Grassman on Gatot Subroto

Passing, at last

You never know who you'll see on the freeway here. The other night we wanted to go to a movie, but since the new 007 flick is hogging 3 out of every 4 screens near us, we had to take the nearby megahighway to a place south of Blok M to catch "The Prestige". The highway, Gatot Subroto, was even more jammed than usual, and eventually we found out why: this man pulling a cart loaded with bundles of long grass was blocking a whole lane.

Some people honked, but most just drove around. I think there's a lot of tolerance for things like this because everybody knows he's poor and he's just trying to make a living. But you have to wince, because he's obviously putting himself in danger.

Indonesia is a drive-on-the-left country, so he was in the slow lane, at least.

Through the taxi's back window. Note fake palm trees.

We really liked "The Prestige", by the way.