Crossing the flood...

Jakarta has been flooded for few days, started in Friday 02-02-07 till now as the time of I am writing this... anyway this is my story of crossing the flood. But before I said anything, it is important to say that I am fully aware of my Landy limitation, it is a matter of a decision on why I have to do it.

Day one... Friday 02-o2-07

14 hour of continuous heavy rain since yesterday evening not yet about to stop, the weather look even gloomier than yesterday, ominous cloud is hanging above Jakarta, traffic jammed everywhere, and the rivers can no longer hold water inside.. the water start to flood the road... me in the office high up at 17th fl, start to take few pictures from above and down to the flooded main road (Casablanca and Sudirman in front of Atmajaya) here is the picts:



Day two Saturday 03-02-07

Last night, traffic is very bad because of flooded area in front of Atmajaya. as you see in the picture above. one of my colleague actually has to spend about 5 hours just to go to Kebun Jeruk from Sudirman. I got a call from my friend that he has to move from his house and stay in his friend, since I also want to take pictures in the flooded area, I ask him to join me " photo hunting", this time Bum-bum (my short Landy) will be the vehicle..., but taking no chance, I make sure that Sotong, is also healthy, just in case we need it to pull bum-bum. I park sotong in my friend's garage which open in that day, I make sure that there are mechanics available if I need them, because we plan to cross the flood deeper than my knee to get the pictures.

Bringing few tools needed for fixing things just in case, camera, clothes etc, all set and we heading to greenvillage... first cross is Atmajaya.....



After successfully crossing few more flooded area (the deepest is up to around 1 meter) and bumbum successfully managed to crossed without any hiccup and we take a lot of pictures, my friend start to wonder... how high can Bumbum go... in crossing the flood. I said, it is up to its tire, if you can not see the tire, than you really have to worry. it means we go beyond what it is intended.

Now my friend start talking weird questions, can it go until it dead without making any harmful effect to the engine? (he may be referring to the hammer effect when the engine full of water)... I said yes it is possible, this land rover naturally have "fuse", it goes dead before water get inside the engine unless the ignition has been modified to be electronic one. But generally, after that crossing, we need to change all oils in the engine, gearbox, axle, etc. in fact I have to change the oil in the axle after this photo hunting.

I do not know what in his mind but he challenge me to cross the flood until it dead, and will bear some of the cost, for my part it is very interesting since I also want to know at which point bumbum is actually giving up since I have to change the oil anyway. To make sure that the "fuse" is OK, I check that the distributor is not water proof.

Two of his (girl) friends is joining even though they know that big probability the engine is dead in the middle of the flood. So the quest now is "evacuate one of the friend who live deeper in the greenvillage". Which of course this heroic (or stupid is more appropriate) action is not successful, bumbum choked and dead in the middle of the journey after the water reach the distributor as expected.

First entry....

At half tire


Going deeper and deeper...


and this is the point where Bumbum choked dead... (can you see the oil indicator light? it means the engine stops) I can't blame him...


As this is already expected and we prepare for the remedy, we don't panic, in fact we all have a good laugh.... how we get out from this situation...? I will write more tommorow

Cheers