Friendly Indonesians
The taxi driver spoke, and spoke, and spoke… I kept thinking “What scam is he trying to pull?”
On the road I’m always quick to assume the worst. If a local is talking to me, he probably wants my cash – not the most humanistic stance, but it has kept us scam free since we left England a couple of years ago.
The driver was telling us about areas of Indonesia we should visit. I was waiting for the moment when he says “Oh, and by the way, I know someone who can take you to these places for a cheap price.” That moment didn’t come. He seemed simply to want to chat about his country. I think he was pleased that he could speak with a foreigner in his native language. Although, he laughed when I told him I only understood about 50% of what he said.
On the other end of the spectrum, we’ve met people who were clearly out to scam us. One guy, a master of all trades it seemed, would not only be our guide around Yogyakarta, he would also get us a luxury apartment for $60 a month, show us a ‘special’ entrance into the palace, and let us go to a secret batik shop where we could buy ‘genuine’ batik for only $200. What a wonderful guy!!
It’s easy to get annoyed at people like him. They’ll take every penny from your wallet and not think twice about it. On the other hand, when you see the level of poverty that exists in Indonesia it isn’t difficult to understand where he’s coming from.
One thing that stands out most about Indonesians who are genuinely interested in you, and not your cash, is that they often wait for you to smile first until they beam back at you. Everywhere we go people seem to be scrutinising us. But as soon as we smile at them they produce these huge grins. I suppose, like us, they are trying to figure out how friendly we are.
A very cool local
A school teacher stopped us in the street and asked if we could chat English to his students while he recorded it. The kids looked extremely cautious. As soon as I smiled at them and asked how they were, they produced these fantastic smiles and shouted “I’m fine”.
They became shy again when I was about to take their picture
(p.s. how cute is the little girl in the front row on the right?)
Haggling, unlike in other Asian countries, is enjoyable here. In Thailand, although you’re expected to barter, the taxi drivers and sales staff often act like you’ve slapped them in the face when you offer a lower price. The locals here smile merrily as we go through the formalities of the haggle. Bartering with a taxi driver today, he said “Well if the price isn’t good we could use the meter.” I replied “You could also drive us around for 30 minutes and charge us a fortune”. He laughed, nodded and continued to smile. Eventually we came to an understanding. Again, I think using Indonesian in these situations is proving priceless.
We finally signed up for an apartment this morning. On our way back to the hostel we took a public bus. It turned out we’d taken the wrong bus and ended up at some rundown bus terminal. Despite clearly being semi-lost/vulnerable tourists, the locals were quick to help. They told us which bus to get, where to get it from, and what time it was due.
With how friendly the locals have been to us, I can see us finding a lot of Indonesian conversation partners and hopefully making a lot of good friends here.
