JAKARTA: Nothing better illustrates the Indonesian penchant for extending official holidays than the long and extensive media coverage of arus balik – people returning to the capital city after the Hari Raya holiday.
For more than a week now, newspaper readers and TV viewers in Jakarta have been presented with coverage of throngs of people jostling at bus and railway stations in the city and crowding roads in packed vehicles, braving bad weather and all sorts of inconvenience, simply to get away from the city.
