A View Decidedly Not From a Bird's Eye

Here is a decidedly not bird's eye view of the street level of Jakarta, a block away from the temporary apartment where Tim and I lived in for the first month.  

You can see from the rumbling buses and toxic mist in the air why we're happier now that we're no longer living near this particular corner.

This corner is right near both a massive road construction site and a bus terminal out of which tens of these stinky buses roll each time the light changes.

 

The green and white buses are the Kopaja buses and seem to be the worst offenders in the pollution department.  I like to keep an eye out for them both for my safety and because they tend to have really random words written in ornate script on their back windows.  I shall start a running list of said words tomorrow and report back soon.

 The red and blue buses are the Metro Minis, a second cousin of the Kopajas, chugging along, never coming to a full stop...

And finally the bajaj, the ever-present three-wheeler that I've described to you before.  Tim took one of these home from work tonight in a pinch and remarked that they seemed to know the neighborhood better than some of the cab drivers.  That's probably because they are regionally limited in where they can drive- it's painted on the side of each one the neighborhood in which they are licensed to drive.