Other hopeful entrepreneurs persistently ply ridiculously useless bits of plastic junk. The bravest seller stalked up and down the carriage blowing a whistle that accurately recreated the sound of a screaming 1 year old. Whilst it is amazing to think that there is a market for these, it was even more amazing that none of the passengers linched him and had him disembowelled on the station platform. Railways are always good begging locations and the punters here ranged from the annoying kids who jumped up at the windows endlessly demanding sweets and biscuits, to heartrending lines of the maimed and deformed who eke out a living shuffling or skidding on their backsides along the carriage. One can never, and would never want to, get used to their plight.
Women know how to delegate such matters so that the guilty can clearly be identified later.
With reclining seats, Kung Fu movies on the video and cold drinks, you even get little scented towels in case the mearest bead of perspiration errupts on your brow. Mike carefully explained that the decision was not the result of inate meaness but rather a wish not to be closetted from the real experience of Indonesia like some hapless package tourist. He kindly enquired whether Sarah was ready for a frilly fried egg yet and considered whether to invest in a plastic fan that cunningly doubled as a perforated sunhat. We arrived in Jakarta at 5.30pm and shelled out for an air conditioned hotel room. Jakarta is not a gleaming capital.