Did We Enter the Indy 500?

Yesterday we took a rental car service from Bandung to Jakarta.  My son arranged for a driver to pick us up at 4 p.m. at the International Language School.  That time came and went as we waited under the eaves of the school while a passing shower dumped rain on us.  We waited longer, the baby started to get cranky, and through it all, the very accommodating gate guard at the school agreed to stay late to wait with us until the car arrived.

Finally Jason and Laura made a series of calls to the company and then eventually reached the driver who told us he'd be there in 10 minutes.  Jason explained to me that "10 minutes" actually meant at least 30 minutes in Indonesian time.  He was correct but the fellow finally arrived in a nice new van and we loaded everything into it and off we went.

By this time it was rush hour in Bandung.  This meant that we crawled at a snail's pace until we finally got outside the town and onto the new super highway that has been built between Bandung and Jakarta.  It was at that point that our driver kicked in the after burners.

Oh, my goodness!  We literally were thrown  against the back of the seats by the G-force of the acceleration.  From that point on he drove like a bat out of hell.  IF we hadn't gotten into rush hour traffic in Bandung, we should probably have arrived at our apartment in Jakarta around 8:30 p.m.  Well, we arrived at the apartment at 7:30 p.m. DESPITE sitting almost an hour in rush hour traffic in Bandung.  That gives you some idea of how fast that guy was traveling.

I expected that at any moment we would pull off to have a pit crew change our tires but that didn't happen.  At the very least, I figured we should have all been given Dale Earnhardt jackets as souvenirs upon our arrival in Jakarta.  Nope!  Poor Laura was afraid to nap for fear that Mika would fly out the window if she lost her grip on the baby.  Jason was afraid to look back at me for fear I'd whack him on the side of the head for putting our lives in danger from this automotive psycho.  I made the mistake of opening up a Coca-Cola bottle.  The weaving back and forth between lanes and sudden braking from tailgating had so shaken up the bottle that when I opened it up, it erupted all over my lap.  I hope the driver didn't speak English because I forgot myself and said, "Oh, sh_t!   Speaking of which, I didn't have to worry about having a problem with diarrhea on the ride.  The driving had scared me shitless, to put it bluntly.

I wish I had some pictures to share but the ones I tried to take were all a blur.  Gee, I CAN'T imagine why!  I DID manage to get a quick picture of the beautiful sunset at one point when we slowed to a crawl in a construction zone. 

When we piled out of the car in front of the apartment building in Jakarta and lugged our suitcases into the elevator, we looked at each other in a state of shell shock.  Almost in unison, we all said a variation of "Never again!  We are NOT going to take a car ever again between Bandung and Jakarta!"  Can I get an "Amen?"