the last two mornings and nights of september saw jakarta an unusually jammed city. cars and motorbikes lined up along the roads where gas stations were, making the queues for fueling the engines. one local newspaper headlined a warning: watchout for the G-30S-BBM, alluding the government's plan to hike fuel prices to a mystery still shrouding the country's history with the 30th september 1965 a coup d'tat.
the eve of this new month of october sent omens for the rest of the year. with the holy month of ramadhan coming very soon, the government on late 30th September finally announced the outrageous news most people had feared to hear: the second fuel price hikeof the year since last march. like many people, i had anticipated the bad news, but still couldn't escape from the shattering news. the hike turned out to be at an average of 126.6%! the figure had come from nowhere transparent. government officials including the vice president himself had explicitly said it would be just around 50%-60%.
as if the blow were't fatal enough. on the way to the airport i heard from a local radio evening news that two bombs went off at kafe nyoman and kafe menega in jimbaran, and another one at kuta square, bali, killing more than twenty locals and tourists and injuring even many more...
