Monday, 9Oct06

Highlights: discovering the bus system, forgot today was a holiday, more work

I was all excited to get into the embassy today & send out some e-mails from my official state.gov e-mail (the one I’ve never used yet), so I can communicate with the admin folks & my DC boss back home FINALLY! And what do you know! It’s Columbus day! Ah man… nobody home. =/

The trip wasn’t a complete waste. It did take nearly 2 hours,,, but in the process I figured out the city bus system a bit. For 20cents (2,000 Rp), I can take a green city bus as far as it will go… Blok M (in the direction I want)… then 35cents (3,500 Rp) gets me on the bigger TransJakarta bus, which will take me the rest of the way to the national monument (monas).

If you don’t mind doubling the time to get there, you can get across town for 1/10th the cost of a taxi ride. $5 down to 55 cents! Works for me! I wasn’t expecting to turn right around & go back the same way- but it was a worthwhile discovery. I’m working on a budget here.

a few interesting things about the bus… driving consoles are optional. (= ha ha. Convenient for water bottle storage!