Street Scenes

pineapple woman

It's a rare day that I'm not out and about in Bandung. You may have figured out by now that I don't enjoy hanging out at the apartment with nothing to do. Sometimes I'm doing simple errands and other times I plan some type of outing.

I suppose it's the mild weather coupled with Bandung's huge population, but there are always lots of interesting people on the streets. Usually I take my camera and if I come home with no photos, it's only because the car was moving too fast to get any decent shots. On the days I forget my camera or leave it behind, I always regret it. One could never exhaust the photo opportunities in this city. So here are a few more "people pictures," all taken within the last week or so from the back seat of the car.

all in a day's work

Becak drivers have got to be among the most bored with their job. You will often see them clustered together, reading the paper or napping. Think about it - how much of their actual day is actually spent driving someone somewhere? My guess is very little. There are thousands of them and they locate themselves wherever they are likely to find crowds of people.

Many people make their living by cooking or selling food items. Below is a young woman who obviously cooks and sells food. We drove past and caught her in a lull. She prepares and displays her food in the cart (left) and her "restaurant" is the space where she is sitting. 

business is slow

I took the photo of the man with the turtle yesterday. We were driving down the street when Ronnie spotted it on a driveway. He wanted Ferry and I to see it, but by the time we made it back around the block, this guy had started sanding on its shell. We were debating whether or not it was real when the guy looked up and saw me taking pictures. He brought it over for us to see and I rolled the window down to get this shot but the darn thing smelled so bad I had to quickly roll the window back up. Even then it took awhile for the odor to dissipate inside the car! He even turned it over for us to see the underside and it was missing one leg (obviously not a taxidermy) -  just a dead turtle doing what dead turtles do!

showing off dead turtle

burning trash - a daily annoyance

This is very typical Bandung. People burn trash fires at all hours of the day. This is also very typical "sidewalk."










The woman below appears to be patiently waiting for someone. There are many, many alleyways (this is an unusually wide one) that lead off of heavily traveled streets down into kampungs - clusters of many living quarters (really can't call them houses) all joined together. Many Indonesian people live in kampungs. One day last week, Ferry and I took Ibu Aisah home and she allowed me to help her carry some things inside. I followed her down a narrow alleyway, followed by several turns. She actually seemed proud for me to see where she lived. I hate to say it but it was every bit as bad as I would have imagined. It was extremely cramped, fairly dark and I suspect very typical of a kampung dwelling.

lady in waiting

little boy playing at entrance into kampung

roadside tailor

Muslim girls at fruit stand

Coconuts are plentiful in Southeast Asia. It takes ten months for a coconut to become ripe enough to pick. Indonesians use every part of the coconut. Even its fibrous bark can be used in making mats, ropes, scrubbers for pots and pans, etc. The first time I bought one, we mistakenly thought it was ruined (the white part was slimy and thin vs crunchy and hard). We later learned that this means they are young and fresh. I personally have grown to appreciate their taste and somewhat slimy texture in fruity drinks and desserts.

young coconuts for sale

At right is one of hundreds of young men who play their guitars or ukeleles on the street. Of course they are competing with aggressive vendors working the traffic and hawking their wares and beggars lifting their hand or cup to the car windows. I would hope that these boys don't have to live on what they receive in tips, but I suspect they do.