Moving Market

After spending a week in Yogyakarta, Java's cultural soul, I was surprisingly looking forward to the crazy zoo that is the subcontinent. Indonesia was shockingly mad, Yogya however, is laid back as far as city go. I spent my days riding around on AC public buses, making day trips to the sights in and around the city, and watching movies at a nearby restaurant. But after the shadow puppets and overpriced Borobudur Temple, I was on a 6 hour train to Jakarta. Once inside business class, I was glad to get my own comfortable enough seat. This class, however, was not equip to pamper businessmen with lap top computers, as the name suggests, but to provide them with a venue for making money. As we passed distant hills, flooded rice paddies and dry cornfields on the outside, vendors of all types of products cornered the passangers on the inside. Drunk from the midday heat, I purchased my lunch from the head of a fullfigured woman selling rice and chicken wrapped in banana leaf out of a wicker basket. After lunch, you could also purchase all kinds of snacks, sweets, fruits, popsicles, hot and cold beverages. Once stuffed, I had the option of purchasing widgets for entertainment: books (comic and religious), newspapers, wooden trains, natural healing oils, fake Dolce and Gabbana bags, shoes, cigarates...For those unable to amuse themselves, a variety of wierdos could do it for you by banging on anything wooden or metal that would make a noise, including the ever popular street instrument of a stick with flattened bottle caps nailed to one of the ends. Making noise is the key phrase here for anyone attempting to sing would skreech like a dying animal, coaxing you to pay money in order to shut them up. Badly made-up transvestites, children, and beggars would stand next to your seat, motionless, until you took out some rupiahs. People selling various items would throw their products on your lap and disappear before you could protest hoping that a few minutes of fondling would induce you to buy it. The train had become not only a moving supermarket but also a moving clinic as some guy attempted to measure my blood pressure. Those baking in their own sweat, for the open window and the ceiling fan provided no relief, could purchase paper fans or freshening towels stolen from Garuda airlines. As we neared Jakarta, the largest city in Indonesia, the poor, maimed and destitute started to make an appearance. Gangs of dirty children would sweep the floor on hands and knees with newspapers and men would spray air freshener, afterward demanding money. There were more helpless than the money in my wallet and it was impossible to ignore thier cries. Unable to sleep from the racket of talentless musians and the vendors' monotone shouting "Nasi!Nasi! Nasi Ayam!," "Minum!" I mainly stared, either at the circus inside the train or out the window, at the men in tow of heavy buffoloes skidding through muddy patches, at cows, goats, people washing, standing, working, children playing. India will be similar, with its sticky stiffling heat, with its dirty public toilets (i.e. the streets) desipating the smell of shit and urine everywhere, a moving blur of noise, smells and sounds confusing the senses.