bike to work

Had my first bike riding to the office last Monday.

It was 10.15 am when I left house..

I'm a girl in my mid-20ish..

Girls bike riding to the office is still not a common thing in Jakarta (Not that I know). One of the reasons is because of the crazy wild traffic.

I think I rarely saw girls bike riding, saw some but I can count it with my fingers..

And this is what I encountered along the way for 25 mins riding, some reasons why girls got less freedom on the streets:

1. At least 5 people (all man, didn't notice the age, all sitting down) are calling me out loud when I passed them out. Some were saying something cheeky. Some just like surprised.
2. Every time I passed by motor-psychos (Motorcycle riders -that's my endearing nickname for them), there were about 8 riders starred with an amazed expression or cheeky pervert expression.
3. There was 1 bread-deliverer guy who stopped, to give me the way. I looked at him, nodded and smiled. He did the same without any cheeky expression. That one was good.
4. When I stopped in a traffic light. A motor-psycho was talking to me. We had a brief 2 mins chat. It wasn't so bad. It was a good friendly strangers chat. Been missing that since Melbourne :)
5. When I almost got to the office, about 500m to the office's gate, an old maybe 70ish parking guy, was yelling at me and then whistled at me. Shite, he thinks I'm a bird. I ignored him. He probably a pervert when he was young.

There..

25 mins bike riding, that's what I got.

You might get harassed a lot as a girl, but by far, I used to fire back when a guy harassing me when I know I'm safe to do that :P

I still wanna do it again sometimes :)

Route: Tanah Kusir - Blok M (South Jakarta)