Cabbies

I was really skeptical about taking cab by myself today in Jakarta. Well, my dear colleagues had left for Bandung and all flights to SG on fri were full (everyone rushing home to vote i presume, but din they know that they can vote in 8 major cities around the world, though i am not sure Jkt is 1 of them. I din need to vote, so i hadn't bothered to checked it). I had heard alot of stories abt cabbies in Jkt. They love to bring you for rides because the tollway can be very confusing if you hadn't been there long enough, Basically, it is a circle loop that surrounds the city centre, with branches of roads connecting to the main circle to go to other parts of jkt. So theoretically, you can go to airport in either directions.
With my big luggage, i went down the apartment to get my cab. Darn... no blue birds or silver birds (anyone will tell you they are the most reliable cabs around). Only Gamba. I stood around for a while before a cabbie approaches me. "Selemat Pagi" "Airport" "Ma Kah Si". 3 words to let him know where I am going. With such a big luggage, where else can i be going?
hmm.. he took a different direction than the usual route tt my colleague take. But I am not abt to let him know I am tt foreign to the place. Usually I can pass off as a local, IF i dun talk too much.
I paid the toll, RUP 10k for 2 tolls. okies. at least he knows that I know how much is the toll. I am not some "cai tou".
After going up the toll and travelling for abt 20 min (no jam in the mornings, but i had to leave the apt 2 1/2 hrs earlier to be sure. I HATE THE JAMS on the tollway) before i finally see some road signs that reads "Suekarno Hatta". =) (tt's the name of the airport in case u dunno, named after the 1st president and 1st vice president of Indonesia)
Honest driver. So i tipped him abt RUP 5k tt's only abt a dollar.
What is interesting is that at the tolls (got to past 2 tolls), i saw that he got some change from the cashier (its abt a couple of hundreds, which is just abt a few cents). In thailand, the taxi driver will always return me all the change, no matter how little, but the Indo driver simply keeps quiet abt it. Well, not tt i am particular abt the few cents, but it just speaks abt the general population in Indo. Not tt they r dishonest, but rather, tips and all is just part of their daily life.
If u ever park you car in Indo, DO rem to tip the guy tt finds u a lot or who gives u direction on how to park your car. In bkk, you dun have to do tt. I was adoing some mental calculation. Imagine this guy gets abt 1k per car. ALl he has to do is to get abt 100 cars a day and he'll be earning 3mil a month. That's abt what an engineer is paid here. Imagine tt. No need to worry abt join future, no need to worry abt meeting angry customers (coz if u dun tip, u never know wat will happen to your car).
Back to the cabbies... So its a good first experience taking a cab alone in Jkt, But never let your guard down. Coz there are always some bad ones around.
I've met like sleepy drivers (who drove at 40km/h on the highway even though he understood tt we r in a rush), I've met a talkative driver (who was trying his best to impress us with his English, Mandarin, Teochew, Cantonese, German, Jap...). I've met nasty drivers that overcharged me coz it was peak period and was driving extremely recklessly), I've met nice drivers who tries to teach me thai.
Back in SG. The driver i got today was a friendly 1. He was trying to tell me all abt the elections that is going on. There were rude cabbies (Mercs cabbies sux), extremenly talkative 1s, funny 1s, those who were once rich but went backrupt 1s, commandos (who always never fail to share their stories when i am going back to camp).
Cabbies... they represent the people from that country. Love them, hate them.. depends on your luck. But I think if one was to look at them, you will have instinct to know if they good or bad.