seeing these along the river for my first time in 2001. Sure, I'd seen things like this on TV, but when you see it with your own eyes it is quite humbling. It's hard to imaging, but these people eke out an existence and do survive. It gives me new meaning to the homage of "helping the poor and needy".

Sign on a handicapped elevator as we would call it. This at the Jakarta airport.

This is the airport in Singapore. It is really just a massive mall with restaurants and a small transit hotel.  Just about anything you could want at a mall you will find here. This is just a small portion.

This is in the Moscow airport during my short layover.  You can't see much. I just liked the profiles against the window pane.