River Boat

As we know there are still so many canals and rivers across the town. This public transportation still can be found in several locations to people across the rivers. This transportation often becomes the only way to reach their certain destination.

Becak

This kind of transportation was banned within Jakarta city due to causes traffic jams. My self didn't agree with this statement since there are so many factors why Jakarta has serious traffic jams problem.

Anyway, this traditional transportation is widely missed by people who live in housing complexes with small roads which are not serviced by another modern transportation.

If you come to Jakarta, make sure you tray to enjoy riding becak. It still can be found at several places, especially at complexes house area.

Delman (Horse-Drawn Carriages)

Jogjakarta, the special district in Central Java - Indonesia is the most popular city that still uses this traditional transportation. Usually, foreign tourist never missed to try this special transportation.

In Jakarta, this transportation is often rented by a Betawi family to transport kids around the neighborhood to celebrate a circumcision ceremony. When rented for parties such as this, they are often decorated with traditional Betawi ornamentation which lends a very festive air.

Ojek Sepeda (Bicycle Taxi)

It rarely found but still exist. The operation is much like motorcycle taxi but for short distance only. You can imagine if they carry the passenger for the long distance, aren't you?

Kampung chickens are chickens reared in people's backyards and in and out of their homes. They live as they jolly well please from the time they emerge from eggs, to when they are slaughtered for food. They are one reason why there is no starvation in Java where about twenty percent live on about one dollar a day. In Java, it would seem that there's a chicken in every pot. It is an accepted practice that if you are chicken-less and hungry, you walk along till you encounter a chicken poking around, entice it, and make off into the shrubbery before its squawking protests brings the owner out. Owners deprived of a chicken, or two in this manner are at worst momentarily irritated and after a cursory look this way and that, go back in to finish their chicken soup.

As food, kampong chickens are considered very nutritious because they fend for themselves, feed prolifically on whatever is lying around, and are considered organic. In modern supermarkets, these scrawny, barely fleshed birds fetch higher prices than plumb range fed chickens. Plucked and asleep in supermarket freezers they seem just as pugnacious and defiant, as they were when alive.

Unlovable, But Who Cares?

Kampung Chickens have never been endowed with “good looks.” Even day-old chicks it are difficult to fuss and coo over. They grow rapidly to teenage. At this time they are equipped with scaly, lanky legs, a bomb of a body, a long neck on which is loosely affixed an atrociously ugly head. Their mothers abandon them pretty quickly. By early middle age they are scarred, defeathered in parts and sport a limp. Thankfully they are dispatched by late middle age. This is the time when they are judged to have absorbed enough nutrition to be “good for you.”

Who Owns Who?

Kampung chickens are never actually reared. They are nearly always inherited from one's father, grandfather and so on. The current generations of chickens are likely to be descendants of a long line of illustrious chickens. Like a Patek Philippe they are never owned but held in trust for the next generation.

Sometimes it is unclear who owns who? The chickens officially have the rights to forage in the backyard and the neighborhood. However they are tolerantly allowed to use the house, very much as it were their own. They strut around with their chicks freely. Eggs are laid on the family sofa. Hatching is often done in the clothes cupboard. They have a strong preference to roost in the back of the television cabinet. Consequently it is not unusual to hear the five-o-clock crowing with the early news.

Land of Plenty of Chickens

Java is all volcanic and extremely fertile. Everything grows in this island.Kampung chickens therefore have an extensive menu. They eat without a break, except when roosting or during sex. When bored with what Nature has laid out for them they peck at and gobble up what man has discarded. Newspapers, plastics, buttons, shoe laces, cigarette butts and nails are fought over and polished off with great relish. Yet these birds never seem to fatten up. They are immune from all blights and diseases. They remain scrawny but tough. The female of the species is stronger than the male. The cock is all show with little substance. The female is a smart bundle foraging and pecking around, it seems, with set business-like objectives. The humans amongst kampong chickens seem to have somehow acquired their characteristics.

When The Time Comes

When the time comes for them to be dispatched for the pot, all the children in the neighbored are recruited along with the canniest adults to catch the doomed

chicken or chickens. The chase with much shrieks and squawks could last for an hour or so and cover several square kilometers. But once caught the birds stop squawking and stoically accept their fate-“If a chicken has got to go, it's got to go.”

Millions of chickens go every day to be part of nourishing meals all over Java. Kampong chicken transportation is big business employing thousands and involving hundreds of vehicles. Not unusual considering the millions of chickens dispatched daily. Trains, buses, trucks, taxis, rickshaws, bicycles and bunches of these poor birds hitched up like saddle-bags on motorcycles are the preferred means of transportation. In emergencies it has been known for chickens to fly concealed on board commercial airlines. Their silent acceptance of their fate is particularly helpful during surreptitiously devised conveyances.

Chicken Cuisine

At their destinations Kampung chickens are reserved for the healthier recipes at establishments known for their nutritious cuisine. They are never part of Hainan Chicken Rice and are shunned by Kentucky Fried. They are destined for much nobler purposes; the nucleus of a cuisine of a healthy and virile Java.

There is an extensive range of healthy kampung chicken recipes. Fortunately you can sample them without much searching and presumably get to be really healthy in no time.

Everywhere in Java, in every street you will find rows of carts, tarpaulin covered cafes,

warungs,rumah makans and regular restaurants. The main courses are the respective unique” house” recipes of kampung chicken soups, bowls of noodles, porridge and soto(noodles, bits of chicken in a light curry).

Hungry and weary tourists should lookout for these signs on food carts or food stalls,” SOP AYAM” (Chicken Soup). They are prolific and exist on every street. Or you may hail a motorcycle “SOP AYAM” or “BUBUR AYAM” (Chicken rice porridge) mobile kitchen hitched up on the back seat. There is much choice in establishments and well as “brands” and you may want to take your time to select what seems to appeal most. A generous bowl will cost you no more than 50cents with side dishes and a clutch of sauces. Hot tea is extra. A tip of ten percent will be received gratefully.

You will emerge strengthened and refreshed and mentally alleviated. There is no good taking a recipe home to mother, even if you can coax it out of the chef, unless you can take the main ingredient along and that of course is impossible. Kampong chickens travel poorly.

Chicken Economy

Thanks to kumpung chickens it is estimated that nearly 30 million people are full-time or part-time employed in the chicken soup or chicken porridge industry. These include the cook, his or her assistant, the cleaning-up guy, shared bucket carrier, waste disposal guy, the slaughterers, the pluckers, the marketers, the middle-men (there must always be middle men in Java) and the premen(the brawny protectors of roadside businesses). Allied beneficiaries are the spice, condiments, chilies, secret herbs, crackers, soy sauce, tofu, spring onions, cloves, and garlic and onion traders.

Chicken feet procurers buy in batches of five kilogram bundles which they sell at a good profit to Dim Sum restaurants in the cities. The Kumpung chicken industry and its various spin-offs was one of domestic engines which generated wheels of redeeming economic activity during the Asian Crisis of 1998 and kept the country's head above rough waters.

Tourists anxious to meet and make the acquaintance of kampong chicken will have no difficult in encountering them. They are everywhere. It mustn't be forgotten that Java is probably the most densely chicken populated island on earth. Simply look around and you will meet at one of them with minutes of your arrival in Java.

We stayed at the Aston Bali Hotel in Benoa, It has marble tiles and walls throughout the public areas and all rooms look over the ocean or the gardens. What luxury, buffet breakfast every morning from 6.30 to 10.30. I would often be there at 6am and the coffee was ready. I would sit a while writing before I got stuck in. There was always fresh fruit, two kinds of juice, my favourite was banana. (Who would have thought that bananas would make a drink? ) plus the usual western selection of cereals. I thought it funny to see a bowl of coco pops along with cornflakes and other western breakfast cereals. Every day we had the choice of bacon, boiled eggs, omelets, hash browns, several rice dishes, noodles, vegetables,. toasts etc. etc. We always sat outside and enjoyed the warmth of the morning, knowing it would get a lot hotter.

All our other meals were eaten in local restaurants, where I discovered many things I liked. Satay, small pieces of meat on a skewer brought to the table on a ceramic dish with the hot charcoal in the bottom and with peanut sauce, gadi gadi, local veg. with rice and sauce, egg rolls, 3 for 4,000 rupia, (7,000 in a dollar Canadian) Prices varied from restaurant to restaurant. I tried lots of fruit that I had never heard of before. I would buy it in local markets. Durient comes to mind. As the strangest one. It is shaped like an egg, about 10' long and 6 - 8 ' across when you cut it open. Way bigger than any fruit that shows up in our fruit bowl. I will send a photo by email. You spoon it out and it has a light taste, not sweet at all and the consistency of brie cheese.

The Balinese people are very open and friendly. Big smiles and waves any time of day. Many of them get around on scooters and small motor bikes. It is quite hair raising to see a dad driving, one of his children in front of him, hands on the handle bars, mum behind with a young one between her and dad There is a lot of traffic but I did not see an accident and we went many miles on tours and with a local man. The roads are narrow and it was amazing to see large coaches overtaking bikes, pedestrians and scooters as if it was one way traffic. Very skilled drivers.

Many people speak English and that was a great help, as neither of us speak Balinese or Indonesian. We were the first customers of a waiter and ended up going out with him and his friend for the day. His name is Kadek and we went to his village, nearly a 3 hour drive and met his parents and small son. The family lived in a traditional house, they had power but no running water. His mother works in the rice fields, but his dad has not worked for a while due to a knee injury. They do not have medical, or insurance as we do. He was married by accident, a phrase used all the time, meaning shotgun wedding and his wife left him, so his parents bring up the child. He left his village to get a job to contribute to the family income. He visits at least once a month and is very grateful to his parents. They speak no English, but made us feel welcome..

We went up into the mountains and saw monkeys that are so tame they come down from the trees when vehicles pull in. Fruit grows al through the forest, bananas, jack fruits, durien, snakes skin and others. Farmers grow rice and coffee on a grand scale, also spices, vanilla and cloves, to name the ones I remember. We visited temples, farms, stone and wood carvers, a waterfall, dances, the beach, parks and markets. Not all in the same day. Kadek wants to be a guide and it was his first time with tourists. We do have his email address and will keep in touch.

The monsoon season starts in November, but we only saw rain on our last two days. It runs down the streets and families wash in the streams and drainage channels. It is an ancient system of irrigation used by all the villagers. In the towns the rubbish gets swept out of the ditches and the streets cleaned.

There is no Christmas in Bali as 95% of the population is Hindu.