the battered blue bus

unbelievable noise, movement, cars, motorcycles, pedestrians, buses and many other vehicles, nothing can compare with the traffic of Jakarta!

I had heard it was busy and chaotic but it was even more so than I thought.

The video clip is just a sample taken outside our hotel on Tuesday morning. 

There was much I could have taken but I was so engrossed in watching the mayhem 

that I didn't capture the most scariest of all and that was of 

the Blue Battered Bus. 

I have no idea what they are 'officially' called, this is just my name for them!

 

 if you look closely at these images taken from the passenger seat in the cab, you can see these blue buses on the left and in the image below there is one in the centre of the road.

Within seconds of me taking this photo, that bus had stopped and let three women off, right in the centre lane amongst this traffic!

 

the local people - and this includes school children - wave them down and the bus slows down for them to jump on or off. These blue vans have no designated 'bus stop' as they just freelance around the town. I can only assume there is some sort of control over them as they all have a number on the back.

There is a young man standing in the 'doorway' of the van and he takes the money, when it needs to stop he just waves his arm out at the traffic, no one stops and they don't seem to slow down ..... it is more of a precautionary 'sign' that there are pedestrians on the roadway!

The local people are not in the slightest bit fazed about this form of transport or the way it operates, it is orderly and efficient for them and because of that, it works!

I have also seen red ones. What the difference is (apart from colour) I do not know as they are just as battered as the blue ones!

 

am sure to post more blogs about the traffic of Jakarta, so stay tuned for more mayhem.

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