Our friend Alex lived two miles from us in Jakarta in the 1970s. He worked in the same office as my father, so it was decided that my father and Alex would travel to work together in the mornings.

Alex would come to our house by bechak, which was a small, bicycle powered conveyance. The rider would sit on his bicycle pedaling away, and his passenger or passengers sat in a covered compartment in front of him, facing forward. Such vehicles sat two passengers, on PVC covered seats and with their feet resting upon a small wooden platform in front.

The hood of the compartment was canopied rather like an oversized pram, to keep off sun and rain, and the entire contraption was hair raising in the extreme, as the rider would power the thing into the thick of the rush hour traffic oblivious to all traffic regulations, ringing his bell and usually yelling his head off.

Alex was late one morning and we all began to worry about our unfailingly punctual friend. He had not been well recently and we knew he had been to the doctor only a few days previously with yet another of Jakartas ultra aggressive stomach disorders. Alex had an appointment this morning to take his latest stool sample for testing, so he had arranged to arrive ten minutes earlier than his usual seven thirty. It was now seven forty and no Alex.

Finally at ten minutes to eight, he arrived, and immediately collapsed onto the cane chair on the patio near the front door, shaking and trembling. After a few seconds we realized he was shaking with laughter.

Alex had hailed a bechak and begun his usual hell ride through the traffic, his briefcase and his stool sample in a jar wrapped in brown paper on the wooden platform between his feet. A pickpocket stole his stool sample and ran off through the traffic, waving his spoils and jeering at Alex who was also waving his arms around, in horror, and Alex had been unable to stop laughing since.

Jan Gamm writes reflections on life with an emphasis on world travel. She has lived in many countries and traveled extensively in the Far East, the Middle East, America, South America and throughout the South Pacific. She writes for fun and for money whenever she can manage it.