Our Last Car Free Day in Jakarta

Since we're moving soon, we wanted to squeeze in one more Car Free Day bike ride here in Jakarta.  Car Free Day has been one of our favorite things to do.  You can't go wrong a little exercise and a lot of amazing people watching.  I just love looking at all of the people on their bikes, the various lima kaki (which means five legs: the nickname for street carts, three legs on the cart, two on the guy pushing it), etc.:

But I also love that Car Free Day never fails to produce someone doing something kooky or interesting, whether for my entertainment or their own. This week was no exception, as we stumbled upon a group of civet cat enthusiasts parading their animals around near Bundaran HI amidst the chaos of hundreds of bikers/rollerbladers/pedestrians as well as an ondel-ondel performance. 

Remember civets?  The raccoon-like creatures that literally shit out the world's most expensive coffee?  Yeah.  (Also, please take note of the guy's civet cat t-shirt.):

And remember ondel-ondel, the big sparkly-haired street-performing puppet guys?  Yup.

I'll miss you, Car Free Day!

Car Free Day: Ondel-Ondel Beauty Contest?

This week's Car Free Day happenings: a couple hundred ondel-ondel puppets lined up along Jalan Thamrin... why?  We're not exactly sure, but they were all numbered and looked like maybe they had been part of a contest of some sort. 

This month is Jakarta's 486th birthday (Dirgahayu Jakarta!), so there have been lots of celebrations across the city over the past few weeks, many of which centered on Betawi culture, from which the ondel-ondel originate. 

Remember the video I took of the ondel-ondel dance performance last year? Incedentally, it's the most popular video on my YouTube channel by a crazy amount for some reason... as of this writing it had over 32,000 views, whereas my next most popular video only had 186 views.  Eh?

Here's me and Tim posing in front of the un-manned ondel-ondel:

I like how each one has a slightly different face:

Finally, after all those ondel-ondel, we stopped at Bundaran HI to listen to this cool sounding band... I don't know what that bamboo instrument is, but I like it:

Jakarta Car Free Day: Ondel-Ondel and Bike Tricks

Tim and I headed out this past Sunday, yet again, for Jakarta's Car Free Day.  We were pleasantly surprised to stumble upon several fun sights while biking around, including the Jakarta marathon.  We were pretty incredulous that people could run a marathon while breathing Jakarta's thick and polluted dry season air, but they were doing it!

We also biked past this pretty fun sight: super tall, traditional Betawi ondel-ondel puppet performer guys:

Tim and I think the dance was staged for a tv commercial and thus not totally spontaneous, but it was pretty cool anyway.  Tim says he sees ondel-ondel like these wandering around near his office a lot, busking, so the traditional dance is still alive and well, even when the tv cameras are not rolling.

Apparently ondel-ondel are traditionally 2.5 meters tall and made from woven bamboo with a wooden face.  The red-faced puppet is the male version and the white is the female.  Here's a link to a cool photo of ondel-ondel from 1923. 

Their dance is traditionally performed to ward off evil spirits (or these days just to liven up a party or ceremony). 

I'm not 100% sure what type of dance the ladies are doing... perhaps topeng?  Maybe jaipongan?  Check out my video below and maybe you can help me figure it out.

After watching the dance show, we biked around a bit more and then stopped by this cool bike jump contest thing (I'm sure there's an official name for it, but we'll just call it "Guys in grey t-shirts and jeans doing bike tricks.") 

A pretty fun Car Free Day!