An old man crouched down to wash buckets in the alley

An older man was squatting in a corner of the alley. There were several buckets and basins in front of him, and he was just washing up. The man was wearing a T-shirt and sandals, and there were many motorcycles parked at the end of the alleyway. There was no fashionable atmosphere here. For all intents and purposes, the atmosphere was that of an average residential area in Jakarta.

But this place was not so far from Grand Indonesia, which dominates the center of Jakarta. It was not far from Jakarta's most expensive shopping mall. It would take about 10 minutes to walk there. Even so, I didn't feel the same sense of luxury that I had felt in Grand Indonesia.

I guess the boutique-oriented town near Grand Indonesia is exceptional in Jakarta. If one were to ask which is the real Jakarta, this area or the area around the shopping mall, I would have to say that this world with men in T-shirts and sandals is more real. Indonesia may be developing, but its GDP per capita is still less than $4,000. And more than anything else, it's more fun to walk the streets like this one. Well, that's just my personal opinion.

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